Overview

The EDI 846 Inventory Inquiry/Advice document is used to send inventory availability information to trading partners who need to know how many items are available for purchase. SalesPad supports the outbound 846 for providing visibility of SalesPad/GP inventory availability to EDI trading partners. The 846 is sent automatically based on a configured schedule and requires a Windows service to be created, or for a user to start the service and leave SalesPad running.

Prerequisites

Before continuing with the EDI 846 configuration, make sure EDI is properly configured in SalesPad by reviewing the following documentation:

• EDI Installation

• EDI Processing

• Data Cross Reference

• Business Object Mapping

• EDI Server Connection Setup

• EDI Trading Partner Setup

Data Cross Reference

Select the EDI tab on the ribbon and open the Data Cross Reference screen.

Click the New button to add a new trading partner and set the following columns:

Make sure the new trading partner is selected, then fill out the following mapping tabs as needed:

• Items

• UofMs

The Item Export Fields tab also has required setup for the EDI 846 document. This tab is responsible for how the Excel spreadsheet is created, which is used to generate the 846 XML document. There are only two required columns: Item_Number and Quantity To Send. The rest of the columns can be used for additional information that can also be sent on the 846. These values can be pulled directly from the Item Master’s field, or they can be set to a static value, or they can be populated by a script.

Save all changes and close the Data Cross Reference screen.

Business Object Mapping

Select the EDI tab on the ribbon and open the Business Object Mapping screen.

Click the New button to add a new transaction, then set the following columns:

Save all changes and close the Business Object Mapping screen.

Security Editor

Open the Security Editor by going to Modules -> System -> Security Editor and make sure the Inventory EDI plugin is enabled. Update sub-securities as needed. Save all changes, log out, and log back in for changes to take effect.

Default Block Size of Import Function for EDI 846 - Use this setting to specify a block size when using the Import and Send function for inventory on an EDI 846 with very large spreadsheets. Users may encounter out of memory errors when importing a large spreadsheet if this number is too high. Default (1000).

Inventory Lookup

EDI 846 - Inventory Inquiry Plugin

Usage

The Inventory Inquiry plugin creates an Excel spreadsheet in the first step, which is then used to generate an EDI 846 document in the second step. To create the Excel sheet, select one or more trading partners in the grid, then click the Export Inventory button. Choose a location to save the file.

The Excel sheet will be created based on the Data Cross Reference configuration for the selected trading partner. Included items are based on the Items tab, and the Excel sheet’s columns are created and populated based on the Item Export Fields tab. The Excel sheet can then be manually updated as needed before sending the inventory data to the trading partner. Note that SalesPad requires there to be columns named Item_Number and Quantity To Send.

Once the Excel sheet is created, select one or more trading partners and click the Import and Send button. Select the Excel sheet to send. SalesPad will then generate the EDI 846 document based on the configuration for the selected trading partner in the Data Cross Reference and the Business Object Mapping, using the data within the Excel sheet. Once all processing completes successfully, a prompt will display to the user, and the EDI Processing screen will display a log that the 846 was sent.