Understanding Event Codes and Action Codes

EDI transactions use event codes to specify what action the transaction calls for. For example, event codes specify whether the current transaction is a completely new transaction, a resubmitted transaction, or an update to a previous transaction.

EDI event codes come in two types, both of which can be specified for the same transaction:

• Primary event codes, also called purpose codes, specify the status of the transaction: whether it is a new transaction, a cancellation, a duplicate, a status request, and so on. Every transaction has a primary event code.

• Secondary event codes, also called transaction codes, specify the type of transaction in detail. For example, a transaction’s secondary event code could say that the transaction is a catalog order, a rush order, or a request for a sample. Not all transaction types have secondary event codes.

PeopleSoft applications, on the other hand, determine the action to take on a transaction using a single action code. Therefore, when an EDI agent processes an EDI transaction, it needs to convert its event codes into a PeopleSoft action code.

Using PeopleSoft EDI Manager, you specify which pairs of event codes are translated into which action codes. Because you may want to process transactions differently, depending on which trading partner they come from, EDI Manager enables you to define different event code-to-action code translations for each trading partner.

After you complete the following activities, you must specify a profile for each trading partner.