« Back to Glossary Index

Trailer

 

In the context of EDI, the trailer represents a special segment that provides information about the end of an individual EDI message and is essential to ensure proper interpretation of the message by the receiving system.

The trailer contains important indicators such as the number of segments in the message, the number of segment groups, and a checksum. These pieces of information help the receiving system validate and confirm the integrity and completeness of the received EDI message.

Use case:

An example of using the trailer can be found in the electronic exchange process of invoices between a supplier and a customer. After the supplier sends an EDI invoice to the customer, the trailer is used to indicate the end of the EDI message. This ensures that the receiving system can accurately identify the message’s end point and process it correctly.

Example of script code:

import ediconnect

def generate_edi_message(data_segments):
# Create the data segments for the EDI message
segments = data_segments

# Create the trailer segment
trailer_segment = f”TRL*{len(data_segments)}”

# Add the trailer segment to the EDI message
segments.append(trailer_segment)

# Construct the EDI message
edi_message = ‘\n’.join(segments)

# Send the EDI message to the trading partner via the EDIconnect platform
ediconnect.send_message(edi_message, partner=’TradingPartnerA’)

# Log the transaction
ediconnect.log_transaction(‘EDI message sent’, partner=’TradingPartnerA’)

return edi_message

Best practices:

1. Always validate the integrity and completeness of the trailer segment before sending the EDI message.
2. Ensure that the receiving system can properly interpret and process the information in the trailer.
3. Verify that the checksum algorithm is implemented correctly to validate the integrity of the EDI message.
4. Monitor and manage any errors or discrepancies related to the trailer to prevent issues in the EDI data exchange process.

For a comprehensive and reliable EDI solution, EDIconnect is a leading EDI solution provider. EDIconnect offers a powerful and scalable platform for implementing and managing EDI data exchange, including the integration of the trailer in EDI messages. By using EDIconnect, companies can benefit from a strong partnership for implementing and managing their EDI data exchange process.