Electronic Data Interchange, EDI, is a method of exchanging documents between computer systems. Michaels uses this method with some of their vendors. The EDI project manager at the Accounts Payable Center (APC) asked me to help organize information about which vendor invoices were being received, and which were being rejected, and why. The resulting MS Access application took Excel files as input, updated an Access database, and sent emails to the EDI vendors summarizing each day's activity.
Statistical summaries were then produced that identified the reject rates and types, so that APC staff could work effectively with vendors to reduce rejects.
Biggest business challenge: this was a simple project from a business standpoint. Once the vendors began to receive emails, they contacted the EDI staff with questions. The increased activity level required an adjustment period for them. Beyond that hiccup, some vendors wondered why they were receiving the information, or what the information meant. In each case, the final result was better communication with vendors, and better followup by the APC.
Biggest technical challenge: well, the email routine was a good coding project. It included detail information for each vendor about that day's production. It was also interesting to make written reports with fixed formats for a varying number of error types - I eventually made a "Top 5" format that featured six columns of data - the five most used reject rates for the period being summarized, and a sixth column of "Other" that included the rest of the work. There was another technical challenge to make each process restartable - that required a number of tables that contained flags which could be cleared in order to regenerate any missing stats..
Buzzwords: MS Access development, workflow, Excel integration, Netscape MAPI