The EDIFRA message for ordering newspaper advertising by Electronic Data Interchange

Summary

Commercial interchange is increasingly handled and implemented from one machine to another. To allow newspapers to use the advantages to be gained from doing business this way, they and their partners have to speak the same digital language. Such a language is EDIFACT, developed by the United Nations for Electronic Data Interchange For Administration Commerce and Trade. In 1994 IFRA convened a Pan European User Group of experts from the newspaper industry and its advertising partners which jointly developed a subset of the EDIFACT message for ORDERS. This Special Report describes how the EDIFRA ORDERS message works and provides a users’ guideline for programmers. The message is not a theoretical product but is being implemented in the newspaper industry. It can be mapped to the ANSI X. 12 message.