Question
--------

I'd like to reject my incoming order (850) based on a special condition.
This rejection criteria is unique to our relationship with out trading
partner and NOT something that MXP would consider a valid rejection
criteria.  I don't want you, GTR (or our local programmer) to put this
criteria in the program because then I'd have to ask you to remove the
"rejection criteria" from the code should the criteria change at a later
date.  I'll give you an example: I'd like to reject each incoming order for
partner XYZ that has a terms rate that is not 3.2 (or some other special
rate stored somewhere and available to the inbound logic).  How do I do
this without doing any program modifications and via a formula or a simple
mapping?

Answer
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Let's base this technique on the fact that an incoming order always gets
rejected if certain values are not filled (mandatory values).  We do know
that if the customer field on the order is not correctly mapped to a valid
customer, the whole order would get rejected.  Actually, using any field
that causes a rejected order will do the trick, but for the purpose of my
explanation, let us use the "invalid customer on the order" to explain how
to resolve the problem that you have asked me.  First of all, we must
determine on which segment the rejection criteria is to based on.  Here, we
may determine that this rate is coming in on the ITD segment, some
position, let's say.  

Technique starts here (via an example):

For the position in the 850 map where you are mapping the ITD segment,
create a new line-no (this would be 1 more than your last number for this
position, and in the 50's),

Map as follows:
---------------

File: order
Field: cust-no
How the append switch is set does not matter
Formula: if |CURRELEM| = 3.2 then order.cust-no else "bogus-cust"

Note that the usage of the literal "bogus-gust" is exactly what you may
type, as long as the customer is not a valid customer in your system.

Thus, the above formula indicates that if the rate is 3.2 then keep the
order.cust-no as was it was already set on a prior segment otherwise
overwrite it by the literal "bogus-cust".  

With this solution, your entire order will go into the EDI data file
holder.  You'd have  to remember that when you see that there is an "ERROR
in customer number" on your output report, this would not be correct;
rather, you have rejected the order based on some criteria that you have
set in the mapping and you must do a further action known to you.  Thus,
this error would be a misnomer.  Should you be absent for a bit, then your
replacement person would think that the incoming customer number really is
erroneous, and spend time focusing on the failed customer value.  That's a
downfall of this solution.  But the upside would be that the end-result
would be what you want: a rejected order.  Because of this trick, you don't
have to have a special modification done to your software to reject orders
based on a condition that your company finds important with respect to
orders coming in for this partner in question.  Thus, you may contact your
partner on your own to indicate that the order was rejected based on the
fact that the terms received were invalid and then consequently getting the
correct value, correcting the value in the holder, followed by doing a new
receive from the EDI holder. Should you have too many orders that are being
rejected (OUCH), then perhaps you'll have to think up a more pleasing
solution to this problem with your partner or with a company decision.
Otherwise, please do not hesitate to ask us for a quote on a precise
modification with a better error message.

Do note that this solution can be extrapolated to any inbound transaction
set, as long as you know what criteria would force a rejection of the
document to be created.