EDI Glossary : A
Abstract Data Type: a mechanism provided by Extensible Markup Language schemas to force substitution for a particular element type. When an element or type is declared to be ‘abstract’ it cannot be used in an instance document. A member of that element’s substitution group must appear in the instance document.
Accredited Standards Committee X12: The group authorized by the American National Standards Institute to develop and maintain the EDI Standards used primarily in the United States. (See also: ANSI; ANSI ASC-X12; American National Standards Institute).
Acknowledgement: In the global data synchronization process, this is an Extensible Markup Language response to a command returned to the originator. Every command needs a response. Acknowledgement messages are standardized and may contain the following information: confirmation of message receipt, success/failure of processing for syntax and content, or reason code for each type of failure.
ACH: Automated Clearing House.
Active Tag: A class of RFID tag that contains a power source, such as a battery, to power the microchip’s circuitry. Active tags transmit a signal to a reader and can be read from 100 feet or more.
Advance Ship Notice (ASN): An electronic version of a printed packing slip that tells a buyer that goods have been shipped, how they have been packed items and the estimated arrival time. Also referred to as a Delivery Notice or Dispatch Advice.
AES: Advanced Encryption Standard. One of a number of standards for securing data during transmission by encrypting it.
American National Standards Institute (ANSI): The national standards body for the United States. ANSI, through its accredited standards committees, keeps the standards for all applications of technology and mechanics for U.S. Industry. Business documents in the U.S are often referred to by their ANSI code such as 850 (PO), 810 (Invoice) and 856 (ASN).
ANA: Article Number Association, an association of businesses set up to facilitate standardization across the supply chain.
ANSI ASC X12: American National Standards Institute, Accredited Standards Committee X12, which comprises government and industry members who create EDI standards for submission to ANSI for approval and dissemination.
ANX: The IP-based network for the US automotive industry.
AANX: The IP-based network for the Australian automotive industry.
Application Acknowledgment: A transaction set whose purpose is to return a response to a transaction set that has been received and processed in an application program. For example, the Purchase Order Acknowledgment transaction is used to respond to the Purchase Order transaction with content such as whether the receiver can fulfill the order and if it can be done on time.
Application Advice: A transaction set that accepts, rejects or identifies errors in the content of any transaction set beyond normal syntax checks.
Application Interface Software: Software that imports and exports data between in-house applications and the translation software.
AS1: Applicability Statement (AS) 1. A protocol developed by the IETF to implement secure and reliable messaging over SMTP.
AS2: Applicability Statement (AS) 2. A newer protocol developed by the IETF to implement secure and reliable messaging over HTTP. Allows data to be sent over the Internet using the HTTP protocol.
AS3: Applicability Statement (AS) 3. The most recent protocol developed by the IETF to implement secure and reliable messaging over FTP.
AS4: Applicability Statement (AS) 4. Offers secure B2B document exchange using web services. AS4 was developed by the sub-committee of the OASIS ebXML.
ASN: See Advance Ship Notice.
Asynchronous: A communication technique by which each character is sent bit-serially and is surrounded by start and stop bits used to indicate character borders.
Attribute: A term used to describe a characteristic of an item. An attribute would hold a value to describe a characteristic such as pack height, length or width.
Audit trail: A computerized or manual record of transactions.
Authentication: A mechanism that allows the receiver of an electronic transmission to verify the sender and the integrity of the content of the transmission through the use of an electronic “key” or algorithm shared by the business partners. The algorithm is sometimes referred to as an electronic or digital signature.
