[X4U] EDI with FileMaker

[Eric Prentice]

Hey Russell,

Sounds like you're in for a fun project! If it helps, at Dr. Bott we  
have a complete EDI solution that all ends up in our FileMaker system.

In short, EDI is quite a beast, it was designed before the Internet,  
XML, even universal standards and all the great things that make  
sharing information we're even a consideration.

We've currently got various levels of connectivity with all kinds of  
customers. Some of which go the classic EDI route with customers like Target.com 
  and others where we completely skip any of the craziness of classic  
EDI and we directly exchange data with the customer and some in between.

The short answer to your question is I would suggest working with one  
of a number of service providers that already have a direct EDI  
relationship with the customers you are wanting to work with. They'll  
charge a fee for the service. The path we took was to start years ago  
using their web based systems and manually entering the orders and  
then working to automate the system on our end. Once the data is in  
the service provider's system, they will have more options for how you  
exchange data with them.

Currently we use Filemaker for all the front end, but we do a lot with  
MySQL and PHP on the back end to gather and process the information  
before it is synced with Filemaker.

If you have a multi-person IT department and are willing to put in  
months of work, having EDI built-in to your system can be a great  
thing. If you don't, you'll either want to use a 3rd party provider  
and do the filemaker stuff more manually or connect with a company who  
already has that kind of connectivity.

A great example of the challenges here is a large computer company you  
know well we're been working on getting EDI going with them for almost  
a year. Every time we make progress there is some sort of roadblock  
with either the customers service provider, or the customers internal  
system. So don't have any illusion that this would be a quick or easy  
project. If you're taking to someone really huge, like Target,  
Walmart, etc, they for sure have things figured out on their end and  
it would just be the integration with their chosen service provider.

At Dr. Bott now that we have this capability this is a great benefit  
and we regularly get customers and vendors coming to us because of our  
ability. Now with more retailers making EDI a requirement, we're  
seeing a lot of traction here which is a great thing.

On the Filemaker side, we make extensive use of SmartPill PHP plugin  
and TroiURL plugins.

Not sure if all this helps the project but hopefully it gives you some  
perspective.

Eric



On Sep 14, 2009, at 5:29 PM, Russell McGaha wrote:

> Hey folks;
> 	Is anyone doing EDI with FileMaker [using a none packaged  
> implementation].
>
> Russell