About Inbound Transactions

Infor SyteLine EDI manages the translated data from the EDI translator and prepares it for SyteLine.

Several functions occur in EDI that allow the inbound data to flow seamlessly from both customers or vendors into SyteLine. These processes include:

Loading translated data into the EDI database tables from the flat files
Validating EDI data
Posting inbound data from the EDI tables to the normal SyteLine tables
Processing errors
Creating error reports
Purging inbound transactions

Accessing the EDI mailbox initiates an inbound data flow. This action drives data through the translator into the EDI tables in SyteLine.

The following diagram illustrates the inbound functions of EDI.

Demand Side Inbound Transactions

The EDI interface supports the following inbound transactions from your customers:

Purchase Orders (850/ORDERS) - When posted to SyteLine, these transactions create or update regular or blanket customer orders.
Planning Orders (830/DELFOR) - When posted to SyteLine, these transactions create or update blanket customer order lines (forecasts of a customer's order) or blanket releases.
Shipping Orders (862/DELJIT) - When posted to SyteLine, these transactions create or update blanket customer order lines (confirmations of a customer's order) or blanket releases.

The process for demand side inbound transactions is:

Set up your customer so SyteLine automatically posts the inbound transactions (set Auto-Post on the EDI Customer Profiles form to Inbound or Both).
The system validates the transactions and then uses the validated transactions to create the customer's orders.
If you do not set Auto-Post to Inbound or Both, you must post the EDI orders to the SyteLine Customer Orders file manually, using the EDI Customer Orders form. (You can edit the information on the EDI order before posting.)
NOTE: For a more complete explanation of Auto-Posting, see the Posting Transactions to SyteLine section below.
During posting, if the EDI Customer Profile is set up to generate acknowledgments, SyteLine places a copy of each order in the EDI database tables. It can later send the order copies to the customer as acknowledgments.

The system loads transactions from the translator as formatted ASCII files.

Supply Side Inbound Transactions

The EDI interface supports the following inbound transactions from your vendors:

Purchase Order Acknowledgments (855/ORDRSP) - This transaction posts to SyteLine as an EDI purchase order acknowledgment. AutoPost is available.
Advance Ship Notice (856/DESADV) - This transaction posts to SyteLine as an EDI vendor ship notice, and may be used as input to the PO Receiving function.
Invoices (810/INVOIC) - This transaction posts to SyteLine as an EDI vendor invoice, and may be used as input to the process of generating A/P Vouchers. AutoPost is available.

The process for supply side inbound transactions is:

Set up your vendor so SyteLine automatically posts the inbound transactions (select Auto-Post EDI PO Acknowledgments on the EDI Vendor Profiles form.
SyteLine validates the transactions and then uses the validated transactions to create the vendor's PO acknowledgments.
If you do not select Auto-Post for PO Acknowledgments, you must post these transactions manually, using the EDI Purchase Order Acknowledgments form.

NOTE: For a more complete explanation of auto-posting, see the Posting Transactions to SyteLine section below.

Loading Inbound Transactions

You can import EDI inbound transactions using the EDI Transaction Load Routine utility, or the system can load the inbound transactions as part of a background task you define.

SyteLine loads the flat ASCII files output by the translator into the EDI database tables. Multiple lines in the ASCII file and multiple records in the EDI tables represent a single transaction. Minimal data validation occurs during this phase of the inbound process.

The files are named as listed below, where the XXX suffix for datafiles corresponds to the Trading Partner code from the EDI Parameters form (both supply and demand), and the HHMM.JJJ indicates the time and Julian date for the archive file.

Inbound Filenames

Trans Type	Data Dir Filename	Archive Dir Filename
810	810_DTL.XXX	INV(HHMM.JJJ)
830 (Header)	RSEQ_HDR.XXX	RH(HHMM.JJJ)
830 (Detail)	RSEQ_DTL.XXX	RD(HHMM.JJJ)
850	850_EXP.XXX	PO(HHMM.JJJ)
855	855_DTL.XXX	ACK(HHMM.JJJ)
856	856_DTL.XXX	VSN(HHMM.JJJ)
862 (Header)	RSEQ_HDR.XXX	SH(HHMM.JJJ)
862 (Detail)	RSEQ_DTL.XXX	SD(HHMM.JJJ)

Validating Transactions

EDI validates inbound transactions according to a predefined set of rules for each transaction type. The two types of validation rules are interface errors and data errors.

Interface errors result from a conflict in the setup between the translator and SyteLine. Data errors are errors in the content of the data.

The inbound posting process validates each incoming transaction. If the transaction passes the validation, it proceeds to the posting process. The system identifies transactions that fail the validation process. For demand-side transactions, you can view errors on the EDI Customer Orders form by selecting Actions > List Error Log. For supply-side transactions, each transaction has a corresponding report which you can run to review errors.

Posting Transactions to SyteLine

To post inbound transactions to SyteLine automatically, set the Auto-Post flag for the Trading Partner to Inbound or Both. When loading transactions into the EDI tables, the system checks this option to determine if it should post the transactions automatically. Posting moves the data from the EDI tables to the normal SyteLine database tables.

The system validates all incoming transactions and posts to the system all transactions that have no errors. The program identifies any transactions that do not post because of an error and stores them in the EDI tables to be processed using the appropriate form.

If you set the Auto-Post flag to None, the system loads the transactions into the EDI tables with no further processing. You can then run reports to review the data before attempting to post the transactions into SyteLine's normal database tables.

Processing Errors

For demand-side transactions, you can update the field on the screen when an inbound data field contains an error. This allows the transaction to be posted to SyteLine, but you must communicate this change to the trading partner. Some trading partners choose to delete the original transaction and retransmit it with the data corrected. Other trading partners require a Purchase Order Acknowledgment (855/ORDRSP), indicating the changes you have made to their order.

You can override some errors found in inbound data by turning off some of the validation for that trading partner. Examples of such errors include "Credit Limit Exceeded" or "Incorrect Unit Price."

For supply-side transactions (information is coming to you from your vendors), you cannot change data before posting. When errors occur, you can either override them in the SyteLine system itself or request that the data be retransmitted to you.

Online Error Log and Error Reports

Error reports are available for each incoming transaction. These reports start the validation process on the transaction and report all errors found in the transaction.

The reports include summary information for transactions with and without errors. You can print all error reports for a range of trading partners. Additional selection criteria are available for each specific transaction type.