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Sending and Receiving Messages

Once a partner, a transport and maps are in place, messages flow both ways: inbound orders and invoices are read and applied to documents, and outbound acknowledgements, ship notices, invoices and purchase orders are generated from documents, often automatically as those documents move. The EDI console shows every message, what happened to it, and the acknowledgements owed in each direction.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • EDI — the Messages, Simulate inbound, Generate & send and Acknowledgements tabs

Architect Panel → ERP - Trading & Analytics:

  • EDI — the same console; the badge counts messages in error or rejected
  • EDI Messages — every message as a datastore, for looking up

The Messages tab

Quick views: Everything, Inbox - to apply, Outbox - to send and Needs attention. Inbound messages go Received, Read, Mapped, Applied; outbound ones Queued to send, Sent, Acknowledged or Rejected by partner; any can be Error or Cancelled. Open a message to see its segments and act on it:

  • Preview mapping and Apply to document: show what the maps make of it, then create the document with its totals and currency.
  • Acknowledge or Reject: answer the message's whole group.
  • Send now, Resend (the same interchange again) and Cancel for outbound messages.
  • Reprocess: work out the partner again from the sender.
  • Dismiss: an inbound message that will never be applied is kept, with who dismissed it and why, and leaves Needs attention.
  • Simulate their acknowledgement: proves that an acknowledgement would close your message, during commissioning.

Receiving

  • Partners with an inbound URL post messages to it; the message is stored at once. With Apply on receipt on the partner, an inbound order or invoice becomes a document straight away.
  • Partners that drop files are collected by polling: Poll now on the Partners tab, or the EDI Inbound Poll task. A file from an unknown sender is left where it is; a file that is not an interchange is moved to a quarantine folder.
  • With acknowledgements on, one 997 or 999 per group (one CONTRL per EDIFACT interchange) is built and queued back. A transaction that is not valid is stored as an error and rejected in the acknowledgement, never acknowledged as received. A redelivered message is recorded once.

Simulate inbound lets you paste or load an 850, 810, ORDERS or INVOIC, or Insert a sample built from the partner's own identifiers, and receive it exactly as the endpoint would, optionally applying it (Then apply it as). Use it to test maps before the partner sends anything.

Sending

Automatically, for partners with outbound maps:

  • Confirming a sales order sends an 855 (ORDRSP for EDIFACT partners).
  • Shipping a delivery note sends an 856 (DESADV).
  • Posting a sales invoice sends an 810 (INVOIC).
  • Issuing a purchase order sends an 850 (ORDERS), only to suppliers with Send purchase orders automatically ticked.

The message is sent as soon as the document's change is saved, and only once per message type. A failed send never blocks the document's move (the message stays queued in the Outbox), but a map that cannot build the message does, with the reason.

By hand, on Generate & send: choose To partner, Message, From document type and the document (Find document), then tick Send straight away or Preview only. You can only send documents of the partner's own company, with write access to it.

Scheduled tasks

EDI Inbound Poll (every 15 minutes) collects files from folder and SFTP transports; EDI Outbound Send (every 5 minutes) sends what is queued. Both ship switched off; switch them on when you go live (see Tasks). Without the send task, anything left queued (a failed send, or a message generated without Send straight away) waits in the Outbox until someone presses Send now.

What goes wrong

  • Messages sit in the Outbox: the send failed (open the message for the error), the transport is switched off, or the send task is off.
  • An acknowledgement never comes: the Acknowledgements tab lists what you are owed past the partner's expected time. Chase the partner; never just resend.
  • Inbound messages sit in Needs attention: a map is missing or a required value is absent. Preview the mapping, fix the map, and apply again; or dismiss with a reason.

Worked example

A customer's 850 arrives through its inbound URL and, with Apply on receipt, becomes a draft sales order; a 997 is queued and sent by the EDI Outbound Send task. The sales administrator confirms the order and an 855 goes out. The warehouse ships the delivery and an 856 follows; Receivables posts the invoice and an 810 is sent. The customer's 997s arrive and each outbound message shows Acknowledged.

Recommendations

  • Simulate every inbound message type before go-live.
  • Switch both tasks on together when you go live.
  • Check Needs attention daily.
  • Dismiss with a reason rather than leaving dead messages in the inbox.