Planning is the most important phase of an EDI implementation, and it should be done carefully to ensure success. – Sandeep Kumar, Lead Consultant, Infosys

Sandeep Kumar, a lead consultant at Infosys, has been involved in EDI implementations at two different organizations in two different industries. To have him share lessons learned from his experience during these projects, I asked him a series of questions about challenges companies face when implementing EDI and what best practices he recommends for companies to follow during their projects. What would you say is the biggest mistake companies make in an EDI implementation? The most common cause of EDI implementation mishaps is poor planning. If EDI experts are not involved during the planning phase, many details can be overlooked. Here are some examples of problems caused by poor planning:

• Developmental delays: Each implementation consists of various phases. Development and testing are the biggest parts of the implementation in terms of cost. During planning, estimating cost and time is done for the development and testing phases. Development and testing phases are back to back. If development is delayed, then testing is also delayed. All the development and testing resources are engaged for that estimated period of time. An EDI expert understands the requirement and can estimate the efforts required for development and testing.
• Testing delays: The sequence of testing activities is also very important. For example, invoicing activity can be tested after procurement activity so you cannot test a procure-to-pay (P2P) business cycle unless both activities are completed from a development perspective. However, the order-to-cash (OTC) business cycle is not dependent on the P2P business cycle, so after development on OTC is complete, you can start testing even if development in P2P is still in progress. In integration testing each business cycle is tested end to end. An EDI expert knows which business cycle’s development is complete and that testing can be started for that cycle before the development phase is finished. This knowledge can help an organization compress the implementation timeframe and absorb the developmental delays.
• Gaps in interfacing with other teams: The EDI experts have the experience to involve other teams at appropriate times. EDI experts deal with interfacing with multiple client teams as well as the clients’ trading partners’ teams.
• Design gaps: Incorrect design decisions lead to a significant increase in effort needed to fix the loopholes and make future developments more difficult.

Planning is the most important phase of an EDI implementation, and it should be done carefully to ensure success. Beyond planning, what are some other common process missteps that you have seen?   Any process fails if it is not robust. If a test process is set up and an EDI expert is not involved, there may be some design issues left untested. For example, consider a scenario in which testing is done with pilot vendors and all functionalities are not tested properly. Now the requirement is given to all the vendors, and after their development is complete, testing starts as part of vendor onboarding. New issues are identified, and all the vendors have to make design changes that involve an enormous effort. For example, a typical auto company has more than 100 vendors, which results in huge costs. Many times when EDI is implemented for the first time, people with no actual implementation experience design the process, leaving lots of gaps in the design. Suppliers or subcontractors that supply raw materials or subassemblies frequently repeat the same mistakes. Some common mistakes these suppliers and subcontractors make include creating incorrect maps, entering inaccurate data in the wrong fields within files, and not understanding the testing flow. All these mistakes increase the cycle time of data, thereby delaying the onboarding of trading partners. Efficiency is critical, as a typical implementation requires the onboarding of hundreds of trading partners. How can these mistakes be avoided? Communication is vital in EDI implementations. Some of the issues I observed during an EDI implementation that were due to communication gaps were mistakes in EDI maps, incorrect mapping of SAP to EDI fields, incorrect fields being populated in IDocs (intermediate documents), and tests of redundant scenarios. To solve these issues you can use issue tracking so that the repetitive mistakes can be recognized and fixed. Tracking has to be done properly to catch the delays sooner. An escalation process has to be set up and followed religiously during an EDI implementation. EDI is successful only if all involved teams participate actively. You can also automate so that some of the repetitive tasks are not being performed manually. Poor communication often results in missed deadlines because activities are delayed and a lot of rework is done. Misunderstanding may happen during requirement gathering, creating design documents or EDI maps, or explaining the requirement to trading partners. These misunderstandings delay implementation, and the implementation team has to be engaged for a longer duration. As a part of the rework a team of specialists has to perform bug fixes or issue fixes in activities such as setting up middleware, mapping data fields, configuring SAP settings, and setting up connectivity between partner systems. Missed deadlines, process failures, planning gaps, and communication gaps always result in unbudgeted costs.   What advice can you offer based on your EDI implementation experience? Never use too many vendors for onboarding. Use fewer vendors and use pilot vendor onboarding, which means selecting vendors for early onboarding that are responsive and understand EDI maps, business processes, and testing flows. Categorization of vendors for onboarding is always a good idea, as similar types of vendors often present the same kinds of problems. You can categorize vendors based on the type of middleware or back-end system they use. Vendors using the same middleware use similar maps, and vendors using the same back-end systems use similar test skills. The EDI implementation includes a lot of manual activities, and the same activities are repeated frequently during integration testing with vendors. Use automation tools to save time and avoid performing repetitive steps manually. The following tasks are some examples of repetitive activities that can be automated:

• Creating test plan setups
• Creating and comparing test files
• Picking files for testing that work as input data for testing, translating them to an exchange file, and pushing them to applications that are part of the file exchange system

EDI process testing and vendor onboarding are two major activities that can be automated. Testing of an EDI process when development is complete is done with a few vendors. These vendors are termed pilot vendors.

When you are done with pilot vendors, the next step is supplier vendor onboarding. Each vendor is given EDI maps that they need to develop in their systems. Once vendors are ready with EDI mapping, the same testing is done with them. The same kind of test messages are exchanged with vendors, and those messages are processed at both ends to ensure smooth flow and correct development. The EDI test messages are created through SAP transactions, such as message 850, which will be created when a purchase order is created. You can use various tools available in the market to create EDI messages through SAP transactions that will flow to a partner system for testing. You can use the Batch Data Communication tool. For more information on this tool read the SAPexperts article “Use This Tool to Create or Update Mass Data Through BDC.”

What can vendors do to make the onboarding process easier?

EDI skills are required to develop EDI maps, and not all vendors have this skillset. It is very time-consuming and expensive to develop them in-house. We always suggest that vendors go to the same party used to develop the maps. Vendors that have the same back end can have the same third-party for testing. It reduces rework, curbs expenses, and avoids delays. I recommend that vendors follow these tips:

• Adhere to a standard EDI structure so that map development at the partner’s side is easier.
• Provide comprehensive documentation on each field of the EDI file with the implementation guide. This helps reduce the multiple email chains and further discussions on gaps in understanding an EDI field requirement.
• Discuss the testing strategy with a testing partner.