RosettaNet Primer

Part 6: What do I need to implement RosettaNet?

Introduction

RosettaNet implementations enable companies to fully automate processes business-to-business (B2B).  By deploying a series of RosettaNet Partner Interface Processes^® (PIPs^®) businesses can achieve significant operational benefits by automating end-to-end process scenarios.

Implementing RosettaNet requires some basic activities from each trading partners.  While the specific software solutions vary, there are some general activities that are needed to implement RosettaNet.

Five Steps to Exchange PIPs

There are five high-level steps to be addressed for a company to begin exchanging RosettaNet PIPs

1. Business Application - Identify the business application that will be used for process automation.

2. B2B Solution - Select a B2B solution or gateway application.

3. Trading Partner - Secure commitment from the trading partner(s) to implement RosettaNet.

4. Partner Interface Process - Determine which PIPs to exchange with your partners.

5. Integration - Coordinate a project to integrate the B2B Solutions and PIPs with your partner.

Each of these steps are described in more detail below.

Step 1: Business Application

For a company to implement RosettaNet, the first thing to identify is the business application that will handle the business transactions.  The business application serves these primary purposes.

• Creates the PIP Business Documents sent to trading partners.
• Stores the information from PIP Business Documents received from trading partners.
• Handles all data processing and user interface.
• Determines how to handle the business response to B2B documents in an automated or semi-automated way.

Full Process Automation

This application may be a full Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, or a more targeted software application that supports one or more business processes.  The RosettaNet PIP standards were designed to enable B2B process automation, with information exchanges that do not require any human interaction. This means the business application must have the processing ability to handle the transactions as well as the various process exceptions in a fully automated way.  When implementing RosettaNet PIPs, most the the development work may be focused on the business application to enable full process automation.

Semi-Automation

Some RosettaNet implementations may be semi-automated, in that a human action or decision may be required to respond to or confirm transactions.  The business application may automatically send an alert to a person to notify them when a new business transaction has been received.  The application may require a person to evaluate and confirm the business action.  If the transaction requires a response document, the business application may automatically create the response document after the manual action has been completed. 

Manual Processing without a Business Application

Some RosettaNet implementations require totally manual efforts because the company may not have any business application to automatically respond to incoming messages.  In this case, the partner can leverage the RosettaNet TPIR-PF specification using PIP-based forms for handling the ebusiness transaction documents.  The received documents will be presented as forms to be reviewed by a person.  For each business transaction, a person will use a PIP-based form to manually create the new business documents to be sent to trading partners.  All responses to process exceptions will be handled by a human, not computer automated.

Step 2: B2B Solution

The B2B solution is often called a B2B gateway because this software creates a communication path between the business application and the Internet.  B2B solutions must coordinate the information exchanges between the B2B gateway and the business application.

The B2B gateway serves these primary purposes:

• Translates business data between the internal (private) format and the standard (public) format.
• Handles B2B message packaging, information security and digital certificates.
• Sends and receives PIP Business Documents (ebusiness messages).
• Monitors the business-to-business process status for any required responses.
• Acknowledges that the business document has been received.
• Notifies users if there are any B2B failures.

These B2B gateway functions may be handled by a stand-alone solution or these functions may be included as part of the Business Application.

There are two general ways companies implement B2B solutions.

Direct Connection with a company communicating directly with its partner.

Processing Service with both companies communicating through a third company that offers a B2B connectivity and/or processing services.

Data and Format Translation

The business application in your company will most likely use a different vocabulary than the business application used by your trading partner.  The RosettaNet PIP provides the standardized vocabulary that each partner can use for B2B communications.  The B2B solution will be coded to convert or translate your internal (private) vocabulary into the RosettaNet standard (public) vocabulary.  The data format will be converted from the business application format into the XML format.

Some business applications that have integrated gateway functions may be pre-coded to handle this data translation for specific RosettaNet PIPs.  Other B2B solutions will be designed as a flexible application that can translate data between a wide range of formats.  This translation code is often called a mapping file because it maps the vocabulary and format between the private and public documents.  Mapping files allow for the automatic translation of data for real-time processing.

Message Packaging and Unpacking

Once the business data has been converted into a standard PIP Business Document, the B2B solution will package or wrap the document with the necessary headers and references that support automated processing. Documents being sent to a trading partner are called outbound messages.

When a message is received from a trading partner, the B2B solution will unpack the message to extract the PIP Business Document.  This document will be translated into the vocabulary and format needed for the business application.  Messages received from a trading partner are called inbound messages.

Secure Data and Internet

The B2B solution may use two security techniques to ensure that the business data sent across the Internet is safely handled.

Digital certificates are used to confirm the source of the messages being received.

Data encryption is used to scramble the document’s contents so it can not be read without the special key used for decoding the message

Error Handling

The B2B solution will monitor the messages as they are sent and received to identify any errors.  Each B2B solution may have a different way of tracking and handling errors.  In general, errors detected by the gateway can be automatically sent to business or IT teams for notification and resolution.  Some errors can be handled automatically, while others may require manual intervention.

Step 3: Trading Partner

Securing the commitment of trading partners is a critical step for implementing RosettaNet.

Processing Capability

The trading partner will also require some type of business application and B2B solution, except in the case of manual processing.  Connecting with trading partners who do not have a business application or B2B solution may require additional capabilities by your company’s B2B solution.

Business Team

Implementing RosettaNet will require the involvement of your partner’s business team.  They must agree to the processes to being integrated.  They must also agree to the process service levels that are expected by both partners.  Changes may be required in the way processes are managed based on the RosettaNet standard.

Technical Team

The information technology (IT) team must also be involved when implementing RosettaNet.  As the integrations involve the business applications, the B2B solution, and firewalls for Internet access, multiple IT people may be required.  The technical team will be responsible for coordinating the security interfaces and the solution testing.  Securing their participation early in the engagement will be helpful.

Step 4: Partner Interface Process

Implementing RosettaNet will involve one or more Partner Interface Processes (PIPs).  The selection of PIPs will be dependent on the business role of each partner.

Agree to Specifications

Once the PIP(s) have been selected, you and your partner(s) must agree to the portion of the PIP to be used.  All mandatory data elements must be used for a standards-compliant implementation.  However, each PIP includes a broad number of optional data elements.  The partners must agree to the optional data elements that will be included in each PIP Business Document.

Partners must also agree to the vocabulary to be used for selected terms such as partner numbers, company identifiers, and perhaps even the valid choices for code lists.

In addition to the process specifications, the partners must also agree to the messaging standards to be used for transporting the PIP Business Document.  These are the four recommended transport and routing protocols (TRPs) that are specified for exchanging PIPs.

AS2 - MIME-Based Secure Peer-to-Peer Business Data Interchange using HTTP, Applicability Statement 2 (AS2) is published by ISOC and approved as an IETF standard.

ebMS - ebXML Message Service Specification is published by OASIS

RNIF - RosettaNet Implementation Framework published by RosettaNet

Web Services includes a set of specifications published by OASIS, W3C and WSI.

Confirm Service Agreements

Each process may have expected Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that are required to support the PIP.  These agreements are not explicit in the PIP itself and should be agreed through other contractual means.  With computers automating the processes and exception handling, it is very important that service expectations are clearly documented and agreed by both partners.

Step 5: Integration

The final step is to coordinate a project to integrate the B2B Solutions and PIPs with your partner.  This implementation project involves business and technical staff from both companies.

General activities that are included in the integration project are listed below.
Update the business application, if needed, to support automated processing.

• Develop mapping files based on the agreed PIP specifications.
• Set up the B2B solution and technical framework based on the TRP selection.
• Obtain digital certificates and exchange public keys.
• Determine test and production server addresses and exchange URLs.
• Test system connectivity to ensure both B2B gateways can communicate with each other.
• Test security to ensure digital certificates and message encryption/decryption is functioning.
• Test PIP exchanges to ensure documents are being sent from and to business applications.
• Test all process exceptions to ensure the business application is able to automate exception handling.
• Train business and technical staff regarding the RosettaNet implementation, trading partner involvement and expected service agreements.

These activities will vary some based on the specific business applications, B2B solutions and selected PIPs.

Integration projects need careful scheduling to align the business and technical activities at both companies.  Ongoing communications and visibility to project status will help the implementation projects run smoothly.