Transport People and Cargo quickly and safely with new XML conversion options

October 08, 2009 Data & AI

Please give a warm welcome to the newest converter in the DataDirect Data Integration Suite family - IATA Cargo-IMP (Cargo Interchange Message Procedures). IATA is leading the charge to move to e-freight, but at the time of this writing fully 5/6 of all cargo is still moved by paper-based processes.

To learn how to use these to your advantage, we're hosting two free webinars entitled "Still Transporting Your EDI Data the Same Old Way? Get Up to Speed and Move Data Faster and Better." The first is October 15, 2009 at 12:00 ET (GMT-05:00), and the second October 21, 2009 at 12:00 GMT, and registration is open now.

This webinar demonstrates how DataDirect’s Data Integration Suite can help automate mission-critical EDI transactional processing for a variety of commercial industries. Data Integration Suite provides out of the box support for all IATA PADIS, IATA Cargo-IMP, IATA Cargo-FACT, and X12 EDI transactions, including error identification and handling, and custom mapping.

The Cargo-IMP converter handles all 76 current messages accepted by both IATA and ATA members, including:

  • FFR – Space allocation request
  • FFA – Space allocation answer
  • FSR – Status request message
  • FSU – Unsolicited status message
  • FSA – Status answer
  • FWB – Air Waybill
  • FMA and FNA – Message acknowledgement and negative acknowledgement

Like the other EDI converters in the family, this inherits the bidirectional heritage, so that Cargo-IMP can be read, validated, written, augmented and reshaped. What that means is that this:

[cc]FFR/6 125-12345675FRAPHL/T25K875/CLOTHING BA171/19MAR/LHRJFK/NN REF/FRAFCBA[/cc]

using this little XQuery program, which you can easily execute inside of the Data Integration Suite:

[cc lang="xquery"]declare option ddtek:serialize "indent=yes"; let $msg := doc("converter:EDI?BA171.cargo") return

{ concat($msg//FDX.1.1, ' - ', $msg//FDX.1.1/comment()[2]) } { data($msg//CDX.3.3) } pieces of { data($msg//CDX.7.2) } weighing { xs:integer($msg//CDX.3.5 * 2.2) } pounds { concat($msg//FDX.1.5/comment()[2], ' ', $msg//FDX.1.4) } { concat($msg//FDX.3.2, ' - ', $msg//FDX.3.2/comment()[2]) } { concat('Flight ', $msg//FDX.1.2) } [/cc]

can yield this:

[cc lang="xquery"] BA - British Airways 25 pieces of CLOTHING weighing 1925 pounds March 19 JFK - New York, NY, USA John F Kennedy Intl Airport Flight 171 [/cc]

(You can try this yourself - the Data Integration Suite now includes the Cargo-IMP XML Converter.)

Lose neither your baggage nor your data, with DataDirect IATA PADIS and Cargo-IMP converters.

Tony Lavinio

Tony Lavino started in the 8-bit world with 6502 and Z-80 assembly. An experience with dBase II ignited Tony's passion for databases, and he soon found himself using Progress (now OpenEdge) 3.2J around 1987. He was so impressed, that he wanted to work for the company, and has since spent  time either working for Progress or for its customers. Since 2002, Tony has worked on XML and EDI products, and now focuses on database drivers.