In the Oracle e-Commerce Gateway, the term "trading partner" refers to a particular location or address of a customer, supplier, or bank engaged in some type of trading relationship (sending or receiving transactions). Since a given corporation may have several locations, each with a different set of trading relationships, you must define one trading partner for each customer address, supplier site, or bank branch. Trading Partner Groups allow multiple trading partners to be aggregated under one group entity.
It is very important to distinguish trading partners in Oracle e-Commerce Gateway from other address locations that may be referenced in an inbound or outbound document.
Oracle e-Commerce Gateway trading partners define the location or address of any party sending / receiving electronic documents to / from Oracle Applications.
Within each of these documents, there may be references to other addresses which are not the sending / receiving location. These addresses are defined within Oracle Applications as location codes.
Locations codes are used to define any address referenced in an inbound/outbound document, including trading partners. Therefore, all e-Commerce Gateway trading partners also have a location code but not all location codes have a corresponding e-Commerce Gateway trading partner record.
Trading partners defined in Oracle e-Commerce Gateway:
Allow you to define trading partners for any operating unit associated with your responsibility.
Link trading partners to Customers, Suppliers, Bank Branches, and other locations defined in Oracle Applications.
Link Oracle trading partners to trading partners defined in EDI translation software or other external applications.
Allow definition of processing rules such as determining if the transaction is enabled for the trading partner and if the transaction is test or production for the trading partner.
Are used to validate trading partner information on incoming documents.
The location code mentioned above and translator code are crucial to establishing the linkage between Oracle Applications locations, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway trading partners, and EDI translator's or external application's trading partner. Once established, these links provide the foundation for completely automated and seamless integration of electronic documents to / from Oracle Applications.
The relationship between Oracle e-Commerce Gateway trading partners and trading partner data on the inbound or outbound interface file is found in the Control Record (0010) section of the interface file. During outbound processing, trading partner data from the e-Commerce Gateway definition is placed on the Control Record to identify the sending trading partner. During inbound processing, trading partner data on the Control Record is used to validate the trading partner against trading partner data defined in Oracle e-Commerce Gateway.
To support multiple operating units, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway allows you to associate a Trading Partner group with any operating units linked to your responsibility during the group setup.
When first opened or queried the Trading Partner Groups window, the Trading Partner group is associated with the default operating unit set by a profile option; this default operating unit is the current operating unit. All Trading Partners within the group are automatically assigned to the same default operating unit. All the Trading Partner locations are restricted to the same default operating unit. When defining Trading Partners, you can change the default operating unit in the group setup window by reselecting any of the operating units associated with your responsibility. The Trading Partner Party Types, such as supplier, customer, or bank, will also be restricted to the selected operating unit.
Multiple Organization Access Control
To secure data access, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway uses security profiles that are linked to your responsibility to control access to one or more operating units. The security profile concept allows system administrators to predefine the scope of access privileges as a security profile and then associate the security profile with responsibility for a user.
Multiple operating units are associated with a security profile and the security profile is in turn associated with a responsibility. Therefore, through the access control of security profiles, users can access data in multiple operating units without changing responsibility.
Security profiles are defined based on organization hierarchies. See Trading Partner chapter, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway Implementation Manual for details.
With the association of Trading Partners and operating units, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway allows you to:
Execute outbound transaction extract concurrent programs for a specified operating unit linked to your responsibility.
See Outbound Transaction chapter, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway User's Guide for details.
Run relevant Trading Partner reports for a specified operating unit linked to your responsibility.
See Oracle e-Commerce Gateway Reports chapter, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway User's Guide for details.
Each address referenced in a transaction must be associated with a location code in Oracle Applications. In many electronic standards, including EDI, address data such as bill-to or ship-to address is communicated using a code or identifier. Location code is used to link this code or identifier with an address defined in Oracle Applications such as customer address or supplier site. For EDI applications, location code may be used to define data contained in the X12 N104 segment or EDIFACT NAD segment of a document.
There are four areas within Oracle Applications where location code can be defined:
Receivables - Customer Addresses. Navigate to the Customers > Standard window. In the address tab, define EDI Location Code.
Payables - Bank Branches. Navigate to the Setup > Payments > Banks window and define EDI Location Code.
Purchasing - Supplier Sites. Navigate to the Supply Base > Suppliers window. From the Sites button, Electronic Data Interchange tab, define EDI Location Code.
HR - Locations. Navigate to the Work Structures > Location window. In the Other Details tab, define EDI Location Code.
During inbound processing, Oracle e-Commerce Gateway uses location code and translator code data from the Control Record (0010) section of the interface file to validate trading partner data against the e-Commerce Gateway trading partner definitions.
Location codes on the inbound interface file are also used to derive address data and validate the address definition against the Oracle Applications address definition.
During outbound processing, location code and translator code is used to identify the sending trading partner to the receiving party. This information is placed in the Control Record (0010) section of the interface file. Location code is also included with all address data referenced in the document.