Seeburger BIC vs Informatica Conversion Agent

[Former Member]

Hi Experts,

I am hoping I can seek some feedback on the above mentioned subject. I am going through an implementation currently which involves EDIFACT and X12 - various message types e.g. Orders, Desadv, Invoice, Order Confirmation and a few more.

As part of the implementation we need to choose a tool to do EDI to XML conversion which can also do EDIFACT/X12 validations (syntax & semantic) plus a functional Acknowledgment.

The two final options we have chosen are Informatica's Conversion Agent and Seeburger BIC (given we are using Seeburger FTP adapter for communication already).

Now to make a final decision I was hoping if some people can share their experience (s) and give some pro's and con's for choosing one or the other please?

Any comments will be highly appreciated.

regards

[Former Member]

Hi mimranacc,

We are using Seeburger tool to convert EDI to XML and the other side XML to EDI....is a really practical tool and easy to manage...as you know:

- BIC manage the Functional Acknowledgement, and very good if you have any issue it will reported in the segment.

- You can split your messages if you have many ST in your EDI Message it can be separate

- An important point is that BIC validate your EDI sintax....(maybe the EDI files are not well formed)

- You call BIC in the parameters of the module of your Communication channel and there are few parameters and understandable.

- I think is easy to update your changes...you use the BIc mapping tool and create the sda file just with an option and then this sda file you deploy in PI....no more....

- Also we have the Message Tracking tool....that is an enviroment to monitor the messages including some especific infotmation about the message that maybe the clients want to know...

If you have more specific question i can answered...i am just telling some general things...

I hope this can help!

Regards,

lpbuff

[Former Member]

Hi mimranacc,

Just to add something more to lpbuff for Seeburger

-The Message Tracking tool lets you group the messages so you can give (or not) permissions to your users to see one type of messages or others.

-If you are getting out of standards...let say a bigger length in an element you can also change the 1 to 1 mapping and re deploy the SDA file to PI.

I haven't worked with Informatica Conversion Agent either, but Seeburger can be a good choice.

Good luck.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Thank you for your replies. I was hoping if someone can comment on Conversion Agent as well or if there is a white paper on the comparison of the two?

However first hand experience will be really great input if someone please can.

regards

[Former Member]

Hi mimranacc,

I was hoping if someone can comment on Conversion Agent as well or if there is a white paper on the comparison of the two?

I have extensively worked on Conversion Agent. My experience has been real good with this tool. It is quite handy and easy to use.

Apart from unstructured messages from MS Word, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint etc, Conversion Agent can manage semi-structured formats like EDI, HL7, ANSI X12, COBOL and HIPA.

It consists of set of libraries that are deployed on PI's J2EE server and is accessed by AE during runtime.

The +ve points are -

1. Very easy to install and use,

2. Easily integrated with SAP PI,

3. No additional adapter required for transformation to / from XML,

4. No extra adapters installed on PI server, which enhances the performance,

5. Monitor Conversion Agent messages in Integration Server.

Unfortunately, I haven't worked with Seeburger BIC, so can't provide you a comparison.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Neetesh

[Former Member]

Neetesh,

Thank you for the input. However my criteria is quite specific, conversion part I agree but that is a basic and mandatory requirement anyway.

The criteria is:

1) Validations (syntax + semantic)

2) Envelope validations

3) Functional Ack

Have you done any of the above using CA? I am just looking for someone who has used the tool (s) and how was the functionality and experience.

[Former Member]

Conversion agent might be able to do some of the criteria I set above but depends how rigid your requirements are. e.g. if validations are quite strict and thorough you would have to enhance it.

BIC is looking more of a choice from everyone's input.