EDI for LedgerSMB

[David Sentinella <..hidden..>]

Everyone -

Following on from a discussion I initiated on the 'user' list, I am keen 
to develop the requirements for a 'bolt-on' EDI interface for LedgerSMB

A starting point might include some of the following resources:

1. Sacha Schlegel's excellent article, which addresses most of the 
issues, has an Australian focus, and specifically mentions LedgerSMB's 
predecessor S-L.
http://www.schlegel.li/ebXML/linmagau_article/linmagau.pdf

2. The Open ebXML website: http://openebxml.sourceforge.net/

3. The United Nations Directories for Electronic Data Interchange for 
Administration, Commerce and Transport: 
http://www.unece.org/trade/untdid/welcome.htm

4. The Oasis (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information 
Standards) ebXML specification page: http://www.oasis-open.org/specs/

After many years of experience with EDI for large corporations, I am 
firmly of the belief that we will see a time where document flow will be 
truly standardised. In the meantime, we have a fairly mature standard to 
deal with – namely ebXML. Any discussion about EDI needs to address the 
minor disagreements around the difference between EDIFACT and ebXML – 
these essentially revolving around the size of messages. EDIFACT is very 
compact, and ebXML is larger but easier to ‘read’ and arguably easier to 
process. None of this really matters in the end, because there are many 
tools that convert messages in both directions or either direction.

The aim of a 'bolt-on' EDI interface for LedgerSMB is to facilitate B2B 
transactions without the need for user input. Such an interface would 
also make multi-company systems easier to manage. Chris Travers makes 
the point that the “batch” and “separation-of-duties” interfaces 
proposed for LSMB 1.3 would the appropriate point of interface.

Some fields are needed to make this work:

1. A Boolean field in Vendor, Customer and Employee indicating that EDI 
is to be used with this entity.

2. Fields defining the communications parameters to be used, or a 
“Trading Partner ID”. The Trading Partner ID can be used by the bolt-on 
system to identify the communications parameters in that system.

3. Fields defining the Type and Version of EDI the entity will accept. 
(Not needed if "Trading Partner ID" is used - see point 2 above)

I hope we can form a working group for EDI for LedgerSMB.

Regards,
David Sentinella

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