Thanks to these standards, organizations can let their computers do the talking directly, without human intervention. All EDI standards consist of a data dictionary and syntax, which are analogous to the vocabulary and grammatical rules of a spoken language. Many of the earliest standard message formats were first created and adopted by specific industries. As EDI has evolved, the use of proprietary standards has lessened in favor of public EDI standards, which are supported by over 30 international standards organizations. The first step in investigating the use of EDI is to seek out the best application candidate.
Most departments start with procurement, where the technology is already most prevalent.
Though EDI can be performed on a stand-alone PC, this is usually only workable for a very small department or as a pilot for a larger implementation. To determine which platform best suits your EDI application, you'll need to consider the volume of anticipated transactions, the kind of data expected and the number of EDI trading partners. EDI translation software embodies the rules of one or more EDI standards to ensure that the user's data conforms to the requirements of the selected EDI standard, regardless of whether the user is the originator or the recipient of the data. The second and most labor-intensive aspect of EDI software deployment is a process called data mapping. Data mapping prepares existing business applications to accept and generate EDI communications.