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Table of Contents

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General Overview

Hopefully information below is useful when you are developing your system

Notes

Overview

This contains general and hopefully useful information about how the system processes sales order / despatch of stock files.

Questions

 To ask general questions on any of the EDI formats, then please send an email to editest@visionsuite.co.uk 
We aim to respond to your request within 3 working days once we have contacted our Vision EDI customer.

Format

XML – a file structure which takes into account all the functionality and field within the warehousing system.

We use a very basic form of XML which allows nearly anybody to create the file from many systems. NoteWhy not

Expand
titleTradacomms / EDIFACT ?
 –

Whilst the larger organizations like to utilize these formats, we have used these formats in the past but their inability to be flexible, lack of fields and   the cost of integration and development times mean that many smaller customers would not be able to afford the development costs to implements EDI trading.

There are also serious limitations to the EDI format resulting in not all fields being submitted or fields having to be translated before use.

 

There is also the added problem of using a third party in the sending of the data and all too frequently the third party is blamed for loss of data and for any problems which occur when actually in 99% of cases it is the customers lack of understanding of the process which has caused the problem.

We offer a service using a third party, Atlas Products, who can take files from customers in this format and convert them to our import formats.

 

If you require further details please contact sales@ontechsolutions.net

Transmission

Each warehouse determine their own cut-off times for transmission of orders, but as

Vision EDI is fully automated we prefer if customers are constantly sending sales orders throughout the day, not only does it keep orders flowing to the warehouse but it also stops delays at cut-off times when everybody tries to send.  The other additional benefit is that should you have a system problem at the cut-off the effect is minimised.

We would therefore strongly encourage customers to transmit files on a regular or real time basis.
The Vision EDI service normally operates 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

File naming

Your sale order file names should be of a standard format which will allow us to identify any file uniquely for a particular customer code, each Sales Order file would begin "SO....."

Whether testing, sending live or sending an API file using the fall back method the filename must conform to the following.

  1. It must be prefixed with SO

  2. The suffix must be the warehouse customer code.

  3. It must not be zipped

  4. The filename should not exceed 32 characters

Expand
titleSuggestions for filenames

Suggestions for filenames

SO(YY)YYMMDD_hhmmssttt.<customer code>       e.g. SO051214_123204000.ABCD1234   OR
SO(YY)YYMMDD_<orderNo>.<customer code>       e.g. SO051214_SO0123456.ABCD1234  OR
SO(YY)YYMMDD_hhmmss_<orderNo>.<customer code>       e.g. SO051214_123204000_0123456.ABCD1234

Key


YY =

year        can be 2 or 4 digit year                
hh = hour                    

year / hh = hour / ttt = milliseconds


/ MM = month of the year


/ mm = Minutes past the hour


/ DD = day of month


/ ss = seconds 

The customer

Customer code for the filename would normally be the same code as

used in the customer code field of the order file, although we can accept a file which contains orders for multiple customer accounts.

Please try to avoid exceeding 32 characters in the file name.

HD1 (FKCustomer)

We use this convention to identify the filetype

, it

; allows

us to

pre-

process the file

processing before we parse the XML

as we perform various checks on the filename existance for duplication purposes.  It also allows us to

; identify which XML model

we will be using for the filetype and allows us to process faster, it also allows us to check whether your customer code has permissions for the filetype without us having to load the file to see what is in it and finally it allows us to acknowledge we have the file back to you without having to open and read the contents

; process faster; check incoming customer permissions; provide acknowledgements back to you.

We also do not allow multiple different file types in the same file, so a sales order file can only contain sales orders, and this then negates the need to use XML namespaces.

Usage 

See section below

Limitations

See section below

Usage & Limitation Information

Notes

Accidental duplication of files

It is your responsibility to not duplicate the files you send to the warehouse, if you choose to resend please be sure that you are not going to duplicate orders.

However, if you resend the same file within a short period of time we have a mechanism in place that it will not be processed.

Instead we will fail the file and remove it from the upload queue. The period is usually within the same working day.

Sending the Same Order in Multiple Files

Most

Duplicating Order Number

Whilst we can do this most customers using Vision will not have this

check

switched on. 

When

this is on then

ON we

will

check for the same

number appearing again

DocRef on another file, if

that is the case

found we reject the order.

If this is switched off, then customers could use this to provide

When OFF the second order will be loaded, could be used as an add-on order, although it will not be combined with the original

the references you send are all the same and

we would create another unique order, so it is important if you send the same order that you ONLY send additional lines in the new order, you can not amend, adjust, delete or edit the original order.

Note

If your original order failed and is held in the EDI service, you must ensure the warehouse REMOVE the original order from the EDI Service before you send it again otherwise we will COMBINE the Document Reference of both orders in EDI and when it is released it will be a single order in VW.

Acknowledgement of files sent

The Vision EDI service has a facility to acknowledge files received.
This

facility is only enables for customer who have tested their files using the file testing service and from 31 December 2015 this will not be available to those customers sending CSV files.If you have tested and you wish to receive a receipt confirmation email then your nominated email address will be sent an email containing information about the file received, the number of orders, number of lines and time of receipt.
This

can only be used once you pass testing, this email can only be sent to one email address which is defined in the Vision EDI service.
It should be used to provide only an acknowledgement that the warehouse has received a file and not that the file has been processed.

Confirmation of orders processed

The

Vision EDI

service has a facility to confirm orders processed on the system, it can be schedule to be send on an hourly, daily, weekly basis.
This email can be sent as a pdf/csv/xml file and it can be scheduled to goto multiple recipients. 

can inform you of new orders on the WMS.
You can configure this within the Vision CIS admin control panel

. 

or ask your warehouse
This contains orders which have been entered onto the WMS system. 

File retention

We archive files for 30 days after they have been sent.
When its a

HMRC

excise or customs warehouse this is usually 90 days.

However our Vision EDI customers may choose to extend this

Processing of order files

File errors where files can not be processed

If there is a data irregularity then we will reject the file.  In this instance customers need to be able to fix the data and resubmit the orders back to the Vision EDI system.
We offer limited support to Vision EDI customers to assist with this type of failure, we the creation of the file is outside of our control sometimes we are unable to assist. 

If your file fails and we can identify your customer code (it should be the file extension) then we will email you to tell you.

Where no issues are found

We upload and process the order which will go directly to the warehouse despatch, ready for picking.  No user intervention is required and normally the first person to see this order is the warehouse picking manager.

You can request a hourly orders processed report which will confirm the orders processed.

Missing or Inaccurate Data

When orders are received and found to contain missing information then the order will be placed on hold, and we will send you an email informing you that this is has occurred.

Generally Orders are held for :

  • invalid or inaccurate delivery addresses

  • insufficient stocks

  • inaccurate information in the order especially rotation numbers.

We will only send you an email with the issues if we can identify your customer code (it should be the file extension).

Repeating Product Codes or Rotation Numbers

Due to the complexities with picking operations, its impossible to achieve accurate stock shortages when the same product is specified multiple times on the same order.  If you need to do this then you have to specify the rotation number for each time the product appear, if the rotation has rotation line numbers then these should also be specified.

Maximum Number of Lines

We generally

Generally set this to 50-100 lines per file and is

dependant

dependent on whether the warehouse server can handle orders above this and whether the warehouse want orders with more than

50

x lines.

It is a generic figure, some Vision customers have a much higher limit, some have a lower limit.

If your order exceeds the limit, all we do is automatically split the order into two orders, each processed separately, there is no duplication of lines nor is there any manual work involved in doing this. 

Orders - Using rotation numbers or batch references

Order by what

Customer can order by

  • Product code

  • Rotation number

  • Batch number

  • Product code / rotation number

 Note : You can supply a rotation number with or without a rotation line number, it is only required to state the line number when you have stocks owned by customer reserves.