Composite routes

Introduction

A simple route reads the edi files from one inchannel, translates, and sends the translated files to one outchannel.
More flexibility is offered by the use of composite routes.
In a composite route there are several entries in the routes screen, each with the same 'idroute' but a different 'seq' (sequence number within route). Each entry (with different 'seq') is called route-part.
Best way to use this is to have each route-part do one thing; either:

  • fetch incoming files; you can fetch files from multiple sources
  • translate (typically once per route)
  • send outgoing files to different destinations/partners using filtering It is advised to set up composite routes this way (using at least 3 route-parts).

Use cases

  • Send edi files via ftp where each partner has its own ftp-server.
  • Confirmations/acknowledgements: acknowledgements for incoming edi-files are routed back to the sender (filter by editype/messagetype).
  • Fetch from multiple sources, eg ftp-servers of different partners..
  • Route to different internal destinations: invoices to another system than ASN's (filter by messagetype)
  • Use a VAN, but one partner uses AS2 (filter by partner)
  • Incoming files are translated multiple times, each message-type goes to different destination. Eg: translate orders both to in-house file (import ERP) and an HTML-email (for viewing).

Example plugin

Download the plugin demo_composite_route
This plugin has one composite route consisting of:

  • 2 input parts
  • translate part
  • 3 output parts, using filtering Detailled description here

Filtering for different outchannels

You can filter per outchannel; eg send only asn's through this outchannel.

In route-screen (bots-monitor->Configuration->Routes) the fields used for filtering under 'Filtering for outchannel'.

If eg. toeditype=csv, only csv-files will be sent over the outchannel.

NOTE: if filtering is not specified, all outgoing files in the route are sent through the outchannel.

Schematic

Schematic overview of a route consisting of 5 parts:

Notes:

  • if no inchannel in route-part nothing comes in for that route-part.
  • if 'translate' in a route-part is off, no translation in that route-part.
  • if no outchannel in route-part nothing goes out for that route-part.