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Copyright © TIBCO Software Inc. All Rights Reserved


Chapter 1 B2B-EDIFACT Overview : Product Overview

Product Overview
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the exchange of information between trading partners where the information is formatted according to a set of common data format standards developed in the U.S. and Western Europe during the late 1970s. EDI standards describe the format of the data that is to be exchanged. These standards are independent of the transport.
EDIFACT is the United Nations rules for Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce, and Transport. EDIFACT is the international messaging standard for EDI. Organizations that choose to trade globally use the UN/EDIFACT (EDIFACT) standard. In contrast, ANSI X12 is an EDI standard developed and used mainly in the United States.
The EDIFACT standards cover messages, data element directories, and syntax rules.:
Message   A message contains the data for a well defined business function. There are approximately 200 messages in the EDIFACT standard. The first message, an invoice (INVOIC), was defined for EDIFACT in 1987.
Data element directories    They contain information about the data elements and various data structures used in the exchange of messages. The United Nations Trade Data Elements Directory (UNTDED) is the basis for any trade data interchange.
Syntax rules    The EDIFACT syntax rules define how data is structured into segments, segments into messages, and messages into an interchange. The EDIFACT syntax rules are found in ISO9735.

Copyright © TIBCO Software Inc. All Rights Reserved
Copyright © TIBCO Software Inc. All Rights Reserved