EDI Management: EDI Connections and Partner Setup

Connect a retailer through an EDI platform in one wizard, map its documents without code, and follow every transmission in plain language.

EDI Management lives under Integration → EDI and has four pages that work together: Connections (one row per retailer + platform account), Mappings (how each document type is translated), Code Tables (the lookup lists mappings use) and Transmissions (every document sent or received). Every platform uses the same wizard, the same detail view, the same mapping tool and the same plain-language error format — nothing is built per platform. The document types you can enable include 850 Purchase Order, 855 PO Acknowledgment, 856 ASN, 940 / 945 warehouse shipping documents, 846 Inventory Advice, 947 Inventory Adjustment, 943 / 944 stock transfer documents, 810 Invoice, 210 Freight Invoice, 204 Load Tender and 214 Shipment Status.

Step 1: Start the connection wizard and pick the platform#

1. Open Integration → EDI → Connections (/integration/edi/connections) and click “+ New connection”. The same five-step wizard opens for every platform: 1 Platform → 2 Credentials → 3 Test connection → 4 Mapping / template → 5 Sample preview.
2. Pick the EDI platform (connector), then fill in the Connection name and the Retailer code — for example WALMART. Type the code directly; the same retailer codes are used everywhere in Docklify.
3. Tick the doc types this connection will use. Inbound means retailer → Docklify, outbound means Docklify → retailer. Each enabled doc type should get a mapping in step 4.
4. Leave Test mode and Fixture mode on while you are setting up: the connection can then be created, tested and previewed with sample documents before real documents flow.

Step 2: Enter credentials and set failure alerts#

• The credential form is generated from the platform’s own field list — you only see the fields that platform actually needs. Secret fields are password boxes: they are never shown back after you type them.
• Failure alerts are set on the same step: alert after N consecutive failures (default 3) and auto-pause after N consecutive failures (default 10), so a broken connection stops hammering the platform instead of failing forever.
• Notifications: in-app notification is on by default; email notification is off by default. Turn email on if the team watching this retailer does not live in Docklify all day.

Step 3: Test the connection#

1. Click “Create & test connection”. Docklify creates the connection and runs the test right away; you see either “Connection test passed” with its latency, or a failure written in plain language — what happened and what to do next, never a stack trace.
2. When the test pulls back a sample document, it is shown in the wizard, and a mapping check runs against it. If the check lists problems, fix them in step 4 / the Mapping tool and re-test before you activate the connection.

Step 4: Bind a mapping or clone a template#

• For each enabled doc type, either bind an existing mapping or clone a template from the template library. A cloned template becomes a real mapping owned by this connection when you click Finish.
• You may leave a doc type with “no mapping yet” and finish anyway — but transmissions for that doc type will fail until a mapping is bound in Integration → EDI → Mappings, so bind it before real documents arrive.

Step 5: Run a sample preview, then finish#

1. Pick the doc type to preview and paste a sample document (JSON) into the sample box.
2. Click “Run preview”. Each mapped field comes back with its target, the source value, the function chain applied, the output value and, when something fails, the reason in plain language.
3. When every field passes, click Finish. If a field fails, fix the mapping in the Mapping tool and re-run the preview — do not finish on a failing preview and hope for the best.

Day to day: manage connections from the list and the detail view#

• The list shows, per connection: platform, retailer, enabled doc types, mode (Test / Fixture badges when on) and status. Row actions are Test, Details and Delete — deleting a connection also deletes its credentials.
• The on/off switch on a connection pauses or resumes it without deleting anything — use it when a retailer asks you to stop sending for a while.
• Details opens the connection drawer: Health (last 24h) with success rate and consecutive failures — Healthy, Degraded (the alert threshold is reached) or Paused — plus the alert / auto-pause settings, the last connection test, and the most recent transmissions with Retry and Replay buttons.

Mappings: translate documents without writing code#

1. Open Integration → EDI → Mappings (/integration/edi/mappings). Start from “+ New mapping”, or open the Template library tab and clone a template that already fits your platform and doc type.
2. In the editor, name the mapping, pick its doc type and direction, then build rows: click or drag a source field onto a row, set the target (Canonical) field, and chain functions — or use a constant, a code table lookup, and an optional condition — until the row produces the right value.
3. Test with a sample in the editor, then Activate. Activation is blocked while required fields are still unmapped — the editor lists exactly which ones are missing.
4. Every save creates a new version. Versions opens the version history: compare two versions side by side (added / removed / changed rows), or roll back — rollback opens that version in the editor, and you test it before activating, like any change.

Code tables: the lookup lists mappings use#

• Open Integration → EDI → Code Tables (/integration/edi/code-tables) and click “+ New code table”. Name it in lowercase_snake_case — for example upc_to_sku, uom_map or carrier_map — and give it a plain-language label.
• Edit entries as simple pairs: From (the value the retailer sends) → To (the value Docklify uses), plus an optional note. Typical tables translate retailer ship-to codes, units of measure and carrier codes — operators maintain them here, no code needed.
• Duplicate From values are highlighted in red — fix them before saving, because one From value can only point to one To value. For long lists, use Import CSV (paste rows as from,to,note, one per line; duplicates are skipped) and Export CSV to download the table.
• Saving a code table creates a new version of it. Mappings reference a table together with its version, so editing a table here does not silently change mappings that are already active.

Transmissions: follow every document, fix what failed#

• Open Integration → EDI → Transmissions (/integration/edi/transmissions). Filter by status, doc type or direction, or search by business number / external id. Statuses read plainly: Received, Mapped, Done, Failed, Duplicate, Dead and ACK pending.
• Open a transmission’s Details to see the raw document as received and the Canonical form after mapping, side by side with its status and ACK — that pair is what you check first when a partner says a document “looks wrong”.
• Errors are written for humans: a title, what happened, and what to do next. If the error is retryable, the row shows a “Retryable” badge and a Retry button. Errors that retrying cannot fix — authentication failures, mapping errors — show no Retry button: fix the credentials or the mapping first, then use Replay to run the original raw document again (available for Failed and Dead transmissions).

Docklify features used in this article#

• Five-step EDI connection wizard: platform, credentials, test, mapping / template, sample preview — Integration → EDI → Connections → + New connection (/integration/edi/connections)
• Connection details: 24h health, consecutive failures, alert / auto-pause settings and recent transmissions — Integration → EDI → Connections → Details
• No-code mapping editor with template library, sample test, version history, compare and rollback — Integration → EDI → Mappings (/integration/edi/mappings)
• Versioned code tables with duplicate check and CSV import / export — Integration → EDI → Code Tables (/integration/edi/code-tables)
• Transmission log with plain-language errors, retry and replay — Integration → EDI → Transmissions (/integration/edi/transmissions)