Recommendations on an AS/400 EDI package
Bob Hermann
was sold as a module of the BPCS ERP package. Initially, this package was
called EDISOL.
In 1995, SSA (the vendor of BPCS), sold the rights to this package to
Harbinger, although SSA continued to support this package for BPCS
customers. In 1996, Harbinger bought Premenos, and for the next 3 years has
been supporting both EDI packages on the AS/400 (they renamed the EDISOL
package "TrustedLink for the AS/400," and the Premenos package was renamed
EDI/400).
I should have known that the day of reckoning was coming--in the intervening
years, the enthusiasm of both SSA and Harbinger for the TrustedLink product
has been steadily declining. Finally, this fall, they announced that they
are dropping support altogether. Thus my shop is now in the market for a
new EDI package.
My shop is looking at GENTRAN (Sterling), EDI/400 (Harbinger), and Extol. I
would appreciate any recommendations by AS/400 EDI veterans. I am
particularly interested in your experience with customer support from these
vendors. Are your phone calls answered every time? Are you funneled into a
voice mail/menu system? Is their support staff technically competent?
Another area of interest is the mapping/integration mechanism of the various
packages. I know that Extol is table-driven. What about the others?
Another area of interest is the documentation. How thorough is the
documentation?
Thanks. I know all of these packages are expensive, so any information I
can glean from your real-life experience with them will be greatly
appreciated.
Tom Ashworth
package, since the E-Commerce module is written specificly to communicate
with the Premenos/Harbinger product. In my experience with the complexity
of the MAPICS Customer Order Management module, I cannot imagine attempting
to map the data. This does not imply, however, that there are pre-defined
customer/document mapping templates that may be provided by other packages.
There is still the fundamental mapping procedures to be completed both
within MAPICS (to create the EDI/400 compliant user-files) and within
Harbinger (mapping of document/segment/element data), but the overall
process is much simplified.
Documentation is quite thorough and more than sufficient to provide ongoing
development.
I feel fortunate that I have not had recent experience with technical
support, so I cannot comment on implementation issues or response times.
All this information is in regard to the last 'non-client/server' release of
EDI/400; as of V3.02.xx, EDI/400 has radically changed the appearance and
function of the package to a GUI-interface...
one that I choose not to pursue until after the New Year's fireworks die
down.
Best wishes for a successful implementation, whatever application is
selected. I would be more than willing to provide additional information or
details and very interested in the post-implementation results.
Bob Hermann <herm...@nospamxerols.com> wrote in message
news:834esd$t8i$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net...
Charles Wilt
We just installed Sterling's GENTRAN for AS/400 product last month.
Before that we were using their GENTRAN Director for Windows product.
<snip>
>
> My shop is looking at GENTRAN (Sterling), EDI/400 (Harbinger), and Extol. I
> would appreciate any recommendations by AS/400 EDI veterans. I am
> particularly interested in your experience with customer support from these
> vendors. Are your phone calls answered every time? Are you funneled into a
> voice mail/menu system? Is their support staff technically competent?
I've had very little reason to contact them, mostly when I was setting it
up. But each time, with one exception, I've been very satisfied with the
help I've gotten. The one exception is the automation of the EDI
process. I need to get back into touch with them to answer some
questions about automation. As I understand things now, it looks to me
like their applications are completely contained and do not pass error
messages back to programs higher in the stack. In other words, if I
created a CL program that ran the command to load outbound EDI data my
gets no message if the process fails.
I do know that with the built in scheduler, you can specify a command to
run if the scheduled command fails. So if nothing else I suppose I could
schedule the load at 3:00pm, the send at 3:15, the inbound process at
3:30. But that didn't seem like the best way to do things.
As I said, I plan on getting back into touch with them about this. I
think I'm misunderstanding something. For right now, I start everything
from the command line.
>
> Another area of interest is the mapping/integration mechanism of the various
> packages. I know that Extol is table-driven. What about the others?
Basically, you define your application files to GENTRAN. It's better if
you are working from externally defined physical files or a mutli-format
logical of you physicals. Gentran copies in the DDS in this case. Then
in the transaction mapping, you specify if the element comes from an
application field, an external map, a code table or is made up of
subfields. If you specify application field, you are given a list of you
application fields at the appropriate level (Header, detail, Summary). I
found the process quite similar to the PC product and had no problems
setting up my maps.
>
> Another area of interest is the documentation. How thorough is the
> documentation?
Seems to be pretty thorough to me. You get three 3 inch binders. "User
Guide", "Technical Reference Guide", and "Communications Guide". The
only one I've really used was the user guide, and perhaps a little of the
technical reference. I've not needed the communication one because right
now all our EDI is through Sterling.
>
> Thanks. I know all of these packages are expensive, so any information I
> can glean from your real-life experience with them will be greatly
> appreciated.
>
No problem, if you have more questions or want some screen caps of the
mapping let me know. Also, there is a GUI front end available, but IMHO
opinion it's not worth the price. Functionally, the GUI and the green
screen are exactly alike. The GUI has no advantages, nor IMHO does it
make things any easier.
--
Charles Wilt
Miami Luken, Inc.
e-mail: charle...@worldnet.no.spam.att.net
--->remove the no.spam.
Rob
Donald Burdette
have improved it greatly over the years. On the down side, Extols support is
not as good as it once was. When we first started using the package you
could talk to the developers and get good answers to your questions. Now it
takes a long time to get answers and in many cases the quality of those
answers is poor. I believe this is due to the tremendous growth of Extol and
I have hopes that the support will improve as the company matures.
If you are a seasoned EDI professional, I doubt you will have much trouble
with the package and I would still recommend it.
Bob Hermann <herm...@nospamxerols.com> wrote in message
news:834esd$t8i$1...@autumn.news.rcn.net...
> For the past six years, I have been using the EDI package which originally
> was sold as a module of the BPCS ERP package. Initially, this package was
> called EDISOL.
>
> In 1995, SSA (the vendor of BPCS), sold the rights to this package to
> Harbinger, although SSA continued to support this package for BPCS
> customers. In 1996, Harbinger bought Premenos, and for the next 3 years
has
> been supporting both EDI packages on the AS/400 (they renamed the EDISOL
> package "TrustedLink for the AS/400," and the Premenos package was renamed
> EDI/400).
>
> I should have known that the day of reckoning was coming--in the
intervening
> years, the enthusiasm of both SSA and Harbinger for the TrustedLink
product
> has been steadily declining. Finally, this fall, they announced that they
> are dropping support altogether. Thus my shop is now in the market for a
> new EDI package.
>
> My shop is looking at GENTRAN (Sterling), EDI/400 (Harbinger), and Extol.
I
> would appreciate any recommendations by AS/400 EDI veterans. I am
> particularly interested in your experience with customer support from
these
> vendors. Are your phone calls answered every time? Are you funneled into
a
> voice mail/menu system? Is their support staff technically competent?
>
> Another area of interest is the mapping/integration mechanism of the
various
> packages. I know that Extol is table-driven. What about the others?
>
> Another area of interest is the documentation. How thorough is the
> documentation?
>
CJ
box to the tune of $20,000.
Susie Ward
well. I have found the customer support to be very good most of the
time. They seem to work on calling you back in a timely fashion. The
documentation is good but like all documentation it is never quite
enough when it comes to troubleshooting.
We have automated our processing to run in CL programs and notify us of
problems. Basically it involves doing the send or receive command then
looking at the error report that gets generated. It works well for us.
I actually was looking for information about the TrustedLink for the
AS400 package as I am doing some work for a client that uses that
software. I thought it was the old Premenos but if I understand
correctly, it is the old EDISOL? and they are dropping support?? I
would be interested in knowing more about this.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Susie Ward
you have another email address that works?
In article <MPG.12c04932b...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
charle...@no.spam.worldnet.att.net (Charles Wilt) wrote:
> Bob,
>
> We just installed Sterling's GENTRAN for AS/400 product last month.
> Before that we were using their GENTRAN Director for Windows product.
> <snip>
> >
Extol. I
> > would appreciate any recommendations by AS/400 EDI veterans. I am
> > particularly interested in your experience with customer support
from these
> > vendors. Are your phone calls answered every time? Are you
funneled into a
> > voice mail/menu system? Is their support staff technically
competent?
it
> up. But each time, with one exception, I've been very satisfied with
the
> help I've gotten. The one exception is the automation of the EDI
> process. I need to get back into touch with them to answer some
> questions about automation. As I understand things now, it looks to
me
> like their applications are completely contained and do not pass error
> messages back to programs higher in the stack. In other words, if I
> created a CL program that ran the command to load outbound EDI data my
> gets no message if the process fails.
>
> I do know that with the built in scheduler, you can specify a command
to
> run if the scheduled command fails. So if nothing else I suppose I
could
> schedule the load at 3:00pm, the send at 3:15, the inbound process at
> 3:30. But that didn't seem like the best way to do things.
>
> As I said, I plan on getting back into touch with them about this. I
> think I'm misunderstanding something. For right now, I start
everything
> from the command line.
>
> >
various
> > packages. I know that Extol is table-driven. What about the
others?
if
> you are working from externally defined physical files or a
mutli-format
> logical of you physicals. Gentran copies in the DDS in this case.
Then
> in the transaction mapping, you specify if the element comes from an
> application field, an external map, a code table or is made up of
> subfields. If you specify application field, you are given a list of
you
> application fields at the appropriate level (Header, detail, Summary).
I
> found the process quite similar to the PC product and had no problems
> setting up my maps.
>
> >
> > documentation?
"User
> Guide", "Technical Reference Guide", and "Communications Guide". The
> only one I've really used was the user guide, and perhaps a little of
the
> technical reference. I've not needed the communication one because
right
> now all our EDI is through Sterling.
> >
information I
> > can glean from your real-life experience with them will be greatly
> > appreciated.
> >
> mapping let me know. Also, there is a GUI front end available, but
IMHO
> opinion it's not worth the price. Functionally, the GUI and the green
> screen are exactly alike. The GUI has no advantages, nor IMHO does it
> make things any easier.
>
> --
> Charles Wilt
> Miami Luken, Inc.
> e-mail: charle...@worldnet.no.spam.att.net
> --->remove the no.spam.
>