EDI Writer

EDI Writer generates an EDIFACT document, the standard format many companies use to exchange orders, despatch advices and invoices. You give it the document’s data (reference, date, companies, product lines) and it returns the .edi file ready to send, plus its content as text.

Use it when a customer or supplier asks you to send documents in EDIFACT and you want to generate them automatically from your flow.

When to use it

• Send a supplier the purchase orders (ORDERS) approved in your system.
• Send a customer the despatch advice (DESADV) as soon as a truck leaves the warehouse.
• Issue invoices (INVOIC) in the format a large retailer requires.
• Build any other EDIFACT message line by line with the Custom option.

Configuration

Field	What it does
Message Type (required)	The document you want to generate: ORDERS (order), DESADV (despatch advice or delivery note), INVOIC (invoice) or Custom (a message you build line by line). Default: ORDERS.
Message Data (required)	The document’s data. The data each type needs is listed below.

Data for each document

Document	Data
ORDERS	reference, date, buyer and seller (each with id and name) and lines, a list with each product’s ean, product_code, description, quantity and unit_price.
DESADV	reference, date, order_reference, ship_from and ship_to (with id and name), carrier (with name and tracking_number) and lines, with ean and quantity_shipped.
INVOIC	reference, date, buyer, seller, currency, lines (with ean, description, quantity, unit_price and line_total), total_amount, tax_amount, net_amount and tax_rate.
Custom	segments, a list of lines, each with its tag and its elements.

Advanced options

Field	What it does
EDIFACT Version	The version of the standard: D93A, D96A or D01B. Default: D96A. Use the one your customer or supplier asks for.
Sender ID	Your identifier as the sender, usually the one your trading partner assigned you.
Recipient ID	The recipient’s identifier.
File Name	The file name. If you leave it empty, it is built from the document type and its reference, for example orders_PO-1234.edi.
Include Interchange Envelope	Adds the company-to-company transfer details (sender, recipient and reference) that most partners require. On by default.

In the Batch Mode tab you can connect a list to Batch Input to generate one document per item. See Batch Mode.

Output

The component has two outputs:

• EDI File: the .edi file, ready to attach to an email, upload to storage or send to your trading partner’s service.
• EDI Text: the document’s content as text, handy for checking it. It is also the output an agent uses when the component works as a tool with Tool Mode.

Example

A distributor sends every approved purchase order to its supplier in EDIFACT.

1. Prepare the order’s data with reference, date, buyer, seller and the product lines.
2. Connect it to Message Data on EDI Writer and leave Message Type as ORDERS.
3. In the advanced options, enter the identifiers agreed with the supplier in Sender ID and Recipient ID.
4. Connect the EDI File output to the component that sends the file to the supplier.

Related components

• EDI Reader: to read the EDIFACT documents you receive.