Common EDI Terms
Field or Control |
Description |
|---|---|
Archive |
To store data for possible future reference. |
Data element |
An individual piece of information within an EDI Standard document. You group data elements to form data segments. |
EDI Standard |
A standardized format that defines the syntax, structure, and content of the inbound and outbound document data.
In recent years, a United Nations committee has been working to reconcile ANSI ASC X12 with EDIFACT to further standardize EDI on an international basis. |
Electronic Commerce |
A business environment that includes computer-to-computer, application-to-application, and person-to-person exchange of information. |
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) |
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the paperless, computer-to-computer exchange of business transactions, such as purchase orders and invoices, in a standard format with standard content. |
Inbound document |
A document that you receive from your trading partner using EDI. Also referred to as an inbound transaction. |
Mapping |
The process of converting information from one table structure to another. The translation software performs this process. |
Outbound document |
A document that you send to your trading partner using EDI. Also referred to as an outbound transaction. |
Segment |
A predefined set of functionally related data elements. |
Standard document |
An EDI document that you exchange with your trading partner, such as a purchase order or sales order. Also called a transaction set in the ANSI ASC X12 or a message in the EDIFACT EDI standards. |
Trading partner |
A company (usually a customer or supplier) with whom you exchange EDI documents. |
Translator software |
The software that converts data from an application table format to an EDI Standard format, and from EDI Standard Format to application table format. The data is exchanged in an EDI Standard format, such as ANSI ASC X12, EDIFACT, UCS, or WINS. |