Released on: October 8, 2007, 3:46 pm

Press Release Author: Alba Spectrum Group

Industry: Computers

Press Release Summary: Electronic Document Interchange or EDI is popular bundle of
various technologies, allowing you to submit or accept PO requests from/to your
partners: vendors or customers. In this article we do not assume new "modern EDI"
trends to think that XML format interchange is also EDI, we will think about EDI in
traditional manner, where EDI is fixed length (text, with some exceptions) field
format, where each line might be header, details (lines) and footer (trailer) with
the options to have more flexible lines definitions.

Press Release Body: Alba Spectrum Group: http://www.albaspectrum.com
help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918

Electronic Document Interchange or EDI is popular bundle of various technologies,
allowing you to submit or accept PO requests from/to your partners: vendors or
customers. In this article we do not assume new "modern EDI" trends to think that
XML format interchange is also EDI, we will think about EDI in traditional manner,
where EDI is fixed length (text, with some exceptions) field format, where each line
might be header, details (lines) and footer (trailer) with the options to have more
flexible lines definitions. The goal of this article is to give you highlights,
assuming that you are Great Plains developer, programmer or IT specialist, on how to
integrate EDI compliant systems with Microsoft Dynamics GP Great Plains
1. GP technology overview. When talking about EDI, you should think about GP from
the position of Great Plains Database platform, current version 10.0 is available on
Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2000 only (and MSDE and SQL Select, which in fact is
reduced version of MS SQL Server). If you consider to deploy integration tools,
such as GP Integration Manager (IM) or GP Dexterity, you should think about
performance and the volume of your EDI transactions per day or one integration
session (and how frequent do you plan to have these sessions)
2. SQL Stored Procedures, Views, DTS packages and queries. In our opinion this is
the most efficient and fastest way to export EDI transactions from Great Plains.
You should invest some time into formatting SQL select statement output (such
functions as CAST and CONVERT)
3. IM and Dex. These tools should be considered to be deployed if you plan
importing EDI files. Integration Manager allows you to use ODBC connection to
import documents, however fixed-length EDI format brings some technical challenge
(it is not comma or tab delimited file and IM needs help here). If you plan to
deploy Integration Manager, consider preprocessing fixed length files with DTS
package or SQL Linked Server query to reformat it to tab delimited text file. If
you are comfortable with Dexterity - this tool allows you to call SQL stored
procedures, where you can do fixed-length fields parsing
4. eConnect - this tools is oriented toward XML streams and parameters, so, we do
understand your enthusiasm to deploy this tool as it is friendly to eCommerce MS
Visual Studio C# and VB.Net developer, however EDI technology might be a bit
"archaic" for eConnect project

Andrew Karasev, Alba Spectrum Group: http://www.albaspectrum.com
help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Microsoft Dynamics GP
Great Plains customers in USA/Canada nationwide. Local service is available in
Houston, TX: Richmond, Sugar Land, Katy, Rosenberg, Missouri City, Pearland,
Friendswood, Meadows, Mission Bend, Jersey Village; Chicago, IL: Naperville, Aurora,
Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Joliet, Wheaton, Lisle, Downers Grove, Schaumburg, Elk
Grove, Lombard, Woodridge, Darien, Westmont, Batavia, St. Charles, Elgin, Crystal
Lake. Service is also available in Houston and Dallas metros, plus internationally
in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Oceania and UK



Web Site: http://www.albaspectrum.com

Contact Details: , Alba Spectrum Group: http://www.albaspectrum.com
help@albaspectrum.com 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918, serving Microsoft Dynamics GP
Great Plains customers in USA/Canada nationwide