Cloud-based EDI Migration

About the Client

Headquartered in Romeoville, Illinois, the client is a leading CPG logistics company focused on streamlining supply chain processes for 100+ organizations in the retail industry since 1981. They offer a comprehensive suite of products and services, including asset-based transportation and warehousing, automated dispute resolution, inventory handling, online traceability, trade show services, and more.

  • Industry:Transportation /Logistics
  • Team Size:3 EDI Developers
  • Project Tenure:Multi-year

Key Deliverables

  • Migrating from legacy EDI HQ tool to Cleo Integration Cloud (CIC) for streamlined integration.
  • Building and validating end-to-end transaction setups for new and existing trading partners.
  • Using Jira ticket-driven development in Cleo Clarify based on client priorities.
  • Performing comprehensive testing and validation, ensuring data accuracy and system readiness before go-live.
  • Executing a structured deployment strategy with a two-week post-go-live monitoring phase to ensure stability.
  • Maintaining SVN repository synchronization for staging and production environments.
  • Collaborating with client teams to ensure successful migration and seamless daily operations post-deployment.

Prime Challenges

  • The client was dealing with complex integrations while managing multiple EDI transaction types across various retail and logistics partners using a third-party tool called EDI HQ.
  • To overcome these challenges, they decided to migrate from EDI HQ to Cleo Integration Cloud (CIC).
  • This migration required a complete setup in CIC, including configuring Trading Partners, building inbound and outbound data flows, creating rulesets for outbound data analysis, and setting up business processes such as inbound routes, outbound routes, launchers, and connections, using CIC Studio and Cockpit.
  • Additionally, the client needed to thoroughly test the entire data flow within the Cleo Cockpit to ensure accuracy and performance.

Proposed Solution

  • Trading Partner Evaluation: While this step is generally managed by the client or their internal sales/business team, the usual process involves evaluating the potential business volume from a new trading partner, reviewing their EDI specifications, and estimating the Level of Effort (LOE) for integration. Once the business case is approved internally, development can move forward based on the agreed priorities.
  • Development and Integration: As a part of the client’s migration strategy, Cleo Clarify was designated as the development platform. Programmers.io followed this direction to build integration setups for both new and existing trading partners, based on Jira tickets provided by the client. This ensured a smooth transition and consistent delivery aligned with their migration plan.
  • New Onboarding: For onboarding new trading partners, the plan was to create transaction-specific components based on the document types involved. This included setting up inbound configurations such as Trading Partner profiles, Events, Inbound Routes, Route Business Processes, Rulesets, and Inbound Dataflows. On the outbound side, the setup involved configuring Events, Schedulers, Envelopers, Launcher Business Processes, Outbound Route Business Processes, Connections (BPS), and Outbound Dataflows.
  • Existing Onboarding: For existing trading partner onboarding, existing packages are checked in Cleo Clarify based on document types. Additionally, credentials and update packages are verified based on the files received. The packages are deployed on the server as well as synced to the SVN repository for staging and then to production after successful testing.
  • Testing: Thorough system integration testing is conducted to validate the end-to-end data flow. This includes verifying files received from Trading Partners, ensuring accurate ruleset is applied, converting data conversion, and successful data insertion into Synapse.
  • Validation: Before going live, key elements are double checked for a successful production launch. This includes verifying correct Purchase Orders (POs) entered into Synapse, aligning POs with the client’s ERP system, ensuring each Trading Partner is correctly linked to the right customer ID, checking “Ship To” details, validating export mapping for the outbound process, confirming that the outbound dataflow is enabled with the correct event configuration, and making sure the outbound file format matches the client’s expectations.
  • Deployment and Support: A careful process is followed to ensure everything goes smoothly when moving to production. Before going live, all packages are checked and tested in the staging environment. Once everything is approved, the credentials are switched from test settings to production settings and the packages are synced to the production system. After deployment, everything is monitored for two weeks to ensure smooth transactions flow between Cleo and Synapse, reducing risks and ensuring reliability for our clients.
  • Trading Partner Migration: The Cleo tool is used to develop Trading Partner setups in CIC Studio. The setups are validated using production test files received from HQ. Lastly, these are run through the new Cleo setup to ensure everything works as expected. As part of the migration strategy, EDI activity data are analyzed to accurately configure and test partner documents, ensuring seamless data exchange, minimal downtime, and a faster go-live.

Tech Stack:

  • Azure
    Azure
  • Cleo Integration Cloud
    Cleo Integration Cloud
  • EDIHQ
    EDIHQ
  • Jira
    Jira

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