I was in TechED all this week and it was a great week so far. The important thing I learnt in this week was about the new EDI changes for Biztalk Server 2006 R2. Some of my observations and notes
Architecture:
Looks like the EDI piece is written from scratch and follows the Biztalk base architecture. Biztalk Administration console has a new “EDI” section for management. This includes managing Trading Partner configuration and reporting/Auditing for EDI transactions. The EDI Parser/Serializer follows the existing Biztalk Pipeline Architecture and supports both EDI/ AS2 transactions.
Schemas:
More than approximately 7000 EDI X12/Edifact/HIPPA schemas out of the box (The guy actually showed the created schemas in a Demo). Good news is that they have all transaction sets from 2040 to 5020 versions. They are claiming that the schemas are much simpler with fewer annotations, so the sizes should be less than existing EDI Schemas created with Base EDI Adapter/Covast Adapter.
Batching/De-Batching:
Both Inbound De-Batching and Outbound Batching is supported. Batches can include different transaction sets and would be processed properly as long as the corresponding schemas are deployed. Batches can be kicked of based on Time/No of Transactions or an External Trigger (Based on a message or something like that). Batching API’s are written in managed code and is extensible if needed. The neat thing is that the Batching can be configured based on a variety of options, one thing that caught my eye was, there is a way to create outbound batch even if the incoming files does not come in a batch.If there is an Error in one of the Transaction in a Batch, there is an option to suspend that message/transaction alone and process other transactions. Batches can also be turned off per “Party/Customer” on weekends or any specific day you want.
Acknowledgements:
There is out of box support for 997 acknowledgements, the neat thing is that there is support for generating 997 till each field level Error details. They are promising that the Error messages would be specific and would contain the line#, Column # to help support professionals better. There is an option to correlate an outbound transaction to an incoming 997 Acknowledgement from a Trading Partner and suspend if we get an Error Acknowledgement
Envelopes:
There is an option to preserve EDI Envelope information (ISA, GS, GE & IEA sections) can be used inside an Orchestration. The outbound envelope can be created and mapped using “Party” specific information set on the configuration. Delimiters are detected dynamically from the Envelopes, however this information must also be set in the “Party” configuration.
Error Handling:
Microsoft claims the EDI piece is not a Black Box and that they have improved the actual detail of error and where it occurred, especially with bad EDI transactions. They are claiming that the new EDI piece would be comparable to any standard EDI validator available in the market currently and in some cases even better. There is also support for Duplicate EDI message detection and suspending the duplicate message.
Trading Partner Management:
Biztalk Server “Parties” would be used for Trading Partner management and there is also an option for “Home Organization” party to create applications for routing inside the host company. I’m not sure whether the actual TPM database is going to used for Trading Partner configuration but I would think it would be the best place to do. There is also a “Partner Agreement manager” to capture the actual contracts (PDF/Word/HTML etc) with partners for legal reasons