Home → Acquisitions in Evergreen → Acquisitions Administration → Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Last Updated 11/09/2023
Many libraries use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) accounts to send purchase orders and receive invoices from providers electronically. In Evergreen users can setup EDI accounts and manage EDI messages in the admin module. EDI messages and notes can be viewed in the acquisitions module. Multiple Provider accounts cannot share the same EDI account. A separate and unique EDI account is required for each Provider account that will be utilizing EDI.
Note: Please always submit a help ticket and wait to receive assistance from the NC Cardinal team before setting up or changing EDI accounts to avoid triggering unwanted orders submissions to your vendor for older POs that still have a status of 'on order'.
For EDI to work your library must have a SAN and each of your providers must each supply you with their SAN.
A SAN (Standard Address Number) is a unique 7 digit number that identifies your library.
Look in Administration → Server Administration → Organizational Units.
This interface allows a library to configure their SAN, alongside their address, phone, etc.
These steps only need to be done once per library.
Find your library in the tree on the left side of the page and click on it to open the settings.
Multi-branch library systems will see settings for each branch but should only enter their SAN in the system organization unit, not into any branch unit.
These steps need to be repeated for every provider with which EDI is used.
Click the hyperlinked name of the provider you would like to edit.
Click Save.
Look in Administration → Acquisitions Administration → EDI Accounts.
Account |
Vendor assigned account number associated with your organization |
|
EDI Account ID |
Assigned by Evergreen |
|
EDI Attribute Set |
Select from options in Administration>Acquisitions Administration>EDI Attribute Sets (required) |
|
Host |
Vendor assigned FTP/SFTP/SSH hostname |
|
Incoming Directory |
The path on the vendor’s server where "incoming" .epo files are stored |
|
Label |
The exact name of the Provider account tied to this EDI account |
|
Last Activity | The date of last activity for the account supplied by Evergreen | |
Owner |
The organizational unit who owns the EDI account |
|
Password |
FTP/SFTP/SSH password - vendor assigned |
|
Path |
The path on the vendor’s server where Evergreen will send it’s outgoing .epo files |
|
Provider |
This is a link to one of the "codes" in the "Providers" interface |
|
Use EDI Attributes |
Check this checkbox (required) |
|
Username | FTP/SFTP/SSH username - vendor assigned | |
Vendor Account Number |
Vendor assigned account number |
|
Vendor Assigned Code |
Usually a sub-account designation. Can be used with or without the Vendor Account Number |
Note: You must create your Provider account before you create an EDI account for the provider. The owner of the provider account should be the system, not any branch library.
Contact your provider requesting the following information:
Click New EDI Account. A pop-up will appear.
Fill in the following fields:
ftp://ftp.vendorname.com
)In the Path field, enter the path supplied by your provider. The path indicates a directory on the provider’s server where Evergreen will deposit its outgoing order files.
If your vendor requests a specific file extension for EDI purchase orders, such as .ord
, enter the name of the directory, followed by a slash, followed by an asterisk, followed by a period, followed by the extension. For example, if the vendor requests that EDI purchase orders be sent to a directory called in
with the file extension .ord
, your path would be in/*.ord
.
In the Incoming Directory field, enter the incoming directory supplied by your provider. This indicates the directory on the vendor’s server where Evergreen will retrieve incoming order responses and invoices.
Don’t worry if your incoming directory is named out
or outgoing
. From your vendor’s perspective, this directory is outgoing, because it contains files that the vendor is sending to Evergreen. However, from Evergreen’s perspective, these files are incoming.
Click on the link in the Provider field.
Select the EDI account that has just been created from the EDI Default drop down menu. Note: As mentioned above, a unique EDI account must be set up for each Provider account utilizing EDI.
The EDI Messages screen displays all incoming and outgoing messages between the library and its providers. To see details of a particular EDI message, including the raw EDIFACT message, double click on a message entry. To find a specific EDI message, the Filter options can be useful. Outside the Admin interface, EDI messages that pertain to a specific purchase order can be viewed from the purchase order interface (See Acquisitions → Purchase Orders).