EDIFACT is the abbreviation for Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport. This is a global set of rules defined by the UN for the inter-company electronic data exchange (EDI) between two or more business partners via EDI.
The goal of EDIFACT is the optimization and standardization of the data flow between business partners. By defining uniform segments and elements that describe the information in the electronic file and which are used for a wide variety of document types (such as invoices, purchase orders, delivery notes, etc.) merely by means of a differentiated arrangement, a worldwide standard was created.
However, since the EDIFACT standard was very comprehensive and created for almost every business transaction and every industry, subgroups (the so-called subsets) soon emerged. The subset EANCOM was created for the retail sector, which contains the mandatory fields of the EDIFACT standard and the industry-specific optional fields. By creating so-called subsets, the messages are better handled and easier to understand. The following table provides an overview of the EDIFACT messages.
| EDIFACT messages | ||
| DELFOR | delivery forecast | What is an EDIFACT DELFOR Message? |
| DELJIT | delivery Just-in-Time | What is an EDIFACT DELJIT Message? |
| DESADV | despatch advice message | What is an EDIFACT DESADV Message? |
| IFTMIN | instructions of transport | |
| IFTMBF | transport booking request | |
| IFTMBC | transport booking confirmation | |
| INVOIC | invoice message | What is an EDIFACT INVOIC Message? |
| ORDERS | purchase order message | What is an EDIFACT ORDERS Message? |
| PAYORD | payment order message | |
| PRICAT | price catalogue message | What is an EDIFACT PRICAT Message? |
| PRODAT | product data message | |
| INVRPT | inventory report | What is an EDIFACT INVRPT Message? |
| RECADV | receipt advice | What is an EDIFACT RECADV Message? |
| MSCONS | Metered Services CONsumption report message | |
| UTILMD | UTILities Master Data message | |
| ORDCHG | purchase order change request | What is an EDIFACT ORDCHG Message? |
| CONTRL | functional acknowledgement | What is an EDIFACT CONTRL Message? |
| REMADV | remittance advice | What is an EDIFACT REMADV Message? |
| SLSRPT | outgoing sales report | What is an EDIFACT SLSRPT Message? |
| ORDRSP | purchase order response | What is an EDIFACT ORDRSP Message? |
Like any language, the EDIFACT rules are based on a character set to be used, the vocabulary (data elements) and grammar (syntax).
Based on the data elements, data element groups/segments of the syntax and the guidelines for the development of message types, globally applicable uniform messages are created. The syntax contains rules according to which the messages exchanged between the communication partners can be structured uniformly, i.e. equally well understandable for all participants, regardless of the hardware and software used. In addition, the syntax allows the user to optimise the transfer files so that only the content actually required is transferred.
The segments and data elements are variable in length. Unlike fixed-length data records, their contents do not have to be filled with blanks or zeros. Only the segments, data element groups and data elements for which content exists in the current message are transferred. This leads to significant savings in data transmission overhead.
United Nations trade data in the business directory
For example:
Date, time, unit of measure, quantity, city, street (on. 35)
variable field length