There are 4 elements to EDI (Electronic Data Interchange).
- Composing a message
- Sending a message
- Receiving a message
- Processing a message
Steps 1 & 4 are sometimes refered to as "translating" or "mapping". Steps 2 & 3 are the communication.
By translating you take a document on your computer system, say an order or an invoice, and convert it into another format. Or you take a document that someone has sent you from their computer system, and convert into a document on your system.
Senders Format --> Another Format --> Receivers Format
Why use this third format? Why not translate directly into the receivers format? Well this is quite a lot of work. Think VHS --> Betamax. Think Paralell port --> USB port. If you have lots of receivers all with their own formats then you are going to have to write a lot of different translation routines. The big idea of EDI was, if we could all agree on one standard format, and we could all write our own translation routine into, and out of, the standard and save a lot of work.
[SAP / Salesforce.com / Oracle] --> Standard --> [Oracle/ Salesforce.com / SAP]
Unfortunately everyone couldn't agree. There are lots of standards. Edifact, Ebiz-XML, Tradacom... and many more. Some are tailored to specific industries. Some are more popular in certain countries. In IT invovation is very fast. People are always thinking up new "improvements".
So when your trading partner tells you they will be using the new "DLite buzzword compliant standard", ignore the "standard" word. Don't try and enter into a conversation/debate about the merits of it and others. Just think of it as their format. Oh did I say "Trading Partner"? That is another term you have to get used to. It means customer or supplier. If they are a customer, you will be accepting their "standard". If they are a supplier, they will be accepting your "standard".