Technical Overview
The Oracle EDI Gateway consists of interface tables, packaged procedures, and setup tables used to create output data files for outbound EDI document. The gateway is executed via the following steps:
- Execute ECE_<EDI_document_name>.POPULATE_<EDI_document_name>_API packaged procedure to populate the gateway. This routine identifies row(s) of data and copies data into the EDI Gateway interface tables: ECE_<EDI_document_name>_HEADERS, ECE_<EDI_document_name>_LINES, and ECE_<EDI_document_name>_ LINE_DETAILS.
- (Optional) Execute customized code to populate the interface extension tables. The EDI Gateway extension tables, ECE_<EDI_document_name>_HEADERS_X, ECE_<EDI_document_name>_LINES_X, and ECE_<EDI_document_name>_LINE_DETAILS_X, are created during the gateway's initial installation. These tables are modified by the customer to hold data elements that are not directly extracted from the Oracle Application.
- Execute ECE_<EDI_document_name>.PUT_DATA_TO_OUTPUT_TABLE packaged procedure. This procedures derives data from the interface and interface extension tables to build output records. The output record layout is defined in the EDI Gateway setup tables ECE_INTERFACE_TABLES and ECE_INTERFACE_COLUMNS. Formatted records are inserted into the ECE_OUTPUT table.
- Move the data from ECE_OUTPUT to a data file using the PL/SQL package UTL_FILE.
The output file created by the Gateway reflects the data model used in the Oracle Application, which usually contains three types of logical records: Header, Line, and Line Detail. Using the EDI Gateway setup tables, data from the interface tables can be mixed with data from the corresponding extension table. (For example, data from ECE_PO_INTERFACE_HEADERS can be mixed only with data from ECE_PO_INTERFACE_HEADERS_X.) The data elements within the physical records are fixed length fields. The fixed data length is derived from the data dictionary.
Outbound Data File
Characteristics of output file created by the Oracle EDI Gateway
- The outbound data file layout provides only one record at each level (header, line, shipment). This is consistent with the data model used in the Oracle Application.
- The Oracle EDI Gateway ties field lengths to the Oracle data dictionary, i.e., fixed length format.
- The Oracle EDI Gateway does not currently provide formatting options.
- The Oracle data file layout is not of any particular EDI standards, ASC X12 or EDIFACT. User has the flexibility to translate the outbound file to whatever format is the most desirable.
See Also
Overview of Extensible Architecture
Extensible Architecture Example
