For a document to be involved in a business process, it must have a conversation ID. This section describes how Module for EDI assigns a conversation ID to the Interchange, Group, and Transaction documents. The general format of a conversation ID is either of the following:

When assigning the conversation ID, Module for EDI first attempts to assign the conversation ID as receiverID-senderID-instanceID. It checks to see if this conversation ID already exists and if it does, uses it, so that the document rejoins a running business process.

If the first conversation ID does not exist, Module for EDI flips the receiverID and senderID and uses the conversation ID senderID-receiverID-instanceID, which should be a new conversation ID and therefore start a new business process.

The value of instanceID varies based on whether the document is an Interchange document, Group document, or Transaction document.