Re: [Fwd: Re: Forwarding for EDI interchange]

["Carl Hage" <carl@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Date:          Mon, 04 May 1998 15:18:41 -0700
> From:          rsr <maddouri@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > I would look at it as a plug-in to the secxure email software that
> > processes the MIME described in the IETF-EDI spec. It might call a
> > filter/check program to examine the content of the message, then
> > return a forwarding address and whether or not to issue an MDN.
> 
> This approach has the following drawbacks : the filter/check program
> must understand different types of syntaxes (Edifact, X12 ...). A
> solution could be to extract some EDI informations (useful for
> forwarding) from the interchange (ex. interchange sender, interchange
> agreement, mesagge type ...) and define a mime body part to convey these
> informations.

The filter/check is EDI specific because the information extracted 
would be EDI specific and could not be generalized.

What information would you add that's not already there?

The RFC822 headers have information needed for forwarding to specific 
recipients. There is even a standard for forwarded gatewayed mail 
(used on UUCP links), e.g. name1%name2@xxxxxxxxxxxx

The "From:" and "To:" headers should be the generic sender and 
recipient, and no other headers should be used. The EDI-specific 
equivalents must be mapped to the RFC822 standard form.

EDI translators must maintain thier own mapping tables between the 
standard RFC822 message-ID and EDI-specific interchange IDs.

One thing that might be done is to forward messages based on 
product/industry codes. The "Keywords:" or another header could be 
used to contain those references. The "Subject:" header could also be 
used as a means to convey summary information.

I think a separate standard could be devised for encoding message 
summary information, representing in within the existing message 
headers, e.g. Subject, Keywords, etc. For POP/IMAP/NNTP, the client 
could scan article headers and download selected ones.

What information would you put in the headers?

Example:

1. Encode the transaction type in a standard format designated for 
each EDI format, e.g.:
   Subject: EDI X12 Message 840RFQ: 6GB SCSI Hard Disk

(Here the "EDI X12 Message 840RFQ" prefix is the message type. The 
remainder is a comment suitable for message tracking. In this case, 
the product description is used for the comment.)

2. Include information suitable for filtering in the Keywords header, 
e.g. industry codes/names, product codes, names, etc. Code numbers 
should be replaced with the textual definition. (Size is not 
important with the internet, but interoperability is-- readers should 
work even if code value definitions are unavailable.)

   Keywords: SIC 3572: Computer Storage Devices; 6GB SCSI Hard Disk

3. Specify the location for services or product delivery in a new 
header, e.g.:

   Location: Sunnyvale, CA 94086, US (37.38575N 122.02553W)
   Location: State of California, US (42N 125W - 32N 114W)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Hage                                              C. Hage Associates
<mailto:carl@xxxxxxxxx> Voice/Fax: 1-408-244-8410      1180 Reed Ave #51
<http://www.chage.com/chage/>                          Sunnyvale, CA 94086