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 Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. 
 Germantown 
 Harvey, Betty  
 USA 
 		 Betty Harvey
 President
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc.
  13017 Wisteria Drive Germantown (Maryland)  USA
Email: harvey@eccnet.com Web site:http://www.eccnet.com
 Biography
 Betty Harvey is currently President and principle owner of Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. Prior experience includes Scientific and Engineering User Support Specialist at David Taylor Model Basin, NSWC (formerly David Taylor Naval Ship Research & Development Center) where she provided support for several thousand scientific & engineering computer users. While David Taylor Ms. Harvey participated in the development of U.S. DoD CALS standards, including IETMs, SGML and Internet protocols. In 1994, Ms. Harvey was awarded "Employee of the Year, Engineer/Scientist". Ms. Harvey reactivated the Washington, D.C. Area SGML Users Group (http://www.eccnet.com/sgmlug/) in 1995. She currently coordinates the monthly activities of the Users Group.
 

Introduction

 Companies that use traditional EDI systems today are either Fortune 500 companies or companies who are mandated to use EDI to do business with large companies and Government agencies. The larger companies and Government have EDI systems in use. In North America, there are over 6 million companies. Today only 100,000 companies use traditional EDI (1). These statistics show that the vast majority of companies are not using traditional EDI. Two reasons why EDI has not been embraced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) is cost and complexity. The SMEs do not use traditional EDI unless mandated from outside the organization. XML provides the mechanism for SMEs to play in the global marketplace.
 This paper will discuss the implementation and philosophical issues regarding DTDs and interchanges between EDI and XML based systems. Based on actual projects where the business constraints serve to drive the technology implementation. Real implementation of XML and EDI leads to a better understanding of the available options in designing XML to interact with EDI.
 This paper will also show the component reuse capability of XML in a traditional EDI environment. Components of an XML transaction can be reused in multiple formats and ways. This paper will show how reusable components can be used in purchase orders, invoices, and catalogs. It will also show how virtual catalogs can be created for distribution to multiple output media, i.e. WWW, CD-ROM and paper.
 

How Can EDI and XML Relate?

 Current methods for performing EDI predate the World Wide Web, but have failed to become thoroughly integrated. EDI continues to be used for one-to-one data exchange between businesses. This has been done through proprietary networks or using telephone dial-up communication. The use of Internet is rapidly being deployed. EDI uses proprietary protocols that take time to optimize and, once instituted, are difficult and costly to change. EXtensible Markup Language (XML) can include the structural information and may prove to be a solution for many of EDI adoption barriers. XML provides greater levels of standardization, an intelligent structural framework, and eventual widespread use on the Web.
 XML is a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). SGML has been an ISO standard since 1986, and is currently used in every major industry. HTML is currently the largest SGML application. XML was conceived in response to requirements of the World Wide Web to adopt a more robust data format than HTML for the Web.
 Currently, electronic commerce is alive and active on the Web but it is not being conducted using standard EDI methods. Instead, these transactions occur through customized programs and databases. XML is becoming popular as the underlying data format. Using XML as the standard for EDI transactions could provide standardized protocols that allow for change, and at the same time, preserve existing EDI content. Such standardization and flexibility can only increase the use of EDI, both through existing proprietary networks and over the World Wide Web.
 

XML eCommerce Exchanges

 Electronic commerce data exchange using XML falls into several categories.NOTE: The list below example does not include the native XML repositories. Native XML does not require transformation of the data unless. These categories are:
 
  •  XML to traditional EDI (X12 or EDIFACT)
  •  Traditional EDI to XML
  •  XML to relational database
  •  Relational database to XML
  •  Native XML
 Creating DTDs that have reusable objects provide flexibility of using the data in multiple products, as well as provide reusability of the underlying code for transformations. The reuse of code can mean significant cost savings for an organization. Below is an example of a X12 304 for Shipping Industry segment for a shippers name and address.
 
N1*SH*ACE MANUFACTURING*1*987654321*N2*RECEIVING*N3* 234 MARKET STREET
        *N4*SAN FRANCISCO*CA*94103*US
 The above information could be tagged in XML as:
 
<shipper duns="987654321"> <organization
        unique-id="aceman"> <name>ACE MANUFACTURING</name>
        <division>RECEIVING</division> <address> <street>234
        MARKET STREET</street> <city>SAN FRANCISCO</city>
        <state>CA</state> <zip>94103</zip>
        <country>US</country> </address> </organization>
        </shipper>
Information Object
 		Looking at the two examples above, you see some obvious advantages and disadvantages of both data structures. The EDI transaction is succinct. It is easy to transmit from computer to computer. It is very difficult for the human to read and understand if there are format problems. Customized mapping software is required. The XML on the other hand is very verbose. If a million transactions are transmitted XML does require more bandwidth. However, XML is able to be read, validated and processed by standard software.
 

Approach

 Information objects are reusable objects. Information objects must be able to define semantically-meaningful pieces of information in XML, such as an address. A methodology for selecting and defining information objects, an encoding mechanism or construct that enforces "true" representations of information objects must be developed. When transforming data from EDI or to EDI, the mapping of the structures must maintain a relationship between the two formats. Information objects can also provide a way of solving intrinsic problems of interchange and reuse of content between DTDs.
 The figure below shows three DTDs for (1) purchase order, (2) invoice and (3) catalog. The figure shows that the information object for purchaser being reused in both the purchase order and invoice DTD. The information object for item is reused in all three DTDs.
 
 Figure 1
 

Content Models

 Lets take a closer look at the content models for each one of these information objects. The figure below shows that the information object contact is reused in 4 unique contexts, company (used in both the purchase order and invoice DTD), purchaser (invoice DTD), vendor (purchase order DTD) and ship-to (purchase order DTD).
 
 Figure 2
 The information object for item is used in all three DTDs shown in Figure 1.
 Common information objects provides the ability to use the information in many data types, as well as reuse common fragments of computer programs, scripts and stylesheets throughout an organization or industry.
 

Reuse of the Information

 Providing common information objects throughout the data also provides the ability to reuse data. Data reuse can be accomplished through XML entity facility. Lets look at the common information object for <content>. Below is a tagged example of a <content> information object:
 
<contact> <name>Electronic Commerce Connection,
          Inc.</name> <attention> <name>Betty Harvey</name>
          <telephone>301-540-8251</telephone> <email
          href="mailto:harvey@eccnet.com">harvey@eccnet.com</email>
          </attention> <address> <street>13017 Wisteria
          Drive</street> <pobox>333</pobox>
          <city>Germantown</city> <state>MD</state>
          <zip>20874</zip> </address>
          <telephone>301-540-8251</telephone>
          <fax>301-428-4268</fax> <email
          href="mailto:info@eccnet.com">info@eccnet.com</email> </contact>
        
 The above content can be reused in two places within the purchase order, as well as the invoice. The reusable content can be virtually anywhere, including residing in a database. The data can be referenced within the actual XML. Referencing the data also ensures that only the authoritative data is used within the context of the XML.
 
<header> <logo> <picture src="graphics/ecc.gif"/>
          </logo> <date>September 28, 1998</date>
          <po-num>346</po-num> <company> &ecc; </company>
          <vendor> &acme; </vendor> <ship-to> &ecc; </ship-to>
          </header>
 Two specifications currently being worked through World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are XLink and XPointer. When these specifications are completed, they will allow for the reuse of information by referencing them on the Internet. The XLink and XPointer specifications will provide the ability to a have true 'virtual catalog'.
 
 Figure 3
 

Mapping XML to EDI

 One of the real advantages of XML is that it allows for information to pass from organizations who are not using traditional EDI to organizations that require EDI. EDI is very expensive and organizations must justify the costs of implementing an EDI system. Most often the amount of potential business with the EDI organizations does not justify the costs that are incurred. XML allows non-EDI organizations the opportunity to talk with these companies at a reasonable cost. EDI companies have and are developing mapping software that provide transformation from traditional EDI to XML and vice versa.
 EDI requires agreement between two parties. They have to agree on the exact sequence for sending information. If an EDI element is optional, a placeholder (delimiter) is still required. Below is an example of how the purchaser information could be prepared and sent:
 ...*Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc.*Betty Harvey**301-540-8251** harvey@eccnet.com*13017 Wisteria Drive, 333, Germantown, MD 20874* *301-540-8251*301-428-4268*info@eccnet.com*...
 It is easy to see by the example above how you can transform the data from the XML example easily to the EDI example. However, if you are creating a DTD for EDI to XML, your content models may differ. A good example is the <address> element. In the XML we have a pretty common information object with the following components:
 
  •  Mandatory and multiple streets
  •  Optional post office box
  •  Mandatory city
  •  Mandatory state
  •  Mandatory zip
 The X12 EDI standard has only one segment for the address. Mapping the entire address back to the robust XML content model is difficult. In order to accommodate the transformation of EDI to XML, you would create one level of hierarchy for the address element. Lets say that you want to create one DTD to accommodate the two way transformation, you could create your DTD that provided this capability. Example of an address declaration that would accomodate both a flat representation and a content tagged representation of an address:
 
<!ELEMENT address (full-address | (street+, pobox?, city, state,
        zip))> <!ELEMENT full-address (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT street
        (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT pobox (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT city (#PCDATA)>
        <!ELEMENT state (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT zip (#PCDATA)>
 

Conclusion

 XML is primed and ready to support traditional EDI. Where traditional EDI is entrenched in current business practices XML can act as a helper application. It can facilitate the transformation of data to and from new business partner.
 In companies where EDI is not currently being utilized, XML provides the solution that will keep the organization competitive in todays market.
 

References

 
  •  (1) Accelerating Electronic Commerce: Making EDI Accessible with XML, Mary Fletcher Laplante, Document Software Strategies Analysis Vol. 2, Number 29, August 15, 1997 , CAP Ventures
E-commerce Standards in the Insurance Industry   Table of contents   Indexes   XML Based Linking Concept