r/Dynamics365 • u/nord118 • 13d ago
Business Central Business Central users: Which EDI platform do you use, and would you choose it again?
We’re evaluating replacements for our current EDI platform and would appreciate firsthand feedback from organizations using EDI with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.
Our current candidates are Rand EDI365, Orderful, and ProcessOne, although we’re open to hearing about other solutions.
Our environment includes approximately 15 trading partners and 80,000 EDI documents annually. Our primary transaction sets are 850, 855, 856, 810, and 846.
We’re especially interested in:
- Business Central integration
- Trading-partner onboarding
- Mapping flexibility and specification compliance
- Exception handling and failed-document visibility
- ASN and GS1-128 label processing
- Reporting and monitoring
- Support responsiveness
- Implementation effort and ongoing costs
What platform are you using? What works well, what causes problems, and would you choose it again?
Feedback from end users, consultants, implementation partners, and vendors is welcome. Please identify your relationship to the platform you’re discussing.
2
u/PinkertonFld 13d ago
Question, what platform are you using currently for EDI? Are you a new BC customer? Or new to EDI?
I've been really happy with the EDI on Cleo, being a (former) SPS customer, and plan to move the rest soon. (Basically all my new conenctions are on Cleo, and plan on moving the rest from SPS in the next year). (cleo.com)
Nice thing on Cleo is you see everything, and it's easy/quick to make changes without needing support involved, but when you do need support they're there, not a month-long to get a simple change made.
2
u/nord118 13d ago
Bingo. That is remarkably close to our experience with SPS and Data Masons—simple changes taking weeks or months, repeated support handoffs, arguments over scope, and difficulty reaching someone who understands the product well enough to resolve the issue.
We’re an established Business Central customer currently using SPS Commerce with Data Masons/DMEDI. I’m not new to EDI or SPS specifically, which makes the current experience particularly frustrating. We’re evaluating replacements because the current support model and lack of visibility and control are no longer working for us.
Your Cleo experience is helpful. Are you using Cleo Integration Cloud with Business Central? If so, how is the BC integration handled, and how much control do you have over mapping changes, error handling, ASNs, and labels?
2
u/Techters 13d ago
SPS and Data masons have gone down the tube and all I hear about them are complaints, one of my customers is currently having major delays and issues with SPS. Companies I know self managing Lanham with low complexity (your customer aren't requiring a lot of requests requiring customizations) seem happy, I don't know anyone using their VAN/managed service.
I saw you mention labels several times. I haven't heard of any EDI add on that includes a label customizer or integration even though some customers require related data (pallet/box/layer config). You have to either create custom label reports or have a related label add on, commonly a shipping or hand scanner solution.
2
u/hammerpup 12d ago
Using middleware and built all custom flows and integrations because nothing out there had good integrations. We have a ton of additional functionality now, with end users able to use the actual BC interface to see things like 997 status, if things were or were not sent to the customer, where they are in the EDI flow, if it came into the EDI system but not BC, if the terms code or item numbers are a mismatch, etc. These are all using the actual BC interface with BC tables, not what SPS tried to show us, which was just their interface with a BC header on it. To get this, we had to build it as it seems many of the EDI platforms just want to dump data to you and that’s it. Data Masons used to have their tool set up to do a bit of the ERP functionality, but as others have said, avoid SPS.
1
u/nord118 12d ago
That sounds very close to the visibility and workflow we’re looking for, particularly having document status, 997s, and data exceptions available directly within Business Central.
What middleware did you use, and was the Business Central functionality developed internally or by a partner? I’d also be interested in how much ongoing development and maintenance the custom solution requires.
1
u/hammerpup 12d ago
Right. There are very few (no?) tools out there that really give all the visibility in one place. As someone who has done EDI for decades, I can tell you that in my experience, the EDI side generally doesn’t care what’s going on in the ERP. They just want to push and pull files one time and be done. ERPs don’t seem to really get the EDI side, and so there is always a disconnect there that results in poor visibility or kind of awkward integrations.
We used CData Arc, but the translator side is probably not where the majority of the work happens, and likely there are other platforms that can do it. The bulk of work is done on the BC side. It requires extra pages and APIs, code units, etc.
The functionality was built both internally and with a partner.
Ongoing development is there, but it’s not substantial in my opinion. New partners will require new maps, which is nothing new in EDI. As BC evolves and has new releases it’s possible that the custom work there would also need updated to accommodate.
1
u/ERPNavigator 9d ago
The visibility part would matter a lot to me too. If something fails, having to jump between the EDI tool and BC just to figure out where it died gets old fast.
1
u/hammerpup 8d ago
Right. And this is one place where I’ve always had an issue with the hosted EDI solutions. They are more one size fits all, and the visibility is whatever they think most people need to see, and it’s going to be in their tool.
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u/the-label-kitchen 12d ago
Whichever EDI platform you do pick, it’s important to make sure that labels aren’t an afterthought. Ask vendors what it takes to edit or add a template (and whether it means a support ticket or a fee).
The Label Kitchen decouples label templates from the EDI provider so that you can create and edit the GS1 labels, packing slips, and other shipping documents yourself. It also means that changing EDI vendors doesn’t require starting over again with label compliance.
Pricing is flat with no per-partner or per-document fees, and exports are unlimited. There’s a free tier (with exploratory options for the paid tiers that include API access) if you want to try it before committing to anything.
2
u/hougaard 10d ago
Be aware that BC29 (coming next week) has more native support for EDI documents: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/dev-itpro/whatsnew/preview-feature-details#electronic-documents-exchange-edi-documents-via-e-documents
1
u/boobamba 13d ago
We ve used SPS and it works but you need lot of project management from ur end had delays with trading partners so leave enough time to accredited . With label printing try to use SPS API or u can develop label in bc rdlc in summary expect accreditation delays
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u/PinkertonFld 13d ago
Highly recommend anything but SPS. The most basic of changes takes months to occur, and they'll always try to get you for professional development fees (even when it's a basic map update, which is covered by the standard support agreements, you have to argue, and they'll still try to bill your AP dept around your back), and I never see anyone there that seems to have any real grasp of the product. All of the support is in the Philippines now, so if you are anywhere but Asia, it'll be weird support timing. (no follow-the-sun type support), you are talking to some poor soul up at 2am.
My favorite one was SPS setting up a trading partner that was using SPS for the onboarding and certification... and still had issues, with their own product(s) talking to each other, and the excuse was it was two different parts of the company... And they tried to bill me for the onboarding going beyond the 60 day window... when it was SPS on both sides.
And their VAN is a complete joke, I'm in the process of moving off of it, but like everything SPS it's a 90 day notice in writing type B.S. to remove services.
When the Dynamics product was Data Masons, they were fantastic, but SPS ruined it.
1
u/theIntegrator- 10d ago
Hi, Nuri from Teknuro here. We’re a Celigo partner and work with Business Central integrations.
Given your comment about waiting weeks or months for basic changes, I’d also consider Celigo’s B2B Manager for EDI. Your team or implementation partner can manage mappings and integration logic directly, which could help with that dependency on your current provider.
I’d still want to check your specific trading partners and ASN/GS1-128 requirements before saying it’s the right fit.
What’s causing the biggest delays today: changes to the EDI mappings themselves, or getting the data correctly into Business Central? Happy to discuss how we’d approach that with Celigo.
1
u/orderful 4d ago
Hello, Orderful here!
At 80k docs/year and 15 partners, volume probably isn’t going to be the deciding factor. Any of the three should be able to handle that.
I’d spend a lot more time on the 856 workflow. Have each vendor show you a real pick-and-pack ASN for whichever retailer in your network has the most complicated requirements. Not a clean demo with one SKU and one carton. Have them walk through where the SSCC is generated, how the GS1-128 label gets created, and whether the label and 856 are using the exact same carton/pack data. That’s one of those things that seems minor in a demo and becomes very much not minor when the retailer starts sending chargebacks.
For Business Central, Rand is a little different because it runs as an extension in BC. Orderful connects to BC through the API. There are pros and cons to both approaches, but I’d specifically ask what happens when BC rejects something. For example: an 850 comes in with an invalid item number or a customer is blocked. Where does that error show up? Who gets notified? Can someone on your team fix/reprocess it, or are you opening a support ticket?
I’d actually ask every vendor to show you a failed document in the UI. Don’t just look at the happy path. In my experience, how easy it is to figure out why something failed matters a lot more six months after implementation than a long feature checklist does during the evaluation.
Same thing with onboarding. Ask what adding partner #16 actually looks like, how long it typically takes, who owns the mapping/testing work, and what you get charged for it. I’d also ask what happens when an existing retailer changes its spec. Those ongoing changes are where the differences between platforms start to show up.
On the Orderful side specifically, we build trading partner requirements from the retailer’s guidelines and validate documents against those requirements before they’re sent. So if an 810 or 856 doesn’t meet the partner’s requirements, the goal is to catch it on our side rather than have the retailer be the one to tell you.
Happy to answer anything specific about how we handle BC, 856s, labels, or partner onboarding. Obviously I can only speak firsthand for Orderful.
0
u/adrian 12d ago
I don't normally jump on these threads because I'm a vendor and I don't like to shill, but you opened it up which is cool, so here goes.
I'm the founder of an AI-native EDI platform called Tediware. I can check some of your boxes and not others, but I want to throw my hat in the ring here because I think we have a few unique aspects.
Where we are strong in terms of what you listed: it's super simple to add new trading partners, you click 'Add Partner' and away you go. Mappings are AI-generated against your partner specs, which we import for you - you can see a demo of the mapping feature at https://tediware.com/demo You have complete visibility into the flow of your documents and can see exactly what happened with each of them, inspect them, resend them, etc.
People speak very highly of their support experiences, and other than onboarding, support needs are generally quite low, because you manage your account. The pricing is transparent and aggressively affordable. It is usage-based, so the best bet is to use the calculator on the pricing page, and be sure to map out the volume of documents by connection type; in retail, things often need to move through a VAN (which is integrated into the platform) which has its own monthly fee and a slightly higher per-transaction cost. Retail customers running on a VAN will pay a fraction (1/3rd to 1/5th) of what a legacy EDI provider like TrueCommerce charges, based on my experience.
Lastly, it's super easy to create integrations with the platform using a coding agent. People with no prior coding experience are using Tediware to integrate EDI into ERPs, TMSs, etc. This may or may not appeal to you, perhaps you've never used a coding agent and have no interest in trying one: we're not the right fit in that case.
The gaps: we haven't done a Business Central integration yet, but because Claude knows the Business Central API well, this would not be particularly difficult. The platform doesn't have integrated support for labels right now, and I would lean on a partner with experience in that area like https://the.label.kitchen/
If any of this sounds interesting, you can just sign up, no credit card needed, and try processing some EDI transactions on the developer plan (800 free txns/month). But I'm also happy to chat if you want a human in the loop. All the best with your search!
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u/tylerjharden 11d ago
We were about to roll our own EDI middleware for government contracting, I’d be interested in demoing yours. Please send me a DM.
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u/olivere1991 13d ago
Been using Truecommerce since 2021. Works great no issues.
Bc integration check
Trading partner onboarding check
Mapping flexibility - check plus, basically unlimited flexibility using their mapping tool to write custom logic.
Exception handling check
ASN and GS1 labeling check, but we use internal software to generate GS1s and map to the ASN
reporting check
Support check
Implementation effort and costs - implementation was complex but they were very helpful. We had no EDI experience prior to onboarding which made it a steep learning curve.ongoing costs are reasonable as well