Getting Started with Logic Apps

Continuing from last post where I explained the basics of EDI and EDI X12 standards, let’s see how we can enable EDI communication with Logic Apps

Logic Apps and EDI together

Earlier it was BizTalk from Microsoft which has all capabilities around Enterprise Application Integration(EAI) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)(which is server product) but with the cloud shift where everything is desired as service, Microsoft provided Logic Apps to cater the integration needs for cloud users and it is continuously getting matured (most of BizTalk capabilities already added).

Scenario

Say there is a company Techfindings and it wants to place an order with it’s partner company. But the partner company accepts Purchase order only in EDI X12 850 format whereas Techfindings system generates XML based order.

Steps in creating solution

1. Create Integration Account

On Azure portal, select All services and search for "integration account" as your filter, and select Integration Account

Give Name , select subscription and resource group. Under Pricing Tier as Free and location where it is to be kept.

2. Create/obtain the schemas

You would need Visual Studio to create/edit the schemas and maps. Also you will have to add following extension - Microsoft Azure Logic Apps Enterprise Integration Tools for Visual Studio 2015 2.0

Note: No extension available in later version above 2015, as the extension is borrowed from BizTalk and last release of it is BizTalk 2016(extension is based on the BizTalk components and those components are only available for Visual Studio 2015). As soon as new version of BizTalk is out then the extension for BizTalk associated Visual studio would be available.

Above is XML Order Schema and below is the XML representation of EDI X12 850 schema, it can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39087

3. Create map

As we need to produce EDI X12 850, select Order XML as source and EDI 850 as destination schema

Once mapping is done, test and validate it (make sure all warnings and errors are resolved)

and make note of path where xslt is stored,as it is this which is to be uploaded to integration account (.btm file is not supported).

Following is the xslt

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" xmlns:var="http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003/var" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl var s0" version="1.0" xmlns:s0="http://Inbound_EDI.OrderFile" xmlns:ns0="http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/EDI/X12/2006">

<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" method="xml" version="1.0" />

<xsl:template match="/">

<xsl:apply-templates select="/s0:OrderFile" />

</xsl:template>

<xsl:template match="/s0:OrderFile">

<ns0:X12_00401_850>

<ST>

<ST01>

<xsl:text>850</xsl:text>

</ST01>

<ST02>

<xsl:text>0700</xsl:text>

</ST02>

</ST>

<ns0:BEG>

<BEG01>

<xsl:text>00</xsl:text>

</BEG01>

<BEG02>

<xsl:text>PO</xsl:text>

</BEG02>

<BEG03>

<xsl:value-of select="Order/Header/PONumber/text()" />

</BEG03>

<BEG05>

<xsl:value-of select="Order/Header/PODate/text()" />

</BEG05>

</ns0:BEG>

<ns0:N1Loop1>

<ns0:N1>

<N071>

<xsl:text>BT</xsl:text>

</N071>

<N072>

<xsl:value-of select="Order/Header/CustomerContactName/text()" />

</N072>

<N074>

<xsl:value-of select="Order/Header/CustomerID/text()" />

</N074>

</ns0:N1>

<ns0:PER_2>

<PER01>

<xsl:text>BT</xsl:text>

</PER01>

<PER04>

<xsl:value-of select="Order/Header/CustomerContactPhone/text()" />

</PER04>

</ns0:PER_2>

</ns0:N1Loop1>

<ns0:PO1Loop1>

<xsl:for-each select="Order/LineItems">

<ns0:PO1>

<PO071>

<xsl:value-of select="PONumber/text()" />

</PO071>

<PO072>

<xsl:value-of select="Quantity/text()" />

</PO072>

<PO073>

<xsl:value-of select="UOM/text()" />

</PO073>

<PO074>

<xsl:value-of select="Price/text()" />

</PO074>

<PO075>

<xsl:text>EA</xsl:text>

</PO075>

<PO077>

<xsl:value-of select="ItemOrdered/text()" />

</PO077>

<PO079>

<xsl:value-of select="Description/text()" />

</PO079>

</ns0:PO1>

</xsl:for-each>

</ns0:PO1Loop1>

<SE>

<SE01>

<xsl:text>3</xsl:text>

</SE01>

<SE02>

<xsl:text>0700</xsl:text>

</SE02>

</SE>

</ns0:X12_00401_850>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

4. Add schemas and map to Integration Account

Go to the integration account created earlier in step1 and select the Schemas tiles and click on add button.

Give name and browse to schema path and select the schemas, below is how it should look

Go to the integration account created earlier in step1 and select the Maps tiles and click on add button.

Give name and browse to xslt path(saved in step 3) and below is how it should look

5. Add Partners

Go to the integration account created earlier in step1 and select the Partners tiles and click on add button.

The partner which represents your organization is known as host partner -Techfindings is identity value given which is mutually defined thus qualifier is ZZ and the second partner is known as the guest partner - EDIPartner is identity value given which is mutually defined thus qualifier is ZZ. The guest partner can be another company, or even a department within your own organization.

6. Add Agreement

Go to the integration account created earlier in step1 and select the Agreement tiles and click on add button.

You and your trading partner mutually decide about how the communication has to be done i.e. protocol or transport-specific. In our scenario its X12 protocol based communication.

For transport specific B2B communication read - Getting Started with Logic Apps - AS2

Here as we are going to send EDI document, Send settings of the agreement has to be defined.

Send Settings is organized into these sections:

1. Identifiers -we have not use any Identifier
2. Acknowledgment - we have not chosen any acknowledgement as we don't need it
3. Schemas - we have selected 00401 as version, 850 as Transaction type and EDI_850 as schema

Note: In case where some other EDI documents is to be sent to same Partner, then we need to select Schema and Envelope for that as well(in same Agreement).

4.Envelopes - Standard Identifier and default values for GS
5.Character Sets and Separators - UTF 8
6.Control Numbers - Control number is added when edi doc leaves, thus a range is to be defined, here it is starting from 1 till 999999999
7.Validation.

Check following Microsoft article for more details about Send Settings - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/logic-apps-enterprise-integration-x12#configure-how-your-agreement-sends-messages

7. Create Logic App and link Integration Account

Create logic app, add http trigger and save it. Go to workflow settings and link the integration account created in step 1

8. Design the logic App

XMl to EDI X12 Order Processing Logic App

The logic app receives xml based Purchase Order over http, then it is transformed in xml representation of EDI X12 850 with help of Transform XML action.

Provide triggerbody() as content and select OrderFile_to_EDIX12_850 as Map (xslt )

transformed EDI 850 XML is passed on to Encode to X12 message action.

Here we can use either of the option
i. Encode to X12 message action by identities
ii.Encode to X12 message action by Agreement

In any option first we need to create connection to Integration account - it is via this connection, Agreement is referred by this action from Integration Account

Option 1 - Here the identifiers are provided based on it Agreement is selected and EDI XML is encoded to EDI text file alongwith the applied envelopes(ISA-IEA and GS-GE).

Option 2 - Here you directly give the name of Agreement which is to be referred for encoding EDI XML to EDI text file

and in last step the EDI file is sent as an attachment via email . And content for that is Payload of above step (Encode to X12 message)

Although I have used email, the partners can choose http based service to receive file,FTP, SFTP and FTPS etc.

Testing

Below is xml order test input posted using ARC

and email is received with EDI 850 file as an attachment

Conclusion

In this post we covered the fundamentals of B2B EDI communication and walkthrough the steps on how to make it cloud based using Logic Apps and Enterprise Integration pack.