External EDI communication

There are three basic processes that are handled as part of the communication business object when you use a network for external communication:

• Generate ASCII files based on internal file structures.
• Activate EDI software.
• Process inbound EDI messages.

When a message (purchase orders or sales order acknowledgements) is created in the ERP application, ERP prepares ASCII files for the message based on predefined conversion setups.

Periodically, you must activate the external EDI software to generate EDI messages based on ASCII files (a prepared message), to contact the external network, and to reconvert EDI messages to ASCII files.

You can determine how frequently EDI must be activated with the EDI Interchange Controller (ecedi7210m000) session.

When you receive external messages, ERP EDI creates ASCII files to hold the message data. For example, these messages are read and processed in internal order files.

If the ASCII files cannot be converted into internal files due to errors, the ASCII file can still be converted later after correction processing.