webMethods EDI Module Introduction The webMethods EDI Module (EDI Module) Module) enables business partners to exchange exchange EDI documents within and across the extended enterprise, providing comprehensive EDI support as a key part of the webMethods total business process automation solution. The EDI Module provides services services and transformation management management tools that enable you to recognize, transform, convert, validate, and map multi-transactional EDI documents in real-time or in batch. The following table shows the capabilities capabilities of the EDI Module based on the components components you use:
Architecture When you install the EDI Module, four packages are installed into the Integration Server: 1) WmEDI package, 2) WmEDIforTN package, 3) WmEDIINT package, and 4)WmEDIsample package.
Note: The WmEDIsamples contains sample EDI flow services, mappings, and IS document types that demonstrate how to use the EDI Module and webMethods Developer to execute typical EDI processing scenarios. EDI developers can use the WmEDIsamples as a reference. Before going into production, you should delete the WmEDIsamples package.
Integration Server It is the underlying foundation of the webMethods Integration Platform. Trading Networks It is a webMethods component that enables your enterprise to link with other companies (buyers, suppliers, strategic partners) and marketplaces to form a business-to-business trading network.
EDI Module in a production environment is comprised of the following three packages: The WmEDI package It is the basic functionality that provides support for the EDI standard to the webMethods Integration Platform. The WmEDIforTN package It allows for the interaction between the WmEDI package and Trading Networks. This interaction allows you to use Trading Networks as a gateway for EDI document exchange. The EDI Module uses the functionality of Trading Networks to provide additional features, such as support for VANs, reconciling FAs, and batching the sending of EDI documents. The WmEDIINT package It adds support for the EDIINT exchange protocol, which is a standard for how to transport documents. Documents using the EDIINT protocol are processed through Trading
Networks. As a result, if you want to use the EDIINT protocol, you must use Trading Networks. You can use EDIINT for both EDI and non-EDI formatted (e.g., XML or custom format) documents. 1)When EDI documents use EDIINT, the EDI Module processes the documents using the functions of the other the EDI Module packages (WmEDI and WmEDIforTN). 2) When non-EDI documents use EDIINT, the EDI Module provides the transport logic only and does not process the documents. They are processed based on logic you define in Trading Networks.
! webMethods Modeler It is a design-time tool that you can use to create process models that define how to include EDI documents in business processes (also called conversations). After you design the process models, you generate them to create the run-time elements (e.g., flow services, triggers, etc.) that reside in the Integration Server. The process run time facility of the Integration Server executes the business processes (conversations) at run time. To use the process management facility of the Integration Server for EDI documents, you must use Trading Networks. At run time, after Trading Networks performs its processing, it can pass documents to the process run time to perform the logic that you designed in a process model webMethods Monitor It allows you to monitor the progress and status of the business processes (conversations) involving EDI documents. webMethods Monitor interacts with the process run time to obtain the status information.
