EDI Integration for Oracle Cloud

EDI Process for Oracle cloud

Oracle Cloud aka Oracle Fusion Supply Chain Modules are being widely used by many companies to manage their customer order process. Many of these customers will be sending orders through EDI (Electronic Data Integration). It is necessary that the EDI processing is automated through integration. This post explains how this EDI integration can be achieved.

Methods of Integration

1. Oracle Collaboration Messaging Framework (CMK) – supports only XML format. It will need effort to convert EDI document and map them to XML format.
2. Oracle Intgration Cloud (OIC) – Use EDI X12 Adapters to develop the mapping and also use Oracle cloud SCM Adapters to connect to fusion.
3. Use third party applications like TPSynergy that has pre built mappings and direct integration to Fusion cloud Order Management

The first two methods above will need extensive development and maintenance effort on the part of the company. Using a pre built adapter by third method reduces the development and maintenance effort substantially

Steps for EDI Orders processing

1. Customers like Amazon, Target , Sephora uses X12 EDI 850 format to publish their purchase orders. These documents are sent electronically over VAN (Value Added Network)/ AS2 or FTP connections
2. Once these X12 documents are received, they need to be translated to a common message format like text documents.
3. After the X12 messages are translated to normal format, Oracle cloud SCM API calls can be made to post the orders into Fusion system. For example, to create sales orders in Fusion, salesOrdersForOrderHub API has to be called with POST action to create orders in Fusion
4. Orders can be created in Draft status or Submitted status automatically. If the orders are created in draft status, Order management users will log into Fusion to review the orders and Accept/Reject the orders
5. These Acceptance or Rejection need to be communicated back to the customer through an EDI document. Usually EDI 855 is the format for sending these acceptance. So, once the order is confirmed in Fusion, it has to be translated back to EDI 855 format and sent back to Customer. Generally, this 855 need to be sent within 24 hours after receiving the original order EDI 850
6. Next step is the shipping process. EDI Customers like Amazon will need Routing Request to be created in advance for Carrier assignment. TPSynergy uses EDI 753 and EDI 754 format to automatically create routing request and routing assignment process
7. If the warehouse is internal , warehouse users can directly log into Oracle Cloud Fusion to complete the shipping process. But most of the times, it will be a Third party (3PL) who manages the actual shipping process. In that case the orders should be sent to the 3PL systems for processing
8. Once the order is shipped in Fusion/3PL warehouses, shipping confirmation has to be sent back to Customers in EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice (ASN) format. And also the shipment confirmation received from 3PL need to be posted to Fusion
9. If the shipment is done outside Fusion system, the shipment transaction need to be posted to Fusion using Pick Release and Ship Confirm API – pickWaves , shippingTransactions
10. When shipment is posted into Fusion, Fusion system will automatically process the order and create invoices
11. These invoices need to be extracted from Fusion using API call receivablesInvoices and converted to EDI 810 Invoice format for sending to customers.

Conclusion

The EDI process can be very complicated and needs multiple steps for processing. Each step can fail and needs close monitoring to ensure the system runs smoothly. It is very common that some of the transactions will invariably fail due to one reason or other. This will need constant monitoring and support to ensure the system runs smoothly