ECGrid Simplify

Business Process Quick Start Guide

Simplify uses a two-tier account model. Before you start, it is important to understand the difference between your Reseller account and your customer's sub-account, because specific tasks must be performed in each one.

Trading partners are created and managed in the Reseller account. All customer sub-accounts under your reseller will have access to the trading partners you define here.

To add a new trading partner, navigate to Custom Trading Partners in your Reseller account. When creating the partner, you can configure:

• Partner name and default EDI delimiters
• Separate EDI qualifier and ID per document (if required) for the trading partner
• Trading partner-specific maps (covered in a later section)

If EDI documents will be exchanged through the ECGrid VAN, your customer's EDI ID(s) must be on the ECGrid network and a trading partnership must be established before documents can route. All of this is managed through the ECGrid Portal under Mailboxes.

3.1 Confirm Your Customer's EDI ID Is on the Mailbox

Before setting up a trading partnership, verify your customer's own EDI ID is registered on their mailbox:

1. Log into the ECGrid Portal and select Mailboxes from the left-side navigation panel.
2. Select the appropriate mailbox (if there are multiple).
3. Click the EDI IDs tab at the top of the mailbox screen.
4. Confirm the customer's qualifier and EDI ID are listed. If the ID is missing, add it before proceeding (see Section 3.2 below).

3.2 Add an EDI ID to a Mailbox (If Needed)

If the customer's EDI ID is not yet on their mailbox:

1. In the mailbox, click the EDI IDs tab.
2. Select + Create on the right-hand side.
3. In the pop-up, enter the qualifier (leave blank for null), EDI ID, company description, and Group (Production, Test, or MFT).
4. Click Create to save.

3.3 Set Up a Trading Partnership

Once the customer's EDI ID is confirmed on the mailbox, create the trading partnership with the trading partner:

1. In the mailbox, click the TPs tab at the top of the screen.
2. Select + Set Up Trading Partnership on the right-hand side.
3. In the pop-up, select your EDI ID from the dropdown, then enter the trading partner's qualifier and identifier.
4. Click Next. A review page will display.

• If the trading partner's ID is found on the ECGrid network, a green Submit Partnership button will appear. Click it to complete the setup.
• If the trading partner's ID is not on the ECGrid network, you will need to provide the trading partner's company name and select their VAN to complete the partnership request. A request will be sent to support to complete the new partnership.

1. Once submitted, if the trading partner and their IDs are already on the ECGrid system, the status will show as Completed and you can begin trading immediately.

All remaining configuration steps are performed in the customer's sub-account, which is the live run-time environment. From your Reseller account, you can access a customer account by using the "Login as User" option (select the three-dot menu next to the customer account).

Once inside the customer account, you will configure connectors, flows, trading partner connections, and maps.

A connector is a configured integration point that links Simplify to an external system or communication channel. Connectors define how Simplify sends and receives documents. They must be set up before a flow can be created.

Common connector types include:

• ECGrid — connects Simplify to an ECGrid VAN mailbox to send and receive EDI
• Shopify — bi-directional integration with EDI, XML, and other formats
• Windows Service Client — monitors a local directory to upload files to Simplify and download files when available
• QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Infor, and other ERP/platform connectors

A flow tells Simplify what to do when a document arrives. It defines the source document (trigger), any conditions or filters to apply, and what action to take — including which map to run to transform the document.

6.1 Flow Components

• Trigger: defines what document Simplify is listening for and how to receive it (source connector and document type). 
• Action: defines what to do with that document — which map to run, where to send the output, and via which connector. 
• Conditions: optional data-content filters that allow a single document type to route to different flows based on field values. 

A single trigger can have multiple actions. For example, an inbound 850 Purchase Order could be transformed to your ERP format and simultaneously generate a human readable report.

The flow Trigger document is the source of the map and the Action document is the destination of the map.  This is how the system knows which map to pull into the customer’s account.

6.2 Enable / Disable a Flow

Flows can be toggled on or off at any time using the Enable/Disable control on the flow. Only enabled flows will actively process incoming documents. Disabling a flow is useful during testing, maintenance, or when temporarily pausing a trading partner's processing.

6.3 Test Function

Each flow includes a Test function that allows you to validate configuration before going live. Use the test option to verify that the correct map is being called and the output is as expected without actually routing the document to the production destination.

Once a flow is set up, the map associated with that flow is accessible via Advanced Config > Maps in the customer account. This is where you can:

• View all maps available to the customer (system maps, reseller maps, and any cloned/customized maps)
• Clone a system or reseller map to create a customer-specific version that can be edited
• Review and modify map logic for field transformations, lookups, and conditions

8.1 Connect the Trading Partner

After the flow is set up, navigate to Connected Partners in the customer account. Here you connect the trading partner you created in the Reseller account (Section 2). Connecting a partner makes it available for use within this customer's flows.

Select + Connect to a Partner and choose the appropriate partner from the list of reseller-defined partners.

8.2 Add a Document and Partner Identifier

Once connected, you need to tell Simplify which field in the inbound document identifies this trading partner. This is done by linking a document type to the partner and configuring the integration key.

1. Select the partner and click Link to a Document Type.
2. Choose the Document Type (e.g., ANSI X12 850 005010) — this should match the trigger document in your flow.
3. Verify the Partner Field XPath. If you need to change this XPath, you will need to clone the document type and set it specifically for that customer account.
4. Enter the Partner Identification Key(s) — the actual value(s) that will appear in that field for this trading partner (e.g., the sender ID from ISA06). You can enter keys manually or import from a CSV file.

About the XPath

The Partner XPath tells Simplify which field within the parsed document structure to inspect to determine which trading partner the document is from or going to. It is an XPath expression pointing to a specific element in the document definition.

For example, for an ANSI X12 EDI document, a typical Partner XPath might be:

/Document/ISA/ISA06

This instructs Simplify to look at element ISA06 (the sender ID in the interchange header) to find the partner identifier. The XPath is set on the document definition and is displayed on the Link to a Document Type screen. Verify it matches the field where this partner's ID will appear in the inbound document.

If a trading partner requires custom field mappings, alternate logic, or partner-specific defaults that differ from the base map, you can create a TP-specific map. To do this:

1. Navigate to Advanced Config > Maps in the customer account (or log in under the reseller account as the trading partner context).
2. Select the Trading Partner in the drop down menu on the left side above the source file definition.
3. Clone the existing base map (system or reseller map).  There will be a green dot next to the trading partner name in the drop down list to indicate it has a cloned trading partner specific map.
4. Edit the cloned map to apply trading partner-specific logic — custom field values, lookup table references, alternate segment handling, etc.
5. Compile the map after making changes.  

Once a TP-specific map is associated, all documents from that partner processed through this customer account will use the TP map instead of the base map. This is particularly valuable when multiple trading partners share the same document type but have different implementation requirements — you build the logic once per partner rather than once per customer.

10.1 Flow Activities Screen

The Flow Activities screen provides a full audit trail of every document that has been processed through your flows. From this screen you can:

• View the processing history and status (Accepted, Validated, Mapped, Failed, etc.) for each flow run
• Expand a flow run to see the status of each individual step in the flow pipeline
• Hover over a failed step to see the full error detail
• View document content at each step to inspect what the document looked like before and after transformation
• Search for specific documents using identifiers such as PO number, interchange control number (ICN), or other custom identifiers
• Download search results and save custom filter configurations

10.2 Manually Upload a Document for Testing

The Flow Activities screen also allows you to manually upload a document to trigger a flow and test your map. This is useful for validating map logic with a real document before going live with a trading partner.

To manually upload:

1. On the Flow Activities screen, select the Manually Upload File option.
2. Choose the Action (which flow to trigger).
3. Select the Document Type that matches the flow trigger.
4. Upload the file.

10.3 Internal Testing Checkbox

When manually uploading a document, you will see an Internal Testing checkbox. Selecting this option processes the document through the map and shows you the transformation output but does not send the result file out of the system to the destination connector. Use this option when you want to verify map output without triggering any real outbound transmission to a trading partner or ERP system.

Use this checklist as a high-level guide for each new trading partner integration:

1. Log into the Reseller account and create the trading partner under Custom Trading Partners.
2. Verify the trading partner's EDI IDs are set up on the ECGrid VAN (TP Search). Add interconnects if needed.
3. Log into the Customer account.
4. Set up the Connector (see KB article for connector setup details).
5. Create a Flow — define the trigger document, action, and map.
6. Enable the flow.
7. Go to Advanced Config > Maps to locate and review the map.
8. Navigate to Connected Partners and connect the trading partner.
9. Link the document type to the partner and configure the XPath and partner identification key(s).
10. (Optional) Clone and customize the map to create a TP-specific map if needed.
11. Use Flow Activities > Manual Upload with Internal Testing enabled to validate the map.
12. Once validated, disable Internal Testing and confirm live processing.