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21 July 2011
Interesting mapping moment today.
Our customer is receiving Tradacoms 9 purchase orders from a very well know retailer. Our customer has recognised the benefit in integrating these messages and so has paid to have this done which works fine 90% of the time.
Unfortunately the company that provide the mapping service for the company sending the purchase orders have decided that instead of using the correct elements of the Tradacoms PO for the delivery address, they will use a narrative segment. Next the delivery address will be delimited by commas except for the post code. The post code could appear in one of three places within the narrative segment but will not be consistent because the place it will appear will depend upon the number of characters in the address preceding the postcode.
Now as most people know, computer to computer integration relies in part on consistency of data location. Just goes to show, standards are not the answer, having some understanding of data integration and what business benefit you are trying to achieve is more valuable. If you understand data integration and business benefits, lack of consistency will dissapear even in a csv or fixed width file.
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