The PREPARE, CHECK, PROCESS Converters
Anveo EDI Connect offers converters to handle the business process. The mappings can be used to check data and to transfer data between tables in the same database. This converter is used to add all processing logic to the EDI workflow.
Each license of Anveo EDI Connect contains an unlimited number of business process mappings.
Best Practices
Before version 5.00 of the module we had one converter (called NAV) for handling business logic. From our experience you should split the handling of data into several steps. Below you can find a short summary, you can learn more in the section modelling mapping workflows.
Incoming
For incoming data you should convert them from the external format to buffer tables, so that the user can access the raw data. In the next step you should prepare the data, so that the user can work with it (translate item numbers, find descriptions etc.). We have the new PREPARE converter for this step. The next step should be checking the data and see whether all information to process the data is present. This way you can keep the system load low, if the data is not as expected. The last step or steps is to process the data using the new PROCESS converter.
Outgoing
For outgoing logic the steps would be to prepare the data, to check the data and afterwards to export the data in the target file format. If you have processing steps in the logic, you can also implement them, but often there is no processing required.
Properties
We assume that you know how to work with mapping lines and how to access the EDI properties.
The NAV converter does not add a lot of converter specific EDI properties to the mapping. Most properties are already discussed before. In this converter there is one special line type. Mapping lines where the property Type is set to Data behave differently than in other mappings.
EDI Mapping Lines With Type Set to Data
These lines have a SourceExpr and DestExpr and are used to transfer data from one table to another or to execute functions or assign constant values to table fields. These lines read the SourceExpr and write the result to the DestExpr. We have a separate section, where we describe those properties.
The mapping lines where the property Type of the property DestExpr is set to Filter will create an error, if the SourceExpr does not match the specified filter. In this converter you cannot use filters for conditional execution of mapping parts.
In this converter the DestExpr also has an additional property, which allows you to do simple calculations directly in the mapping.
DestExpr
This property is only available if the DestType is set to Field. You can use Anveo EDI Connect to calculate values. Setting this property to another value than Assign will use the existing value in the table instance and add/substract/multiply or divide it with the source value of this line.
The possible values are:
Override the existing value in the table field.
Add the value to the current value of the field in the table instance.
Subtract the value from the current value of the field in the table instance.
Multiply the value with the current value of the field in the table instance.
Divide the the current value of the field in the table instance with the source value.