Just a quick post to provide an eBRIDGE ePortal update on some of the newer development efforts. Over the past several months we have been working with some extremely high volume clients and understood that waiting even 20 minutes to have documents transact is too long. It is kind of amazing that what was not only accepted but was considered great performance a few years ago is now way too slow. In today’s economy time is money and we understood the importance of timely processing to our customers.

Initially, we developed some management tools that allowed us to see how long each step in the transaction process was taking – from picking up the file initially to conversion and translations. Once we had a view of the times, we were able to re-write several of the slower components into much faster blocks of code. This resulted in an “on average” performance increase of around 30X faster for overall processing.  Our typical transaction time for all ePortal operations is now in the <30 second zone. This, while maintaining around 978,000 active documents through the eBRIDGE ePortal.

While we have had numerous comments about the better performance, I felt a quick update post was in order to spread the message. If you haven’t been on your ePortal account, take a look. We continuously add features and capabilities (and these are available today to all ePortal users).

EDI Translation, I'm an existing user, Integration as a Service, Technology Corner, The ePortal Web-based Transaction Engine, What is the ePortal? online transactions, software as a service, transaction processing

Inspired by Colin’s Earth Day post, I started to wonder exactly how much paper is being saved by ePortal users.  I made a few calculations (and a few assumptions, so please bear with me) and I came up with some interesting numbers.

Alex, our VP, tells us that to date we have processed about 1 million business documents through ePortal.  If we imagine each one of these documents as a single sheet of paper saved (probably a lowball estimate), my first calculation tells us that this would be equal to about one million sheets of paper (thank you, university education).

To put this in perspective, a stack of paper this size would be approximately 100 meters high which is as tall as a ten story building, or a vertical football field, if you will.

If you were to lay these sheets end to end, it would span about 289 kilometers which would take you about three hours to drive on the highway.

The stack would weigh about 9900 pounds, roughly the same as an average African elephant.

It would take the average laser printer about 46 days to print this many pages.

What I’m really trying to say is this is A LOT of paper!  Naturally, the next question would be “how many trees is this?”

The folks at the paper mill tell me that there are an average of 8333 sheets of paper in a single tree, which means that to date, ePortal has saved about 120 trees.  An acre of rainforest in Borneo has approximately 244 trees.

Alex also tells me that we push about 4000 documents through ePortal every day, so if we extrapolate this, by January 1, 2010 ePortal will have saved over an acre of rainforest!  Not bad at all, if you ask me.

Keep it green,

Dave Irons

P.S. Don’t even think about printing this!

References

http://www.conservatree.org/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml

http://earthday.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-many-trees-do-you-get

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=lt&dlc=lt&docname=c00312638

Thickness of a sheet = 0.1  mm

Length of a sheet = 28.94 cm

HP 1020 Laser printer: 15 ppm

Weight of a sheet of paper = 4.5 g

1 tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper or 8,333.3 sheets

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It’s time to do an economy related post on the Sage Software Integrated EDI solution blog I’ve had running successfully since 2007.

I have been calling a ton of companies lately with the same goal in mind and that is to find companies that are just requiring to implement EDI and need a solution or have been running EDI for years but paying excessive amount of costs.

In the case of the existing EDI user, they have been set-up on some sort of Web based EDI solution. Next they have been manually printing sales orders into their accounting system such as Sage MAS 90. Then going back to the same Web based EDI system to manually type in the invoice and send it back via EDI to Wal-Mart and probably paying a fee for that otherwise should be free service.

Since we’re talking Wal-mart, when you walk into Wal-mart you will typically see 2 shopping carts at the front of the store showing 2 carts full of the same products. One with items bought at Wal-mart with the Wal-Mart receipt and shrink-wrapped, and the other bought at a competitor with their much higher receipt. Shown in the same manner, we could use the same scenario for EDI – you can see the bigger picture.

Typical EDI providers will have a per document fee or Kilo Character service plan based on your monthly volume, below is an example of such costs.

Company  - A

EDI Services - Transaction based Webforms

Manual Printing and Data Entry

With this scenario the company is paying for someone to log into online to some Web site to view the EDI orders and print them then spend a few hours typing them into the ERP solution and then later going back to the same online system to type Invoices (810) and Advanced Shipping Notices (856) which has a whole other set of problems with functionality.

This company is paying about $6000-$7,000 per year for 12 Partners to use a website to get documents and send documents via EDI and handling this all manually. The solution is invest in an integrated solution that I can work with the customer to provide the cost for implementation and get onto our system that is not transaction based and will provide your company with multiple connections to not only normal Trading Partners but also 3PL ( Third Party Logistics ) providers and eCommerce platforms such as eBay.

The Sage Software EDI solution market space is full of companies and resellers that can either provide you with a service, sell you tools or build something from scratch, the choices are really up to you to decide and evaluate. I can tell you many EDI providers do not write their own EDI solutions and typically rely on another vendor to write the connections. Who does the support for this?  eBridge does all of the integration work, we don’t customize the ERP solution in order for EDI to function like many of them do and we provide yes a True end-to-end solution that is complete by one company including the communication with No monthly transaction costs.

Save Money Now

Cheers,

Wayne

eBridge Software
Account Manager
Direct: 905-635-3309
Ph: 905-631-8333 ext. 247
Fax: 416-946-1805

EDI - Our Customers Trading Partner Series

The eBridge Software Trading Partner Series was developed to give our customers a place to go to determine what the common EDI requirements are for their trading partners. 

Today we are going to talk about the EDI requirements for Macy’s and what resources are available to help make the transition to EDI simpler. 

Whether you have been requested to start using EDI to transact with Macy’s or you want to eliminate all the extra work required to key orders in manually, the best place to start is the vendor site for Macy’s called MacysNet.  This site has everything you need to become familiar with Macy’s EDI policies. One of the first links to visit will be the EDI Startup Form. One of the first things you will notice on this form is that it tells you exactly which documents you may be required to transact with Macy’s:

180 - Return Merchandise Authorization and Notification

240 - Motor Carrier Package Status

810 – Invoice

820 – Payment Remittance

832 - Price/Sales Catalog

846 - Inventory Inquiry/Advice

850 – Purchase Order

852 – Product Activity Data

855 – PO Acknowledgement

856 – Advance Ship Notice

The site also contains a listing of Macy’s EDI contacts, EDI Transmit Schedule, Macy’s EDI Implementation Guides and also the form for 856 testing.

Adding a trading partner like Macy’s can be an overwhelming experience if you are new to EDI or if you do not have the resources to handle the implementation so why not leave the implementation up to the experts. eBridge has been integrating EDI for 15 years and understands how to implement Macy’s EDI requirements in a quickly and efficiently. With ePortal you can actually be set up to receive EDI documents from Macy’s in a couple days, not a couple weeks. Give me a call and I can answer any questions you may have on in regards to Macy’s or any other trading partner you may have. 

PS - Don’t forget to follow eBridge Software on Twitter (http://twitter.com/eBridgeSoftware)

Cheers,
Jay

Account Manager – MS Dynamics GP and SL Integrations
1-800-775-6921 x269
jisaak@ebridgesoft.com
www.ebridgeconnections.com

EDI - Our Customers Trading Partner Series trading partner series

Earth Day:

How many 8 1/2 X  11 inch sheets of paper come out of one tree?

save a tree, eBridge your documents

Integration, eBRIDGE Blog ebridge your documents, Global Warming is Harming Forests, Save a Tree

Microsoft announced the dates and location of Microsoft Convergence 2010. It will be held in Atlanta Georgia from April 25 – 28, 2010. For more information check out the MS Convergence homepage

Cheers,

Jay

Events Convergence, Dynamics AX, Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics SL

Microsoft has decided to cancel the Convergence 2009 event in Vienna. The event is geared towards the EMEA markets. They will be replacing the annual conference ,which sees an attendance of roughly 4000 people, with numerous local events. You can read more about it on the Microsoft Convergence homepage.

Cheers,

Jay

Events Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM, Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics SL, Micorsoft Convergence

If you couldn’t make it down to New Orleans this year for Microsoft Convergence 2009 you do not have to worry. You can enjoy still experience the expo but now you can do it from the comfort of your office or home. You can find eBridge Software’s booth at the Convergence Virtual Tradeshow by clicking here and selecting eBridge Software from the Exhibitor drop down.

Events Microsoft Convergence

Hi Everyone,

If you are a Sage product user come visit us in Nashville, Tennessee from May 11-13 at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center Booth #1073. 

eBridge is a Gold Certified Partner that provides solutions for integration to and from your webstore, CRM, EDI trading partner(s) and supply chain management systems with Sage MAS 90, MAS 200, MAS 500, Sage PFW, Sage BusinessVision and more. 

Be sure to stop by Booth #1073 to get answers for your questions by one of our experience eBridge representatives.

Click here for the Official Sage Insights 2009 website

Click here to see the full list of Sage products eBridge integrates with.

Thanks,

Dave Malda.

EDI - Our Customers Trading Partner Series Sage BusinessVision, sage mas 200, sage mas 500, sage mas 90, sage software integration