EDI Studio for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations simplifies communication and collaboration between companies, their customers, and trading partners through electronic data interchange (EDI). It supports the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations data model and promotes low-overhead administration with standard configurations, tracking, and control capabilities.

To optimize common business activities, EDI Studio can assist you to:

• More efficiently process large order volumes.
• Validate sales orders and purchase order confirmations.
• Send information to many locations.
• Streamline inter-company transactions.
• Support 3PL warehousing.

Many companies use EDI Studio to make information exchanges with customers and suppliers more efficient, more dependable, and easier to administrate. The solution helps them control the costs and minimize the risk in common processes and communications. The many possible usage scenarios for EDI Studio include:

• Optimize the supply chain through automatic ordering.
• Exchange inter-company orders and other documents across separate Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations environments.
• Send prices and product updates to point-of-sale systems in a retail chain.

Benefits

To-Increase EDI Studio benefits are:

• Integrated sales and purchase document flows.
• Multi-company support.
• End-user focus.
• Track and trace all your EDI transactions with EDI history management.
• EDI sales order and EDI purchase order journals.

If you can't find the information you are looking for, you can:

• Visit our portal to explore our knowledge base, raise a question, or report an issue.
• Get in contact with us.
• Provide feedback on the documentation, using the 'Provide feedback' button at the bottom-left of a content page.

EDI introduction

What is EDI?

A common definition of EDI is that it is a computer-to-computer exchange of business documents in a standard electronic format between business partners.

• Business partners
  Business partners decide to exchange business documents using EDI for several reasons, for example: cost savings, speed, or accuracy.
• Business documents
  Business partners can exchange any type of business document, for example: orders and invoices.
• Standard electronic format
  Because the business documents must be processed by computers, a standard electronic format must be used. Several standard electronic formats exist, for example: EDIFACT and X12. However, business partners can decide to use their own format. You can compare the standard electronic format with languages. So, business partners must decide in which language they want to talk.
• Computer-to-computer exchange
  The standard electronic formats are independent of communication methods between computers. Several methods exist, for example: AS1, AS2, or FTP. Businesses typically use an EDI partner to translate and to communicate between business partners.

What is EDI Studio?

EDI Studio extends Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations with EDI functionality. The solution integrates in several Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Operations modules, for example: Accounts receivable, Accounts payable, and Warehouse management. EDI Studio uses Connectivity Studio for the mapping and transport of the standard electronic formats.

 

 

On a high level, the EDI Studio features are, using the EDI definition from the previous section:

• Business partners
  In EDI Studio, business partners are called parties. To setup a business partner, you must use the party setup.
• Business documents
  In EDI Studio, business documents are called document flows.
• Standard electronic format
  EDI Studio uses Connectivity Studio for the standard electronic formats.
• Computer-to-computer exchange
  EDI Studio uses Connectivity Studio to transport EDI messages between computers.

EDI Studio offers staging journals to validate inbound sales orders, purchase order confirmations, inventory orders, and transfer orders.

 

EDI messages

3PL EDI messages

Several types of third-party logistics (3PL) providers exist, like broker, freight forwarder, warehouse 3PLs, and enterprise 3PLs. EDI studio supports EDI message exchange with the warehouse 3PL type of providers.

Your company can use a 3PL warehouse to:

• Ship products that your company, as the seller of these products, has sold to your customers.
• Receive products that your company, as the buyer of these products, has purchased from your vendors.
• Store your inventory.

Your company can use EDI messages to exchange data with its 3PL warehouses.

This section explains the warehouse 3PL EDI messages that are supported by EDI studio.

In EDI studio, your company is at the center. So, in EDI studio, you set up and use the 3PL EDI messages that your company sends to or receives from a 3PL warehouse.

General

In this section, you can find more detailed information on how to: