What’s Included in the IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack?
X12, EDIFACT, and TRADACOMS Support for ITXA Users
IBM created the ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack to simplify IBM ITXA and offer a user-experience tailored to organizations that use EDI to optimize their supply chain. Since IBM ITXA is such a powerful platform with advanced capabilities, it requires a lot of technical work to maximize its functionality.
However, IBM offers several Packs to automate the customization process for you, which saves your IT team a lot of time. IBM also offers an ITXA Pack for Healthcare Payers and for Financial Payments.
The IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack is a combination of separate Packs originally offered by IBM – the X12, EDIFACT, and TRADACOMS Packs. This new Pack makes all of your EDI tasks simpler and quicker, allowing you manage and optimize your supply chain more effectively.
Generic Envelopes
Similar to how paper letters are sent in envelopes, EDI messages also use envelopes to organize and group data. Typically, you have to create unique envelopes for each EDI trading partner in your network.
However, the IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack simplifies trading partner onboarding by offering generic envelopes for functional acknowledgements. This means your organization can use one set of envelopes for multiple EDI trading partners.
Plus, you can also override wildcard fields with data specific to your trading partner, which allows you to quickly configure customized envelopes.
Full TRADACOMS Support
TRADACOMS is one of the early EDI standards that many organizations still use today. TRADACOMS was released in 1982, and despite the development of new standards, it remains the most commonly used EDI standard in the UK’s retail sector.
The IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack makes it significantly easier to use TRADACOMS for EDI transactions.
TRADACOMS support includes:
- Ability to use Sterling maps for full enveloping and de-enveloping processing
- Availability of maps for transform processing
- Autoenvelope support allowing you to create envelopes based on data files
Whether you operate in the UK retail sector or you need TRADACOMS for EDI compliance, the IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack has you covered.
Support for Current EDI Standards
There are several EDI standards in addition to TRADACAOMS that your organization might use for EDI transactions in your supply chain.
The IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack offers full support for current EDI standards, including:
- X12 version 7020
- X12 RAIL V7020 support
- EDIFACT D.14A and D.14B support
The X12 standard was developed in 1979 by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to provide EDI standards that would work between different industries. It is estimated that over 300,000 companies worldwide use X12 standards in their daily EDI transactions.
The EDIFACT standard was produced by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) after improving upon the previous version of this EDI standard – the United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport.
Maximizing Your IBM ITXA Investment
IBM ITXA with the IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack can be a valuable investment for your organization. Between simplified trading partner onboarding, intuitive mapping, and dynamic enveloping, your costs for EDI support should fall dramatically. IBM ITXA even offers many of the features you would get from GenTran or the higher-priced IBM B2B Integrator.
As an IBM Advanced Business Partner, we can help you identify the best IBM solutions for your business and help you implement them into your operations. Plus, we can actually save you money by securing less-than-market rates.
If you would like to learn more about IBM ITXA and the IBM ITXA Supply Chain EDI Pack, we are more than happy to explain how they would fit with your business as well as answer any questions you might have.
