Connect Customers, Suppliers and Trading Partners to P21 — With EDI Built Around Your Business

EDI has been around a long time. The business processes running through it aren't going anywhere.

 

Purchase orders still need to be sent. Invoices need to be received. Shipments need to be acknowledged. Payment information, product activity and other transactions still need to move reliably between your business, your trading partners and Prophet 21.

 

MindHARBOR develops EDI integrations for Epicor Prophet 21 around your trading partners, business rules and existing technology environment.

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Whether you're adding a new trading partner, modifying an existing EDI workflow, connecting EDI more tightly to P21 or evaluating replacement of an existing EDI platform, we can help determine the right approach.

 

EDI Is More Than Moving a File

A successful EDI integration has to answer several different questions.

 

TRANSLATE → TRANSPORT → CONNECT TO P21 → APPLY BUSINESS RULES → MONITOR

• Is the document arriving as raw X12 or has it already been translated?

• Does the trading partner communicate through AS2, SFTP or another method?

• How should the transaction interact with Prophet 21?

• What should happen when a supplier changes a price, quantity or delivery date?

• And what happens when something fails?

 

That's why we approach EDI as a business integration problem, not simply a file-transfer project.

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Connect EDI to Your P21 Business Processes

Getting a document into or out of Prophet 21 is only part of the job.

The more important question is:  What should happen when the transaction gets there?

 

Depending on your P21 environment and requirements, an EDI solution can interact with Prophet 21 through appropriate integration methods and apply the business logic required for each transaction.

 

For example:

850 — Purchase Order

What triggers the outbound PO — approval, release or another status change?

810 — Invoice

Should an incoming invoice move automatically into the appropriate P21 process, or should it enter a review workflow first?

855 — Purchase Order Acknowledgement

If a supplier changes a price, quantity or expected date, should the transaction automatically update P21 or alert a buyer for review?

856 — Advance Ship Notice

Does the business need a shipment-level record, or full pallet, carton and item hierarchy?

820 — Remittance Advice

Should the transaction be generated from a check run, payment posting or scheduled process?

867 — Product Transfer / Sales Reporting

What reporting cadence and period does each trading partner require?

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Those decisions are where EDI becomes part of the actual business workflow rather than simply an exchange of electronic documents.

 

Different Trading Partners. Different Rules.

Anyone who has worked with EDI knows that “standard” doesn't always mean identical.

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Different trading partners may require different:

• X12 versions and implementation guides

• Item cross-references

• Units of measure

• Price rounding rules

• Required transaction information

• Transmission methods

• Acknowledgement requirements

• Reporting schedules

 

MindHARBOR can build the partner-specific logic required while maintaining a consistent integration framework around your Prophet 21 environment.

 

X12, AS2, SFTP and Trading-Partner Connectivity

Translation is only one part of an EDI environment.

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Depending on the trading partner and existing infrastructure, the solution may also need to address:

X12 • AS2 • SFTP/FTP • Certificates • MDNs • Inbound/Outbound Queues • Archiving • Firewall/IP Allowlisting

 

Some organizations already have pieces of this infrastructure in place. Others may rely on an existing EDI provider for translation, transport or both.

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The first step is understanding which pieces of the current environment are doing what before deciding what should change.

 

Don't Let EDI Fail Quietly

Sending a transaction isn't enough.

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A production EDI environment also needs visibility into whether the transaction successfully completed its journey.

• Did the file transmit successfully?

• Did the expected 997 acknowledgement come back?

• How long should the system wait before flagging a missing acknowledgement?

• Should it retry, create an exception or notify someone?

• Who should receive failure notifications?

• How long should transaction logs and file archives be retained?

 

Monitoring and exception handling can help make EDI problems visible before they turn into missing orders, invoices, shipments or other business problems.

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Replacing an Existing EDI Platform?

Sometimes the project isn't about adding EDI.

It's about determining how much of the existing EDI stack you still need.

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An existing provider or platform may currently handle some combination of:

X12 Translation • Transport • Trading-Partner Connectivity • Business Rules • P21 Integration • Monitoring

 

Before replacing anything, MindHARBOR can help evaluate what the existing solution actually does and identify the requirements that need to be preserved.

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That includes understanding current trading-partner connections, implementation guides, transport methods and any special processing requirements.

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From there, we can determine which components make sense to retain, replace, integrate or redesign.

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Built Around Your Prophet 21 Environment

There isn't one correct EDI architecture for every P21 customer.

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The appropriate approach depends on your:

P21 environment • Trading partners • Transaction types • Existing EDI infrastructure • Business rules • Security requirements • Integration architecture

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MindHARBOR can work with your existing environment rather than forcing the business into a predetermined EDI product or architecture.

 

That may mean developing a new integration, modifying what already exists, replacing selected pieces of an existing EDI stack or simply solving a specific trading-partner requirement.

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Start With the EDI Problem You Actually Have

You don't need to begin with a giant EDI replacement project.

• Maybe you need to onboard one new trading partner.

• Maybe an existing transaction isn't behaving correctly.

• Maybe you need to automate an additional X12 document.

• Maybe your current EDI provider has become too expensive or restrictive.

• Or maybe you're trying to understand exactly what sits between your trading partners and P21 before making a change.

• Start there.

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Bring Us Your P21 EDI Challenge.

We'll help you understand the existing workflow, the trading-partner requirements and the practical options for connecting it to Prophet 21.