B2BGateway.Net staff Movember updates!

For updates on how our Movember participants are getting on please visit http://www.b2bgateway.net/movember2012.asp

P.S. I think Brian Horton has had a hair cut!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Stay Calm - Don't PANIC!

The term "Black Friday" may have originated in Philadelphia, where it was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving. More recently, merchants and the media have used it instead to refer to the beginning of the period in which retailers go from being in the red (i.e., posting a loss on the books) to being in the black, (i.e., turning a profit) yeah!

 
Cyber Monday, on the other hand, is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday; the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The term made its debut in 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year".  Here are a few fun and not so fun facts.

According to The National Retail Federation, shoppers spent $11.4 billion on Black Friday in 2011, and total spending over the four-day weekend following Thanksgiving reached a record $52.4 billion, which was up 16% from $45 billion the year before.  A record 226 million consumers shopped in stores and online between Thursday and Sunday, up from 212 million in 2010.  Individual shoppers spent more too, the NRF said, with the average holiday shopper shelling out $398.62 this weekend alone, which was up from $365.34 in 2010.  (Sources: moneycnn.com, shine.yahoo.com)

As most who have ever ventured out to participate in this annual ritual are likely aware, crowds abound, and people can get a bit carried away at times.  One 2011 Black Friday incident included a woman who injured 20 people at a Walmart in California while clearing her way to an X-Box display using pepper spray.  However, there are happy stories as well.  According to the New York Daily News, two individuals have Black Friday to thank for their unique love-at-first-sight story. The two lovebirds struck up conversation while standing in line at a Long Island Kmart. The small talk turned into sweet talk as the two waited in line together for a total of seven hours before doors opened. Fast forward a few years, and the couple is happily married with fond memories of the day they met.

Pretty crazy stuff. For us, at B2BGateway.Net, it’s a little less hectic, a lot more controlled. We see an enormous amount of EDI traffic on both days but we’re way more relaxed than the shoppers out there losing their minds and pepper spraying babies for video games. See, we prepare well in advance of the ensuing madness by adding and deploying virtualized servers for increased process handling. We’re seriously ready for anything. So, shop all you want and we’ll monitor the action far away from the choas. If by chance you’d like to learn a little more about our robust technical architecture, check us out. http://www.b2bgateway.net/technical_architecture.asp

Happy Holidays,

-Brian Alty

Most common EDI transaction sets used by Third Party Logistics providers (3PL’s).

 

Most common EDI transaction sets used by Third Party Logistics providers (3PL’s).
ANSI X12 Transaction	Transaction Name	Transaction Description
940	Warehouse Shipping Order	Data contents of the Warehouse Shipping Order Transaction Set (940) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. This transaction set can be used to enable the depositor to advise a warehouse to make a shipment, confirm a shipment, or modify or cancel a previously transmitted shipping order.
943	Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice	Data contents of the Warehouse Stock Transfer Shipment Advice Transaction Set (943) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used by a depositor or an agent of the depositor to advise the recipient that a transfer shipment has been made. This transaction set provides a receiving location with detail information concerning product being shipped to that location.
944	Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice	Data contents of the Warehouse Stock Transfer Receipt Advice Transaction Set (944) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used by a receiving location to advise a depositor or an agent of the depositor that a transfer shipment has been received. This transaction set provides the depositor or the depositor's agent with detail information concerning product that has been received
945	Warehouse Shipping Advice	Data contents of the Warehouse Shipping Advice Transaction Set (945) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used by the warehouse to advise the depositor that shipment was made. It is used to reconcile order quantities with shipment quantities.
946	Delivery Information Message	The transaction set can be used by a receiving location to advise a depositor or an agent of the depositor that a transfer shipment has been received. This transaction set provides the depositor or the depositor's agent with detail information concerning product that has been received. If you need help supporting this EDI document, please visit our signup page. We will contact you shortly after the information is received. Thank you
947	Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice	Data contents of the Warehouse Inventory Adjustment Advice Transaction Set (947) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used to inform a warehouse/depositor of a quantity or status change to inventory records. This transaction set provides detail information concerning the internal adjustments which occur between a warehouse and a depositor.
997	Functional Acknowledgement	Data contents of the Functional Acknowledgment Transaction Set (997) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used to define the control structures for a set of acknowledgments to indicate the results of the syntactical analysis of the electronically encoded documents. The encoded documents are the transaction sets, which are grouped in functional groups, used in defining transactions for business data interchange. This standard does not cover the semantic meaning of the information encoded in the transaction sets.
856	Advance Ship Notice/Manifest	Data contents of the Advance Ship Notice/Manifest Transaction Set (856) for use within the context of an Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) environment. The transaction set can be used to list the contents of a shipment of goods as well as additional information relating to the shipment, such as order information, product description, physical characteristics, type of packaging, marking, carrier information, and configuration of goods within the transportation equipment. The transaction set enables the sender to describe the contents and configuration of a shipment in various levels of detail and provides an ordered flexibility to convey information. The sender of this transaction is the organization responsible for detailing and communicating the contents of a shipment, or shipments, to one or more receivers of the transaction set. The receiver of this transaction set can be any organization having an interest in the contents of a shipment or information about the contents of a shipment.

 For a full list of all EDI X12 documents supported bt B2BGateway.Net please visit http://www.b2bgateway.net/edidocs.asp

B2BGateway to demonstrate 200Connect EDI solution at Sage Evolve Business Partner Conference in Hinckley, United Kingdom.

 

 

B2BGateway will exhibit 200Connect a fully integrated, cloud-based EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) solution for Sage 200 users at this year’s Sage Evolve Business Partner Conference.
 
The Sage Evolve Business Partner Conference will take place on Tuesday, November 20^th, 2012 at the Hinkley Island Hotel, Hinckley, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. The Sage Evolve Conference is for Sage 200 Business Partners and an awards ceremony will take place afterwards at the National Space Centre, Leicester.
 

During the conference B2BGateway will demonstrate its 200Connect fully integrated EDI solution for Sage 200. According to Roger Leyden, Director of European Sales & Marketing at B2BGateway: “200Connect is an ideal, cost effective EDI solution for the Sage 200 user. Due to its cloud-based architecture and full integration capabilities, 200Connect automates the entire business document flow between the Sage 200 user and their trading partners.  There is no need to re-key data and this greatly reduces errors, frees up staff resources and hastens the users ‘order to payment’ cycle. Our 200Connect EDI solution is used in retail, wholesale distribution, logistics, automotive, manufacturing, government and healthcare industries.”

If you are attending the Sage Evolve Conference please drop by our stand and say hello to the B2BGateway team.

B2BGateway Hurricane Sandy Client Assistance

Although B2BGateway was able to weather Hurricane Sandy, we have found that many of our clients have not fared so well. Many clients located along the east coast of the United States are still without power. Most of these clients are running their businesses on generators and are expecting the power to be out for quite a bit longer.

With that being said, if you have been affected by the storm and need assistance in streamlining your transaction processing in order to maintain business operations, please contact us either via phone or e-mail.

We should be able to help in any of the following areas at no cost to you. Resending transactions Sending transactions directly to your 3PL, and save your live orders until your systems are available Sending your transactions via Human Readable format in an E-mail, to be printed at a remote location Confirming your transactions send and obtain receipts for you Posting your normally integrated transactions to a website for fulfillment Holding all transactions on our system and slowly release transactions as the cancel date approaches Auto-generating time sensitive 855 (PO Acknowledgements) if needed Plus any other reasonable requests you may have

Please let us know if we can help in any way and we will be happy to lend assistance. We will also be reaching out by phone to clients in the affected areas. Our thoughts are with you. If you haven't heard from us, or if you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at (401) 491-9595 or email HurricaneRelief@B2BGateway.Net for more information.