Conversation IDs for EDI Documents
Before an EDI document can be used in a business process, it must have a conversation ID.
The original EDI document is split into Transaction, Group, and Interchange documents as described in
Processing Inbound EDI Documents. To process these documents using a business process, the document (Transaction, Group, and Interchange) must have a conversation ID.
Note:
You are not required to process all three types of documents using a business process. Use the documents that work best to create your solution.
For a Transaction document, you must provide
Module for EDI with information that it uses to form the conversation ID. The information that you provide is an instance ID query. The instance ID query is a query that the module can perform against the Transaction document to retrieve a value for the conversation ID. The instance ID query is specific to the type of transaction set contained in the Transaction document. For example, you might define the instance ID query
ST/BEG/BEG03 for an X12 4010 850 transaction set. Whenever the EDI recognizer creates a Transaction document that contains an X12 4010 850 transaction set, it will use the instance ID query you specify to obtain the value to use for the conversation ID for the Transaction document. If the EDI recognizer creates a Transaction for which there is no instance ID query, the conversation ID is not set.
Note:
If you do not need to process the Transaction document, do not create an instance ID query for the transaction set, and do not create a process model that uses the document.
For a Group or Interchange document,
Module for EDI always assigns conversation IDs. No instance ID query is required. For a Group document, the module sets the value of the conversation ID to the group control number. For an Interchange document, the module sets the value of the conversation ID to the interchange control number.
Note:
The Group and Interchange documents will always have a conversation ID. If you do not need to process either the Group or Interchange document in a business process, do not create a process model that uses the document. If the Process Engine is unable to locate a matching process model, it does not perform processing for the document.
For more information about how to define instance ID queries to set conversation IDs for Transaction documents, see webMethods Module for EDI Installation and User’s Guide.