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Managing Trading Partners

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Trading Partner Management is a privileged operation enabled within the Cleo VLNavigator software, providing a place within the product to store information about trading partners and a way to know which host-mailboxes combinations (also called connections) are associated with a particular trading partner.

Primary functions include:

  • Storing and retrieving information about a trading partner such as:
    • Contact information for multiple people, including the type of contact
    • Interchange Identifier(s) and qualifier(s)
    • Macro Identifier (Used at mailbox/command level substituted for %tp)
    • Folders, hosts, and mailboxes that are associated with the trading partner
  • Viewing transfer reports sorted by Trading Partner
  • When viewing transfers through VLPortal, viewing transfers for all mailboxes associated with the trading partner
  • Using the Trading Partner Interchange Identifiers selectively or collectively (through the Trading Partner alias) in the routing table and the CHECK command

About the Trading Partners table

The Trading Partners table displays aliases, contacts, and connections for each trading partner configured. Each row in the table contains information about a single trading partner.

To access the Trading Partners Table, do one of the following:

  • In the web UI, click Partners.
  • In the native UI, select Tools > Trading Partners in the menu bar.

You can sort the table by any of the columns. By default, the table is sorted by the Trader Partner Alias column. When you sort by Contacts, rows are sorted by the first e-mail address in the cell for each row. When you sort by Connections, rows are sorted based on the first item in the connections list.

Within each Contacts cell, items are sorted by e-mail address. Within each Connection cell, the items are also sorted alphabetically. The Trading Partner Type column is only displayed if Trading Partner Types exist for your trading partners.

The table will only display information about the Trading Partners and connections for which the current user has viewing privileges. This is based on the Cleo Harmony, Cleo VLTrader, or Cleo LexiCom folders to which the current user has privileges to see. Suppose the Trading Partner has associated folders, hosts, and mailboxes but the current user does not have privileges to see them. In that case, the user will not see the trading partner information in the table. If there are no connections associated with a trading partner, all users can see that trading partner and the associated contacts.

If the host/mailbox is not associated with a Trading Partner and is not a Cleo test host or the Local Listener, it is shown in the table at the bottom of the list with one row per host/mailbox, and the Trading Partner alias, Trading Partner Type, and Contacts cells are empty. These items are shown with a darker background color to indicate which host/mailbox combinations are not associated with any trading partner.

Right-click a trading partner row to display a menu from which you can choose from the following operations:

Right-click a non-trading partner row to display a menu from which you can choose from the following operations:

In addition, you can use the row of buttons at the bottom of the page.

Filtering the Trading Partner Table

Click Filter on the Trading Partner Management table to display the Trading Partners Filter dialog box.

The Trading Partners Filter dialog box contains a list of trading partners and a list of connections. Each item has a check box you use to select one or more of each to reduce the number of items displayed. Choosing items from the trading partners list updates the items displayed in the table. There are also Business Contact and Technical Contact check boxes. At least one of these must be selected.

Searching the Trading Partner Table

Click Find on the Trading Partner Management table to display Find Trading Partner dialog box, where you can specify a search for a specific trading partner alias, email address, name, or connection.

Select a specific radio button to choose the criterion you want to search on. Then enter a string into the enabled field(s). The search is case insensitive. It will stop when the string entered matches any part of the selected field(s). The search starts on the selected row. If no rows are selected, then the search starts at the top of the list. F3 will perform a Find Next. If no matches are found from the starting point to the end of the list, the user will be asked to continue searching from the top. The labels for the three Custom Fields at the bottom will be displayed using the user-customizable labels configured in the Trading Partner General tab. See Trading Partner: General Tab.

Adding or editing a Trading Partner

  1. Click Add Trading Partner on the Trading Partner Management table page to configure a new trading partner.

    The Trading Partner Alias input dialog box appears.

  2. Enter the trading partner alias and click OK.

    The Add Trading Partner dialog box appears.

  3. Enter information on each of the following tabs as required.
  4. Click OK when you are finished entering information about your trading partner.

    Your trading partner information is saved.

Trading Partner: General Tab

The General tab contains the Trading Partner address type and address as well as other general information including the Partner Type, Macro Value, and three custom fields. All fields are optional. The Macro Value is used with the %tp keyword referenced in HTTP hosts. The Change… button allows the user to change the alias of the Trading Partner to another non-existent alias. The Edit Types… button after the Address Type field allows the user to configure user-defined address types (see Edit Address Types). The Edit Types… button after the Partner Type field allows the user to configure user-defined partner types (see Edit Partner Types).

The Edit Label… buttons allow the user to label the three custom data fields. These three fields can be used to store information such as a division name or the file transfer product being used by the trading partner.

Edit Partner Types

The Edit Partner Typesdialog box allows you to add new partner types and edit existing ones.

Click New… to create a new partner type.

Double-click a row to edit the partner type. When you modify a partner type, the modification is propagated to all Trading Partners of this type.

Right-click a row to display a menu from which you can edit the partner type or remove it.

Edit Address Types

The Edit Address Types dialog box allows you to add new address types and edit existing ones.

Click New… to create a new address type.

Double-click a row to edit the address type. When you modify an address type, the modification is propagated to all Trading Partners that have this address type.

Right-click a row to display a menu from which you can edit the address type or remove it.

Trading Partner: Contacts Tab

The Contacts tab displays the contacts associated with a trading partner.

The only required information for a contact is the email address and the contact type.

Click Add Contact to add a contact to the list of contacts for this trading partner. When adding a contact, you are prompted to provide an email address, which is checked to make sure it is valid. If not, you are prompted to provide a valid email address. If the email address is already associated with a trading partner, you choose to use that contact information.

Double-click a row to edit the contact information.

Right-click a row to display a menu from which you can choose to edit the contact or remove it.

Note: Editing the contact information for an Email address associated with a Trading Partner modifies the data for this contact for all associated Trading Partners.

Contact: Contact Tab

The Contact tab for a contact contains information including contact name, title, phone numbers, and time zone, and whether the contact is a business contact, a technical contact or both. At least one of the contact types must be selected. Click Change to modify the contact’s email address.

Contact: Address Tab

The Address tab for a contact contains the contact’s address information. By default, the address is the same as the trading partner and the data entry fields are disabled. Select the Different from General Address check box to enable the data entry fields on the screen.

Contact: Trading Partners Tab

The Trading Partners tab for a contact contains a list of associated trading partners. This list is display only. The Trading Partner being edited is denoted by an asterisk (*) after the alias.

Contact: Notes Tab

The Notes tab for a contact contains any text you might want to save regarding this contact.

Trading Partner: Identifiers Tab

The Identifiers tab contains a list of interchange identifiers and qualifiers associated with a trading partner. These interchange identifiers/qualifiers can be used in the Routing and Transfer Reporting features.

Double-click on a row to display a dialog box where you can edit an existing interchange identifier/qualifier.

The user may also right-click and select Edit Interchange Identifier… to edit the row or Remove Interchange Identifier… to remove the row(s).

Trading Partner: Connections Tab

The& Connections tab contains a list of connections (folders, hosts, mailboxes) associated with this Trading Partner.

The Assigned Connections list shows which connections are associated with this trading partner. If a folder is listed alone, then all folders, hosts, and mailboxes in that folder are considered to belong to this trading partner. Likewise, if a host is listed alone, then all mailboxes of that host are considered as belonging to this trading partner. To remove items from this list, select one or more items from the list and click the Remove Connection(s) button.

The Assigned Connections list shows all folders, hosts, and mailboxes not associated with this trading partner even though they may be associated with another trading partner. This is because connections can belong to more than one trading partner. Select items from the Assigned Connections list and click the Add Connections button to associate the connection(s) to the trading partner. The connections will be added to the Assigned Connections with Production set to False.

Selecting one or more mailbox items from the Assigned Connections and right-clicking gives a menu with two choices:

  • Set Production to True
  • Set Production to False

These set the Production flag to True or False for the selected mailbox(es).

Trading Partner: Notes Tab

The Notes tab contains any user-entered notes for a Trading Partner.

Exporting Contacts

Click Export on the Trading Partner Management table to display the Trading Partner Contact Export dialog box, where you can export the currently displayed contacts and their EDI parameters to a comma-separated value (.csv) file. The data exported depends on the current filter.

Specify whether or not a header row should be output using the Output header row switch. You can also select the character used as the value separator. You can select a comma, semicolon, tab, or another character you specify. When you click Export, you are prompted for a file name and location.

The following columns are output in the following order:

  • Trading Partner Alias
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email
  • Title
  • Department
  • Work Phone
  • Work Phone Extension
  • Cell Phone
  • Address 1
  • Address 2
  • City
  • State/Province
  • Zip
  • Country
  • Business (“True” or “False” specifying whether this is a Business contact)
  • Technical (“True” or “False” specifying whether this is a Technical contact)
  • Address Type
  • Interchange Identifier
  • Qualifier

Importing Contacts and EDI Parameters

Click Import on the Trading Partner Management table to display the Trading Partner Contact Import dialog box. Use this dialog box to import contacts from a comma-separated values (.csv) file into the Trading Partners table. The user is first prompted to select the CSV file to import. Once the file is selected, the VersaLex application will attempt to automatically determine the Column Separator (if it is Comma, Semicolon, or Tab).

Specify whether the file contains a header row and select a column separator (if needed). When you click Import, the contacts and EDI parameters are imported. If a contact (Email address) already exists, the user will be prompted whether or not they want to overwrite the existing contact information. If an Interchange identifier already exists for that trading partner then it will be overridden.

If an invalid line is encountered, the import is aborted and all invalid lines are displayed in a dialog box.

The following columns in the following order are expected in the input file.

  • Trading Partner Alias
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email
  • Title
  • Department
  • Work Phone
  • Work Phone Extension
  • Cell Phone
  • Address 1
  • Address 2
  • City
  • State/Province
  • Zip
  • Country
  • Business (“True” or “False” specifying whether this is a Business contact)
  • Technical (“True” or “False” specifying whether this is a Technical contact)
  • Address Type
  • Interchange Identifier
  • Qualifier

The required columns are the Trading Partner Alias and at least one of the following:

  • An Interchange Identifier
  • A Contact Email Address marked as a Business or Technical Contact

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