Connecting systems that don’t talk to each other: EDI clearing, API connections, format conversion – any format into any other, as far as both carry the same depth of information. Reliable and scalable.
Two systems, the same order, no route between them: the trading partner sends EDIFACT, the ERP understands CSV. The time slot sits in the shipper's portal and the dispatcher types it into the forwarding software by hand. As long as volumes are small, nobody notices. It becomes noticeable when a major customer makes EDI a condition – then the order itself hangs on the connection. Or when a format changes and messages come back rejected in numbers, without anyone realising why. The data is already there. It just doesn't arrive where it is needed.
A connection always consists of three parts: the format, the transport route and the mapping in between. We clarify all three in writing with the partner beforehand, because this is where most projects are delayed – not in the technology, but in the coordination. We build against real messages, not against the specification: with EDIFACT, paper and practice regularly diverge. The mapping is built in MapForce, versioned and traceable, so that a later change doesn't mean understanding everything again. Every message is logged, every rejection made visible – a rejected invoice must not seep away into the log. On request we take on operations and monitoring, so that you don't have to run an EDI system of your own.
Bookings and time slots from Cargoclix flow automatically into the ERP of a manufacturer and into the warehouse management system of a logistics provider, instead of being copied out of the portal. Both connections are running in production today.
ORDERS in, DESADV and INVOIC out: the three messages most supply relationships get by on. We take on the format, the transport route – AS2, OFTP2, SFTP or a platform – and the mapping onto the fields of your ERP or WMS.
CSV, XML, JSON, EDIFACT, fixed record lengths from an older system: where two sides speak different languages, a conversion sits in between. It is unspectacular, and for exactly that reason it is the part where someone most often helps out by hand.
It happens – new mandatory fields, a different message release, a changed character set requirement. Because the mapping is versioned, the change is a contained intervention rather than a new project. What matters more is that it is noticed at all: messages the partner rejects raise an alert instead of disappearing into the log. Without that feedback, companies often notice a format change only when the first invoice goes unpaid.
Yes, and that is rather the normal case. Hardly any company exchanges data with all partners the same way: one major customer demands EDIFACT over AS2, another provides a portal such as Cargoclix or Transporeon, a third still sends PDFs by mail. For your systems that should make no difference. We bring the routes together in front of the ERP or WMS, so that what arrives there is an order – regardless of how it came in.