Introduction to EDI X12

EDI is often required when dealing with larger companies.  Most of the common interactions between trading partners have been codified into various EDI file formats.  We’ll teach you how to read EDI files, and how to lookup implementation guides to understand what each field means.

This first part of the course is high level, and can be used by managers, business analysts, and quality assurance/testers to gain a deeper understanding of EDI.  The second part of the course will show how to process EDI files in several popular programming languages.

The course looks at three families of EDI messages: ECommerce, Motor Carrier (Trucking/Logistics/Freight), and HIPAA/HealthCare.  Implementation guides are discussed for the most popular messages in each category.

At the end of this course, a programmer should be able to either create an EDI file from a database, or receive, parse, and store incoming EDI information into a database.  All the programming examples will be done with the EDI 850 Purchase Order.