CompTIA EIDX Business Best Practices Contents

• Terms and Conditions Agreements
• Transactions/Messages with Pending Status
• Technical Best Practices
• Notes about EIDX Supporting Documentation

Assumptions
Unless otherwise stated, EIDX business models and scenarios are based on an assumption that the parties involved have a pre-established relationship and exchanges are for products that are purchased repetitively.  The following information has been exchanged in advance: 

• Product Information
  • Buyer's part number
  • Part revision or engineering change number
  • Seller's part number
  • 3rd party's part number (if applicable)
  • Other relevant part numbers (e.g. UPC)
  • Customs article number (if applicable)
  • Relevant product specifications
• Partner Identification Information
  • Sender/Receiver IDs
  • Addresses cross-referenced to address codes
  • Identification of 3rd parties
  • Global Terms and Conditions (between trading partners) - terms that apply to all purchase orders; may be overridden on individual purchase orders. 
  • Established pricing (quote, catalog, or contract)
  • Tax Identification Number (e.g., resale or VAT number)
  • Default shipping instructions (carriers, modes, service levels)

Assumptions are also made about what events may or may not have preceded others:

• Orders
  • The purchase order process has been preceded with a quoting or contracting cycle.  The buyer may send planning forecast to seller.  (Optional - depends on which Replenishment Scenario is being used).
• Consignment
  • Normally, a supplier is not going to consign inventory to a new, relatively unknown trading partner.  We assume that consignment process has been preceded with negotiation and establishment of a Trading Partner Agreement covering the terms and liabilities of the relationship.
• Financial
  • Account information, such as bank identifier and account number

Terms and Conditions Agreements

Types of information to be covered in a TCA may include:

• FOB instructions
• Pricing schedules
• Terms of sale
• Lead time
• Authorization and liability clauses
• Quality and warranty clause
• Confidentiality clause
• General ship/delivery requirements (e.g., anti-static packaging, etc.)
• Default paperwork requirements (e.g. certificates of conformance, etc.)
• Import/export requirements
• Cancellation clause
• Supplier-managed inventory terms
• Length of commitment (effective and expiration dates)
• Terms for when standard lead times do or don't apply
• Primacy clauses (what takes precedence if two agreements have conflicting terms)

The TCA is then referenced in the electronic transaction/message, and only information which is specific to the individual transaction/message needs to be processed by the trading partners. This eliminates the need to transmit a lot of redundant data with each individual transaction/message. Types of data usually specified on individual transactions/messages may include:

• Reference to Terms and Conditions Agreement (TCA)
• Effective and expiration dates (if not specified in TCA)
• Item unit price (for systems requirements or information if price is per TCA)
• Total quantity or total value amount (e.g. total dollar amount) authorized
• Rates (not-to-exceed amount per month, if applicable)
• Supersedes (previous order number, previous revision, etc., if applicable)

Trading Partner Agreements

Types of information covered in a TPA may include:

• Information about the trading partners
  • Electronic identification
  • Electronic addresses
  • Contact names
  • Role definitions
• Information needed for electronic trading
  • URLs used for electronic communications
  • Default business process protocols
  • Communications protocols
    • e.g. use of VAN protocols and/or Internet protocols
    • Security protocols, including defining methods for privacy, authentication, data integrity assurance, and non-repudiation, including requirements for encryption and electronic signatures
  • Descriptions for interpreting business processes that are expressed in machine-readable form, including default message flows between the invoker and the service provider, responsiveness, failure handling, and other attributes.
• Information about the documents and data being exchanged
  • Description of data formats used
  • Default interpretations of data fields (to avoid ambiguity)
• Business terms that apply to electronic trading
  • Which partner pays for which parts of exchanges
    • e.g. whether both partners pay network charges or only one partner bears the cost
  • Handling of disputes, termination of the TPA, and other exception conditions.
  • Default implementation process, including requirements for testing prior to engaging in production exchanges.
  • Relationship between the TPA and the TCA and which takes precedence in the case of conflicting terms; this is not usually contained in the TCA, because a TCA exists even when no TPA exists, i.e. when all messaging is manual.