Over the next few weeks in our Support blog, we would like to highlight and clarify some of the documentation which is typically requested of our valued customers when they log a Support Case with the eBridge Help Desk.

For some, logging a Support Case can be a somewhat stressful exercise, and we take very seriously the fact that we are dealing with our clients’ vital business documents – which can be subject to strict timelines, and involve significant sums of money which are dependent on sound relationships.

We also appreciate that the issues which arise can be fairly technical in nature, and their solutions are oftentimes no less simple. It is because of this fact, however, that our Support Specialists sometimes require a range of technical documentation to troubleshoot an issue and come to a prompt resolution to the satisfaction of you and your trading partner.

One of the main pieces of documentation which is often requested is referred to as an ‘export only’.

An export only is usually requested when there is an issue mapping business data from your accounting package out to your trading partner. Accordingly, an export only is usually only requested if there is an issue with an outbound profile (exporting invoices, purchase order acknowledgements, shipping notices, etc.).

The issue is often caught by our ePortal system, which will recognize non-compliant data and send it to your non-compliant outbox, triggering an email notification which is sent to you informing you of the problem. Secondarily, the issue will sometimes be brought to you by your trading partner. If the relationship is primarily EDI, you will most likely receive an 864 text document indicating a document you sent was non-compliant according to their protocols, or the accepted EDI standards.  In other instances, your trading partner will contact you directly via email.

An issue with the data being sent, or the map being used to send it, is usually the culprit; although a document can be rejected for a variety of reasons – including changes in the EDI standards accepted by your trading partner, a change in the business relationship, or changes in taxation, pricing, discounts, and other promotional details which are subject to change.

An export only allows our Support Specialists to view the raw data being sent from your accounting package. This data is evaluated independently for errors or inconsistencies, and it is also compared against the map being used, the data which arrives on ePortal, and the standards insisted upon by your trading partner.

The process for retrieving an ‘export only’ of raw data from your accounting package is quite simple.

The process is executed through the eBridge desktop application through the outbound profile, ‘export only’. Please find the steps below:

1. Open the bridge program.
2. Choose process from the file menu.
3. Select outbound run from the drop down menu.
4. You will see a Profile ID dropdown-please select the export only or export profile id.
5. Then run the outbound profile.
6. Select the document type for the type of documents you wish to export (810, 855, 856, etc.)
7. Put in any other criteria you wish for retrieving these documents (date range, trading partner, etc).
8. Click the retrieve button.
9. You will see your screen start to process and then it will populate with data.
10. Please highlight the documents you wish to export.
11. Then click export.
12. The file will export to C:\Program Files\eBridgesoft\eBridge200x\Data\export.txt – please email this file

This documentation is essential to the troubleshooting required to determine what the issue is and to locate a resolution as quickly as possible.

We hope that you have found this information useful and that you will now have some background on the rationale behind our requests from the Help Desk.

Thank you for reading and make sure to check in next week for more information about the nuts and bolts of your interaction with the Help Desk and Support Services generally.

Take care for now,

Paul Tittel

Help Desk Administrator

Support, eBRIDGE Blog eBRIDGE Blog, eBridge Help Desk, Export Only, Support

Recently I came across great article on B2B.com and I’m not sure if I should be surprised at the results.

In a poll within the B2B community, 28 percent of the respondents said they exchange data with their partners using an Excel spreadsheet. 28 percent! That’s a significant amount of work being done that has potential for costing you money, a few of which include:

• Human factor (data entry errors, misinterpretation of data, transposition errors, illness)
• Manually entering data into Excel that is stored somewhere else (inventory quantities from an ERP system, for example)
• Excel version incompatibilities
• Format/layout differences amongst partners
• Macro viruses

The article also outlines problems with Excel’s ugly cousin, paper-based communication, which is also widespread. To be fair, I can’t really be too hard on those businesses and individuals. Excel and paper are ubiquitous and Read more…

Integration B2B, Integration, Mike C

Greetings!

This week in Support we had a number of clients who encountered the following dialog box upon logging in to their eBridge integration solution:

At first glance, this can be alarming as images of long lines and red tape at the DMV are instantly conjured up. But alas, there is nothing to worry about here, particularly with eBridge Support Services waiting in the wings.

We recently upgraded our license manager to a new version which no longer relies on a license and registration file. In other words, your license is verified (and updated) by pinging against our ePortal web service.

Should you encounter the above message, simply contact the eBridge Help Desk at support@ebridgeconnections.com , and we will walk you through the simple step-by-step process to update your eBridge license using our handy update utility.

You will be back up-and-running in no time at all.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime with your questions or concerns!

My direct number here at the Help Desk is 905-631-8057.

Have a great weekend and we will talk next week,

Paul Tittel

Help Desk Administrator

Support, Uncategorized eBridge Help Desk, ebridge license, eBridge Support

Hello Everybody!

This week in Support we have had a number of clients who contacted the Help Desk with a commonly-experienced error message: “eBridge User Locked”.

When this occurs, logging into the application is temporarily disabled. This will prevent two users (aside from the administrator) from being logged in simultaneously and compromising the integration process.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution which we will outline here for current and future reference.

Step 1:

Log in as “admin” to unlock the user. The username is “admin”, and the password is “edibridge” (without the quotation marks).

Step 2:

Navigate to “Reports”, and click on “Users Status”.

Step 3:

Next, highlight the user you wish to unlock and click on the “Unlock” button.

Now, you should be able to log into your eBridge software without issue!

I know that many of you will find this useful in the future; and remember, Support Services is always here to help you with any technical issue you have with your integration solution.

Signing off for now,

Paul Tittel

Help Desk Administrator

Uncategorized

This week in  eBridge Support Services we have been dealing with a number of cases related to Data Lookup tables.

Data Lookup tables require ongoing maintenance to ensure transaction stability with all of your EDI trading partners.

Data Lookup tables are essential to the smooth exchange of information between trading partners because different parties using different accounting applications will store information in different ways.

For example, you may sell an “ItemABC” to your customer, but your customer may refer to the same item as “Item123”. The eBridge application uses Data Lookup (or Translation) tables to check equivalencies for the following information:

• Customer
• Ship To Address
• Inventory Item

Upon initial installation of your eBridge application, these Data Lookup tables are empty and must be populated so that all mandatory fields on inbound and outbound documents contain valid information. This is typically completed during the implementation process.

However, these tables require ongoing maintenance, and this is where Support Services enters the picture. If these tables are not kept current, errors will result.

Updates to your Data Lookup tables are required in the following cases:

• When your accounting application is updated with a new EDI trading partner;
• When a new Ship To address is used by an EDI trading partner; or
• When a new Inventory Item is to be ordered by an EDI trading partner

This information must be added into the Data Lookup table to avoid errors and ensure timely exchange of vital information.  Should you be undergoing any of these changes, do not hesitate to contact Support Services and we will be happy to guide you through this process.

If you have any questions related to Data Lookup tables, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment and we will be happy to address your concerns!

Until next week,

Paul Tittel

Help Desk Administrator

Support, eBRIDGE Blog Data Lookup tables, Support