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Date:         Mon, 28 Dec 1992 09:26:47 GMT
From:         randallsmith@ATTMAIL.COM
Subject:      811 Service Invoice
Comments: To: EDI-L@uccvma.ucop.edu

Welcome back, Bill...I haven't heard from you in a coon's age, as they say in
Louisiana.  No one really knows just how long a raccoon lives by virtue of
the fact that they get shot at a lot, it just give some weird frame of
reference. I would consult George Carlin before trying to explain...his
favorite topic is time and how we define it. Have you ever heard his piece on
what to call the day BEFORE the day before yesterday? He coined the phrase
"Balooba day" to denote the day before the day before yesterday. Then he
leaves you with the question "What about the day BEFORE balooba day?" Food
for thought......What comes after HL's?

Anyway...

Yes, Bill, there is a Santa Clause.

My company, Data Management Strategies, Ltd., has recently implemented the 811
transaction set for a major Midwestern US telecommuncations company (they own
5 regional phone companies and various other things).  I will not disclose the
name of my client here without consulting with them first, but will gladly
take a call from you on this subject.  We have also had conversations on this
matter with the a couple of departments in the Governement of Canada.

A little history...

We were consulting with this firm on other EDI matters when the 811 question
came up.  The major trading partners were to be AT&T, the regional phone
companies, and some other parties such as a state government in the midwest.
Needless to say, there were difficulties.

If your local telephone company is utilizing the billing system that was in
such wide usage during Ma Bell's heyday the master files are going to present
the most difficulty.  There is an unbelievable amount of redundancy in the
file content the complexity of the billing processes, when coupled with the
fact that the systems processing this data are over 20 years old and
'bandaid-ed' to death over that time frame, presents major problems in
fitting the HL structures to the data.  A real mapping excersize, it was.

DMS, as you may remember, has designed and produced an EDI software product
aimed directly at the fully integrated EDI market.  This application, because
of the sheer size and complexity of the transactions in question, was made to
order for us.   As far as I know, Pro_EDI (our product) was the only product
on the market at the time the 811 became a reality that did not have to be
taken back to the development table for progamming changes to support the 811.
We suffer from none of the limitation problems you relate, and we process
811's in their fullest implementation (as deep as you can go in the HL nests)

During the course of this 811 implementation we consulted heavily with the
developers of the 811 transaction set.  Our efforts actually started when the
811 was still in the draft stages, and we gained a real working knowledge of
not only the structure, but how to apply it to the complex and sometimes
surrealistic billing practices of the telecommunications industry.  We would
be more than happy to see if we can assist you in this matter.

Over 80 percent of our installations (including the one noted above) are
"front-end" installations.  In the case of the 811 we have found it optimum to
recommend that if such a "front-end" is to be on a PC that the PC be dedicated
to the EDI effort because of the massive volumes being exchanged.  However, we
also run on HP 3000's (both 16 and 32 bit) as well as LAN's and UNIX which
opens up platform possibilities for which the volumes are not quite so
critical.

I won't take up your time by getting on my soap box about the justification
(or lack of same) for the HL or the 811 transaction set, I will simply say
that in reality, after all is said and done, with a true understanding of the
billing processes and the application of the 811 structure, and some serious
conversations on the human level between the proposed trading partners one
can look back on a project like this and say from hindsight that it wasn't
all that bad after all. Be forewarned that even with the sheer mapping power
of Pro_EDI, the redundancy and ill-design of the master files that contain
the billing data will force you to do some pre-processing of the data before
formulation of the 811's can begin. That's just on the outgoing side
(application to EDI translations). Incoming processing (receiving 811's) will
benefit from the fact that the trading partners have been dealing with the
exchange of tapes, etc, in this unbelievably ill-designed format and the
effort to produce the 811's will result in a more manageable data stream
being presented for processing. It is our experience that those who have been
processing the tapes, etc, on which this data has traditionally been
transferred benefit the most from the implementation. They have been
performing programming miracles to get this stuff into their systems. The
811, if created correctly, at least provides a more common format to program
the interfaces to by putting the responsibility of handling the differences
between trading partners' data content on the EDI mapping processes. If, that
is, the EDI software can handle the 811. We can.

We have first-hand knowledge of the pre-processing that needs to be done to
produce a usable file for the mapping proeceses and have developed in-house
the code that could be cloned easily to fit most telecommunications billing
systems.  As a result of our experiences in this project we have inlcuded in
Pro_EDI mapping capabilities specifically designed to assist in handling the
811 architecture. Give me a call. I will be back in the office on the 4th of
January rested and rejuvenated from the holidays.

Randall O. Smith
Data Management Strategies, Ltd
Suite 240
725 Barclay Circle
Rochester Hills, MI 48307
(313) 853-2444
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU