EDI Process – Positive vs Negative Confirmation: An Objection

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, and before I get to posting some actual code, I thought I’d address what I see as the most likely objection to my combined Sender Negative/Receiver Positive confirmation scheme. It is this: “We don’t like relying on a third party for our confirmation.” Or, put another way, “Our clients don’t expect to have to watch the process constantly, they just want it to work.”

Now, to my mind, these are good, solid, sales-person type answers. Unfortunately, so is, “Absolutely we can have this new major functionality that should take about 4000 man-hours to complete ready for you and in production by Tuesday!” So you’ll excuse me if I don’t give them too much credence.

However, as they are objections that will be raised, they should be addressed. And so we will, in two parts.

The first part is this: We’re not relying on a third party for confirmation, we’re providing the confirmation that makes the most sense for us to provide- if the other guy doesn’t do his, then he’s culpable for any fall-out of a failed process. For the Sender, this means making sure you’re aware of any file that didn’t go so you can get it out the door as soon as possible. For the Receiver, this means making sure the Sender is aware that you only got files X, Y, and Z- so that if you should have received W as well (and how would you know, for sure?) that they can send file W right along.

The second part is this: If a file is important enough that it being missed would be a “resume generating event” for someone, doesn’t it make sense to confirm every major step in the process has worked? And isn’t sending the file a major step in the process? Isn’t receipt of the file a fairly major step?
Ultimately, I find this objection (or variations on the theme) fairly weak. They assume that the only person who should have skin in the game is your organization. Partnerships don’t work that way, and when you’re working with EDI, even if one group is technically a “client,” you’re working much more as a partnership than you are as an employer/employee relationship.