Contents

Description
Despatch by TDOC
Receipt by Recipient

Description

EDI (or Electronic Data Interchange) is a mechanism to speed up communications between people who use disparate and separate electronic systems. It is infinitely preferable to allow each party to use whatever system they prefer rather than to force someone to use "your" system. Electronic Data Interchange is exactly what it says. It enables information to be sent from one system to another where the recipient can import and verify it with minimal effort.

An EDI file is simply a text file with a structure which can be parsed to obtain the necessary information. There are no standards covering CEMDC (Construction Engineering Management Document Control). XML is another form of EDI consisting of text files in a specific format but which additionally requires the schema to be "published" so that the receipint can decode what is received.

TDOC supports EDI for the following transactions:

• Transmission of General Documents,
• Transmission of Technical Documents covering:
  • Transmittal,
  • Acknowledgement of Receipt,
  • Return with Comments (after review).

In order to enable transmission between someone using TDOC and someone who only has access to the internet, TDOC also generates an HTML form which when completed generates an EDI back to the originator. This simple methodology ensures the operability of what might be termed "one sided EDI".

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Despatch by TDOC

When a document is generated and despatched by TDOC and sent by email, three things happen:

• An electronic copy of the document is created - to act as the legal record,
• An EDI file is created - for use by recipients if they are using compliant software,
• An HTML form is created to allow the recipient to answer - if they do not have any systems.

The email includes all three of the generated documents, and the recipient can then decide how they wish to react.

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Receipt by Recipient

Recipients have a number of choices when receiving a document by email, and these are:

• Print the document, and file it - effectively doing nothing and relying on their email system to record when it arrived and from whom,
  • Reply if required by responding to the email
  • Reply by using the HTML form, which does two things:
    • Generates an email with an EDI which is sent to the originator,
    • Generates a confirmation email back to the recipient.
• Record the receipt in their own system either entering the information manually or by using the EDI file to import the information,
  • Reply if required using their own system.

The same options exist for the a TDOC User. The EDI import being the easiest and fastest option as long as the recipient has used either a compliant system or the HTML form to make their despatch.

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