What Are EDI Standards?
By Stacy Tan, SVP of Retail Insights
Last Updated April 29, 2024
What Are EDI Standards?
In this article, learn about:
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The Importance of EDI Standards
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What EDI Standards Address
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What is Included in EDI Standards
EDI standards are agreements between users of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) on how data should be formatted and exchanged. They're crucial for ensuring that EDI operates effectively and reliably. These standards take the form of electronic business documents, known as transaction sets. Standards provide a common syntax, set of rules, and procedures for their maintenance and enhancements. EDI standards define and support more than 200 business documents from industry and government working groups. They also offer a framework for developing new standards and serve as a database of elements for creating them.
What do EDI Standards Address?
In general, EDI formatting standards address the following issues:
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What documents can be communicated electronically
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What information is to be included
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What sequence the information should follow
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What forms the information (numeric, ID codes, etc) should use
Related Reading: What is EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)?
What is Included in EDI Standards?
All standards include data elements, segments, and transaction sets. The format is comparable to the language you speak. For instance, an element can be compared to a word. A segment is comparable to a sentence. A transaction set is comparable to a paragraph or a document. Elements are combined to form a segment, just as words are combined to form a sentence. Segments are combined to create a transaction set. The two commonly used standards are EDI for Administration, Commerce, and Transport (EDIFACT) for generic international, and American National Institute/Accredited Standards Committee X12 (ANSI ASC X12) for generic domestic.
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