Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM

Although it’s possible to find several EDI solutions available for Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP users (and a handful that are stamped with the Microsoft Preferred Solution badge, like STAEDEAN's EDI Studio for Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM), what stumps most of these users is the effort they need to take in integrating the EDI solution they purchase with their Dynamics platform (be it Finance & Supply Chain Management or Business Central). With EDI gradually becoming a necessity rather than an option, this effort turns out to be complex, costly, time-consuming, and resource-intensive—in short, unnecessarily complicated.

One way out of this conundrum is to consider an EDI solution that’s already been embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365. As opposed to a stand-alone EDI solution that needs to repeatedly send or receive EDI messages via the ERP network (due to non-integration of the EDI transactions with the ERP), an embedded EDI solution is guaranteed to give you a better user experience, due to the fact that it is already built within Dynamics 365, and therefore, naturally adapts to the ERP — giving you a significant advantage over an externally connected solution.

In this blog, we will take a look at how EDI can be successfully implemented on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management. We have taken our own product, EDI Studio, as an example here.

Let’s look at the steps you need to take to implement EDI for Dynamics 365.

3 simple steps to implement EDI communication in Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM with EDI Studio

EDI Studio is a no-code electronic data interchange solution embedded within Dynamics 365 F&SCM (if you’re interested, you may read more about the features, benefits, and limitations of EDI Studio here).

By using STAEDEAN's EDI Studio, you can enable electronic document interchange (EDI) in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance & Supply Chain Management in three simple steps. Given how often EDI is used to handle computer-to-computer exchanges of business documents in standard electronic formats, this practice can help you save time as well as resources.

Step 1: Choose and set up an EDI format

Since the business documents must be processed by computers, you have to use a standard electronic format. There are several standards, including EDIFACT and X12. EDI Studio enables EDI integrations with different types of standard electronic formats, including X12 and EDIFACT. However, you can also define your own standard electronic format (for instance, using XML). Your business partners can also decide to use their own format or language. Standard electronic formats are certainly comparable to languages.

Step 2: Set up EDI partners

There are many reasons why business partners decide to exchange business documents using EDI – reduced costs, speed, and accuracy being the most common.

Our EDI Studio solution simplifies the setup of business partners because it’s completely integrated with the standard of Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM. This means, for example, you can set up a customer for EDI just from the standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM form.

Step 3: Set up EDI document flows

Business partners can exchange any type of business document (for example, orders, invoices, and advance shipping notices). You can simply manage documents per business partner, using the document flows of EDI Studio. EDI Studio triggers document flows at the right time. If you have set up an outbound sales confirmation, for instance, EDI Studio checks whether the customer has been enabled for outbound sales confirmations during the confirmation of the sales order, and then initiates the document flow.

Optional Step: Staging

When it comes to inbound documents, EDI Studio provides a resource to verify them. EDI Studio provides staging journals to validate inbound sales orders, purchase order confirmations, inventory orders, and transfer orders.

We hope that we have left you a little more confident about managing EDI in your Dynamics 365 environment. As a reputed Microsoft ISV that has helped over 600 customers worldwide, STAEDEAN can guide you in implementing EDI with zero coding efforts—with success, and within a shorter time frame.

Built exclusively within Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&SCM and available for purchase on Microsoft AppSource, our EDI Studio solution can help you automate your supply chain functions and increase your ROI. EDI Studio can also help you achieve faster business transactions and automate procure-to-pay processes for full financial supply chain transparency. 

To learn more about EDI Studio, download your free copy of the solution factsheet below!