Thursday, December 4, 2008

EDI Mapping Preparation and Analysis

Mapping is a complex process that will be more successful if you plan and prepare before you create your first map. If your preparation and analysis are complete, you have all the information you must create the map in an efficient and logical manner. If you omit this critical task and proceed directly to creating the map, it is likely that creating the map will be a long and arduous task. Also, the map may be invalid because of oversights and omissions.
Planning on Paper
The first and most important task when creating a map is to analyze the mapping requirements. These are the steps of mapping analysis:
1. Analyze the input and output documents.
2. Map the information (correlate the two documents).
Analyzing Documents
The first step of mapping analysis is analyzing the input and output documents. You must define these documents to Gentran Integration Suite. If you have a document format layout for either the input or output, start with that. Otherwise, you can create one by determining which fields are necessary to process the data correctly. Then, group the fields logically under records.
Mapping Information
To reconcile the two sides of the map, you must relate each input field to its corresponding output field and select a method for mapping it. To map information to a field, you use linking, standard rules, extended rules, or a combination of all three.
Linking - Or simple mapping, enables you to map a field from the input side of the map to a field on the output side of the map. The link between two map components (fields) is visually represented with a line connecting the two fields.
Standard rules - Give you access to mapping operation functions that are more complex than simple linking but less complex than extended rules.
Extended rules - Enable you to perform virtually any mapping operation you require.
The best practice is to determine which mapping operations are necessary on a field-by-field basis for the input and output documents.
After you finish correlating your input and output formats on paper, you can begin creating the map.
Summary of Creating a Map
The following outline lists the steps for creating a map using the Map Editor.
1. Prepare and analyze:
o The layout of your input and output documents
o How you move data to or from each document field
2. Create map
3. Define your input document
4. Define your output document (EDI, positional, variable-length-delimited, CII, XML, or
SQL).
5. Map the appropriate data for each field
6. Save and compile the map
7. Print the mapping report
8. Validate and review the map, and make modifications as needed
9. Test the map

No comments:

Post a Comment