Establishing trading partners

A trading partner is an organization with whom your organization exchanges data using EDI. Before your organization can do business using EDI, you must have trading partners with EDI capability.

Supported trading partners

See the Supply Management EDI Trading Partner List for a list of supported trading partners.

Trading partner information

A critical part of the EDI planning process is gathering information from your prospective electronic trading partners. Before you can set up trading partners on your EDI system, you must have this key information:

Key information Description
Communication information The communication information that is required is dependent on the communications method.
Sign in credentials You must know your trading partner's sign in credentials to communicate using EDI.
Interchange IDs Before you can exchange transactions with a trading partner using EDI, you and your trading partner must have agreed-upon interchange IDs.
ISA Interchange IDs are unique identifiers that represent a company. You and your trading partner can each create an interchange ID. The IDs are mutually agreed upon. There are only two restrictions for creating interchange IDs:
  • Values in the ID must be alphanumeric
  • IDs cannot be more than 15 characters for ASC X12, or 35 for UN/EDIFACT.
Group IDs
  • Group IDs

    In addition to your interchange IDs, you and your trading partner require group IDs.

    Group IDs are used to identify specific parts of an organization. For example, if you work for the Midwest Division of A1 Office Supplies, you have an interchange and group ID. Your interchange ID indicates that you work for A1 Office Supplies. Your group ID indicates that you work for A1's Midwest Division.

    You and your trading partner can each create group IDs,The IDs are mutually agreed upon. There are only two restrictions for creating group IDs:

    • The IDs must be alphanumeric
    • IDs cannot be more than 15 characters for ASC X12

Data Separators

Data separators Description
Comp-element separators Comp-elements are the pieces that contained in elements, like letters in a word. Like elements, sub-elements must be strung together and separated to understand them.

You and your trading partner must select a sub-element separator. The Hex 7C (|) symbol is often used as a unique character to separate sub-elements.
Element separators Elements are the words in your EDI transactions. This is where the actual data of your transaction resides. Like words in a sentence, elements are strung together in a series. This series is called a segment.

Just as words in a sentence must be separated to be understood, elements in a segment must be separated to be read. Element separators are characters that separate elements.

You and your trading partner must agree on a character to use as an element separator in your EDI transactions. We recommend choosing a unique character that does not appear anywhere else in your EDI data. Using a unique character as an element separator ensures that the character distinguishes elements and is not confused with actual data. A common choice for an element separator is the Hex 5E (^) character.
Segment terminators A segment, which is made up of string of elements, is the equivalent of a sentence in your EDI document. But segments, like sentences, have an ending point. In EDI terms this ending point is called a segment terminator.

You and your trading partner must agree on a character to use as a segment terminator. This can be any unique character that is not used in the actual EDI data. A recommended value is the Hex 7E character, the tilde (~) symbol.