Modelling functional agreements in EDIFACT environments

Communication processes in the commercial sectors are more and more using the services offered by the telecommunication industry. This is also due for the electronic data interchange (EDI) of business data which represents one of the most recent teleservices. This trend leads to the standardization of the data exchange, where EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce and Transport) seams to be the global standard for the forseeable future. However, the EDIFACT standard approach includes a number of shortcomings that keep many firms and organizations from participating in this area of electronic commerce. One of the worst shortcomings is that in order to be generally valid EDIFACT is too complex in its structure and consequently too hard to read and navigate. The ‘real’ data interchange between two business partners is usually based on a very small subset of the generally valid standard. Therefore, a detailed functional interchange agreement to define the format of the ‘real’ data is necessary before two partners start the interchange for the first time. This agreement is usually done through conventional communication methods, e.g. via telephone or fax, which results in a serious backdraw. Our paper presents a concept for interchanging the functional interchange agreements between the business partners via EDI itself.