Cross Domain Application Error and Acknowledgement Process BRS

The current practice of the exchange of business documents (a.k.a. business data exchange structures or messages) by means of telecommunications – usually defined as e-Business presents a major opportunity to improve the competitiveness of companies, especially for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). The (Cross-Industry) Acknowledgement process has been compiled using the UN/EDIFACT APERAK as a base, with contributions and submissions from: VDA, ODETTE, GS1, UN/CEFACT Japan Committee. Also, existing requirements of sectoral PDA Agriculture and PDA Supply Chain were taken into account. These structures are reworked to a generic design offering industry groups or local user communities the opportunity to contextualize the information by using the UN/CEFACT Core Component Business Document Assembly (CCBDA) methodology. The essence of the Acknowledgement process is validating the business document received, both technically and semantically (business logic). The process involves a couple of information exchanges in order to inform the sender that his business document has been received, accepted, rejected or changed in process status during its lifecycle. All business partners have an interest that any errors or process changes of life cycle status are identified and communicated, efficiently and unambiguously so that the necessary actions can be made. At the same time, it is crucial that a reason why an error or change in process status has occurred is recorded in an accurate and transparent manner. For speeding up the correction process, the recipient of the business document may provide the needed actions in order to resolve errors.