Introduction to BOS EDI & Excel Solution
This article will continue to share the BOS sample workflow: use the Excel port and the Email port to generate a series of files and complete the EDI communication with BOS.
Download WorkflowDownload Sample Files
The BOS EDI to Excel sample flow has pre-configured ports for converting the following transaction sets from BOS's EDI integration specification:
1. 4905 Material Requirements Planning, BOS -> Enterprise
2. 4913 Shipping Notice, Enterprise -> BOS
By visualizing EDI messages into Excel, enterprises can better understand and process data, improve work efficiency and reduce error rates. Before the integration of EDI system and internal business system is realized, the Excel solution is the best temporary alternative.
The following ports form the core elements of the workflow:
1. OFTP port: Configure the OFTP information of BOS to complete the data sending and receiving with BOS.
2. VDA Port: Generate VDA files from XML or convert VDA files to XML for further processing.
3. Excel port: Convert data from XML format to Excel file or convert data from Excel file to XML format.
4. EmailSend port: analyze the received BOS data and generate the final Excel file and send it to the designated mailbox.
5. EmailReceive port: Get the Excel data to be sent to BOS from the specified mailbox.
These ports can be configured to automatically move files from one port to the next until incoming EDI files are converted to Excel files and sent by mail, or Excel data taken from designated mailboxes are converted to EDI ready to send document. Automation settings for each port can be modified in its Automation tab:
Or you can manually handle each step in the workflow using the "Send" button in the port's "Inputs" tab:
If you want to use this sample flow in your workspace, please follow the instructions below:
import workspace
create workspace
First, run the Zhixingzhiqiao EDI system, navigate to the Workflow tab and click the gear icon in the upper right corner. Select the Create Workspace option to create a new workspace BOS for this example stream:
import workspace
Then, from the same gear drop-down menu, click Import Workspace. In the dialog box that appears, select the downloaded sample flow BOS.arcflow to import related ports and settings, as shown in the figure below:
After successfully importing the sample flow, you can start configuring the port to best suit your specific use case.
OFTP port
Navigate to the Settings tab for the BOS_OFTP port:
Configure the OFTP information of BOS according to the OFTP document provided by BOS. You must enter the SSID/SFID, password, remote host address, port, and trading partner certificate to configure BOS:
After the configuration is complete, you can click the "Test Connection" button on the Settings tab page to perform a connection test.
After the connection test is completed, please navigate to the "Input" tab to upload the test file to BOS for testing, and you can also navigate to the "Output" tab to view the file sent by BOS.
Email Send port
Navigate to the Settings tab of the BOS_EmailSend port:
To configure sending email information and receiving email information, you must configure your sending email server, port, user, authentication type, password, TLS type, and recipient email:
After the setting is complete, click the "Test Connection" button to test and verify.
Email Receive port
Navigate to the Settings tab of the BOS_EmailReceive port:
To configure the receiving mailbox information, you must configure your receiving mailbox server, port, mailbox, TLS type, and authentication information:
After the setting is complete, click the "Test Connection" button to test and verify.
To better understand which ports handle a single EDI document from start to finish, read on.
track every file
4905 Material Requirements Planning
To test the functionality of this part of the workflow, you can use the example VDA4905_TEST.edi. Navigate to the Inputs tab of the BOS_VDAToXML port. Select the sample file and click Send to trigger the workflow. :
Then process the file and send it to the BOS_XMLToExcel_4905 port, and finally send it to the BOS_EmailSend port to send to the specified mailbox.
4913 Shipping Notice
When the VDA4913 (example: VDA4913_TEST.xlsx) data is obtained from the specified mailbox, it will be displayed in the output tab of the BOS_EmailReceive port. The file will pass through the BOS_ExcelToXML_4913 port, BOS_XMLToVDA port, and finally be sent to the BOS_OFTP port to send to BOS. You can navigate to Input tab of the BOS_OFTP port to view the generated VDA4913 EDI file.
Are you up and running?
If the answer is yes, then congratulations on successfully configuring the BOS EDI & Excel Scenario Sample Workflow! However, if you run into any issues or have any further queries, please feel free to contact us.