Updates to Information Exchange Version 4 Release 7

Date posted: July 11, 2000

Customers affected: All users of Information Exchange.

This Technical Bulletin contains information about updates to Information Exchange Version 4 Release 7 planned for implementation on July 30, 2000, on the USA system and on October 15, 2000, on the EUR system.

Additional information about the updates described in this Technical Bulletin can be found in U.S. announcement letter  600-028, dated July 11, 2000 (EMEA announcement letter ZS00-0159, dated September 26, 2000), titled "New Features Extend the Capabilities of GXS."

Carbon Copy Updates

The following carbon copy enhancements will be available beginning on the date specified above:

• Allow redirect function in send-side carbon copy relationships. Previously, only receive-side redirects were allowed. This enhancement is of benefit to customers who are sending messages to trading partners connected to another EDI service provider, also referred to as Value Added Network (VAN), and the trading partner wants the message to be redirected to another user or mailbox. The trading partner who is not a customer of GXS cannot define the carbon copy relationship; therefore, the sender needed the redirect capability. Information Exchange Administration Services panels will be updated to allow customers to request this new option. The "purge original message? (Y/N)" field will be displayed regardless of whether the carbon copy type is S (send) or R (receive); allowing for redirect of the message.
• Allow multiple copies of the same Information Exchange message to be sent to another VAN. Because the messages sent to the other service provider are routed to the intended receiver based on the EDI receiver ID in the header of the message, the messages ultimately will end up at the separate end users.

Information Exchange Support of Internet Messaging via SMTP

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) gateway extends the ability of Information Exchange customers to exchange EDI data, binary files, and text messages with any party that has an Internet mail connection. As an EDI Services customer, you can now transmit electronic transactions to your trading partners who use Internet mail to communicate. With this feature, these partners can participate in EDI without the need to invest in additional hardware or software.

To facilitate this new function, each Information Exchange user receives an SMTP address on the Internet. SMTP Internet trading partners are automatically assigned an Information Exchange address when they send information to an Information Exchange user, or Information Exchange users can easily define Internet trading partners using Information Exchange Administration Services.

Provide EDI Qualifier ID and ID of Sender and Receiver in Billing Extract

The user message class and the EDI Qualifier ID and ID of the sender and receiver of a message have been added to the billing extract report. This enhancement allows for the identification of specific trading partners for messages exchanged with users on other VANs.

Send-Side Redirect

The ability to have a sent message be redirected to a carbon copy recipient has been added. In the past, only received messages could be marked for redirection and sent messages could only be carbon copied. The following rules apply for send-side redirection:

• If the original message will not flow because of a nonexistent original receiver or payment resolution (including block communication), no carbon copies (including send-side redirects) will be processed.
• The sender of the original redirected message will always pay the send-side charge regardless of the original intended receiver's willingness to pay the send-side charge.
• No receive-side audit will be created for the original redirected message.
• None of the receiver's carbon copy relationships will be processed.
• In the case of a send-side redirect relationship, the original intended receiver is the partner in the relationship and cannot pay any of the carbon copy charges. (Panel edits will ensure that the partner is not allowed to be specified as the intended payer of either carbon copy charge.)

Allow Multiple Carbon Copy Messages to be Sent to Another VAN

In general, the rule for carbon copy processing has been that each requester of carbon copy messages can only have one copy of a message generated for one specific account and user ID. For Information Exchange users, this works fine. However, for trading partners on another VAN, this is very prohibitive. To Information Exchange, every user on another interconnected VAN is accessed via the one account/user ID assigned to the VAN (for example, VANS XXMAIL). The distinction between actual end users is made via the EDI Qualifier and ID. An enhancement has been made to Information Exchange carbon copy processing to allow multiple carbon copies to another VAN, with the restriction that each message must be destined to a unique EDI Qualifier and ID pair.

Details of SMTP Gateway Billing Considerations

Since the Internet user will not be a customer of GXS or Information Exchange, charges will only be incurred by the Information Exchange user. The Information Exchange user will be billed send-side charges for sending to an Internet user and receive-side charges for receiving from an Internet user.

When a message is carbon copied or redirected to an Internet user, a receive-side charge will be generated which must be paid by an Information Exchange user. This charge can be assigned to the requester of the carbon copy relationship or the partner, as long as the partner is a local Information Exchange user.

If an Internet trading partner is specified as the partner or recipient in a carbon copy relationship, the Internet trading partner will not be allowed to be specified as the person who pays for carbon copy processing or carbon copy receive charges.

Details of SMTP Gateway Audit Considerations

When sending from Information Exchange to an Internet trading partner, Information Exchange will request non-delivery reports, but it will not request delivery reports. The delivery report is not requested because delivery reports may or may not be returned, based on various factors outside of our control. Information Exchange will set the audit status to "X" as soon as it has received notification that the message has left the Information Exchange system. This audit status of "X" indicates that the message was sent to a system that does not return delivery reports. This will be the final audit status of the message.

If a non-delivery report is returned, it will appear as a regular message in the Information Exchange user's mailbox. The sender of the message will be account ID *SYSTEM* and user ID *SMTPGW*. The Information Exchange audit status will not be updated to show the message was purged, since the non-delivery report appears the same as any other message to Information Exchange. Messages from *SYSTEM**SMTPGW* will not result in any charges to the Information Exchange user.

Support of Multipart Messages

The SMTP gateway to Information Exchange will accept messages that contain multiple message parts (such as attached files) and/or forwarded messages. If there is a single part in the message, it will be sent as is, with no text added. If there are multiple parts, each EDI and binary part will be sent as a separate message. A single Information Exchange text message will be created which includes all text parts, plus generated text to indicate the message part boundaries, forwarded parts, and whether any EDI or binary parts were sent separately.

Details of Information Exchange Administration Services Changes (3270 Interface)

There are no new or changed Web pages for Information Exchange Administration Services for the Web as a result of this release.

The Information Exchange Administration Services 3270 interface panels listed below are affected by changes covered in this Technical Bulletin.

Add/Browse/Change a Carbon Copy Relationship Panel (M3820US)

The "Always purge original message? (Y/N)" was previously only displayed for X12 and UCS receive-side carbon copy relationships. This field will now be displayed regardless of the carbon copy type when the data type is X12 or UCS. In addition, the "Purge original message? (Y/N)" field was previously only displayed for EDIFACT and UN/TDI receive-side relationships and will now be displayed for these two data types regardless of the carbon copy type.

The "Always purge original message" and "Purge original message" fields will default to N for existing send-side relationships.

The "Archive original message? (Y/N)" and "If archiving, archive reference ID" fields will continue to be displayed only for receive-side relationships. You cannot archive a message when sending.

Change EDI Criteria (M3821US)

The "Purge orig?" columns were previously only displayed for receive-side X12 and UCS relationships when "Always purge original message" on panel M3820US was set to N. These fields will now be displayed, regardless of the carbon copy type, when the data type is X12 or UCS and N has been entered in the "Always purge original message? (Y/N)" field on panel M3820US.

The "Purge orig?" fields will default to N for existing send-side relationships if the "Always purge original message? (Y/N)" field on M3820US is N.

Add/Browse/Change a Carbon Copy Relationship Panel (M3822US)

The "Purge original message? (Y/N)" field was previously only displayed for receive-side carbon copy relationships. This field will now be displayed regardless of the type of carbon copy relationship. This field will default to N for existing send relationships and will be protected when displayed in browse mode.

The "Archive original message? (Y/N)" and "If archiving, archive reference ID" fields will continue to be displayed only for receive-side relationships. You cannot archive a message when sending.

Copy a Carbon Copy Relationship (M3861US)

The placement of the "Purge original message (Y/N)" field has changed. It is no longer under the heading "If carbon copy type R". The "Archive original message" field has been moved over to the left and the text before the field has changed.

The "Purge original message? (Y/N)" field will default to N for existing send-side relationships.

Information Exchange Administration Services Main Menu (M0000US)

A new action for "Internet services" will be displayed on the main menu. If this action is selected, the new Work with Internet Services menu (M9600) is displayed. From this menu, the user will be able to select to work with Internet user profiles and Internet trading partner attributes.

Browse an Account Profile (M1350US)

A new field "Allow users in account to exchange Internet messages?" has been added in support of Internet messaging. This new field will enable the account administrator to control whether users in the account can exchange mail via the Internet (SMTP).

• If a "Y" is specified in this field, the users in the account will be authorized to access Internet services functions within Information Exchange Administration Services and will also be authorized to send
  messages to, and receive messages from, Internet trading partners. Individual users within the account can still block Internet messages via their trading partner lists with an entry of account ID "SMTP", user ID "?" and block communications flags set to "Y".
• If an "N" is specified in this field, the users in the account will not be authorized to access Internet services functions within Information Exchange Administration Services and will not be authorized to send messages to, or receive messages from, Internet trading partners. This is the default setting.

Internet User Profile and Trading Partner Attributes Functions

New Information Exchange Administration Services panels are now available to enable Information Exchange users to define their Internet trading partner's address and to define Internet trading partner attributes.

If the user selects to work with Internet user profiles from the Work with Internet Services menu (M9600), the Work with Internet User Profiles menu (M9610) will be displayed. From this menu, the user may select to list, add and browse an Internet user profile. The user may also select to browse an Information Exchange user's Internet address or work with Internet trading partner attributes.

If the user selects to list Internet user profiles, the List Internet User Profiles panel (M9611) is displayed. This panel displays a list of the Internet user profiles which contains the Internet account ID and user ID and a description of the address. The description is actually the first 52 characters of the Internet address. From this panel, the user can select to browse an Internet user profile.

If the user selects to add an Internet user profile, the Add an Internet User Profile panel (M9612) is displayed. This panel will allow the user to enter the address of an Internet trading partner, for example, johndoe@xyz.com. Upon completion of this action, the new Internet user profile will be assigned the account ID "SMTP" and a user ID such as "U9999999".

If the user selects to browse an Internet user profile, the Browse an Internet User Profile panel (M9612) is displayed. This panel allows the user to view an Internet user profile without making any changes.

If the user selects to browse an Information Exchange user's Internet address, the Browse an Information Exchange User's Internet Address panel (M9614) is displayed. This is the address Internet trading partners need in order to exchange messages with the Information Exchange user.

If the user selects to work with Internet trading partner attributes from the Work with Internet Services menu (M9600) or the Work with Internet User Profiles menu (M9610), the Work with Internet Trading Partner Attributes menu (M9620) is displayed. From this menu, the user can select to list, add, browse, change and delete Internet trading partner attributes, which define how data will be formatted between the Information Exchange user and the Internet trading partner. The user may also select to work with translation tables and to work with Internet user profiles.

If the user selects to list Internet trading partner attributes, the List Internet Trading Partner Attributes panel (M9621) is displayed. This panel displays a list of the Internet trading partners for which the user has defined trading partner attributes to be used when sending messages to, and/or receiving messages from, the specific Internet trading partner. From this list, the user can select to browse, change and delete Internet trading partner attributes.

If the user selects to add, browse or change Internet trading partner attributes, the Add/Browse/Change Internet Trading Partner Attributes panel (M9622) is displayed. This panel allows the Information Exchange user to define, view or change the preferred content type to use when sending messages to a particular Internet trading partner, message class to use when receiving messages from a particular Internet trading partner, and translation table to use when sending or receiving messages. Translation tables are used to convert EBCDIC to ASCII when sending messages and ASCII to EBCDIC when receiving messages. Content type can be specified as:

• MIME EDI (for application/EDIFACT, application/EDI-X12 or application/EDI-Consent content types as defined by RFC 1767; application/EDIFACT is used for UN/EDIFACT data, application/EDI-X12 is used for ANSI ASC X12 data, and application/EDI-Consent is used for UN/TDI and UCS data types.)
• General MIME (for application/octet-stream content type used for binary data)
• Text (for text/plain content type used for text messages)

If the user selects to delete Internet trading partner attributes, the Delete Internet Trading Partner Attributes panel (M9625) is displayed. This panel allows the Information Exchange user to delete trading partner attributes for a particular Internet trading partner.

If the user selects to work with translation tables, the Work with Translation Tables menu (M9500) is displayed. From this menu, the user can select to list or browse translation tables.