Quickstart

There are three ways to construct or parse messages. Choose the approach depending on what type of business document you want to send or receive and on how familiar you are with different document standards:

• Implement using metadata The recommended approach. This method uses JSON metadata to abstract different document syntax formats and performs automatic conversion. It is the easiest to implement and has the best standards compliance.
• Implement natively Using this method, you need to create or parse native data in XML format and make separate implementation for each document syntax format that you want to support.
• Implement as raw documents This lets you send any kind of document as the core document, such as PDF files, images, or even XML or EDIFACT documents.

Learn more about the following:

Generate business documents from metadata

• We recommend using this approach as it is not necessary to verify which documents your business partner is able to process and the correct document standard is selected automatically.
• This group of calls (Transactions) relies on metadata to generate a valid XML or EDIFACT document.
• To successfully create a business document through one of these calls, the metadata must be correctly formatted and include the minimum required elements.

Submit XML documents

• If you have knowledge and experience working with business document specifications, this approach lets you implement the chosen document specification in its native format.
• We are here to assist you—our system validates the documents when submitting them to ensure that they conform to the chosen business profile.
• This approach (POST /messages/create-business-transaction) requires an XML document that has been formatted according to the corresponding document specification, as defined by the relevant business profile.

Submit any document

• If the document that you want to send is not defined as a transaction or formatted according to the configured business specifications, use the POST /messages/create-message call.
• A greater flexibility allows you to send scanned business documents or any additional content that does not comply with one of the supported document specifications.
• Keep in mind that, because this type of exchange is not predefined by a business profile, the message envelope must specify how the documents should be handled. Since the exchange parameters are not standardized, the sender and the receiver need to agree on the conditions to prevent issues during message processing and delivery.