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Portal Testing is when your Trading Partner selects a third-party platform to conduct EDI compliance testing on their behalf. Let's review the essentials of portal testing, common third-party portal names, requirements to access the portals, associated fees, and best practices to ensure a smooth transition from test to production.
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Overview of Trading Partner Portal Testing
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Some commonly Used Third-Party Portals are as follows:
SPS Commerce
CommerceHub/Rithum
DSCO/Rithum
OpenText
EDICT Systems
Commercedesk (Home Depot)
Vendor Central (Amazon)
Retail Link (Walmart)
Portal testing processes and transactions vary across Trading Partners. Each portal may have unique requirements, workflows, and processes.
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Preparation and Access
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Action needed:
Ensure an employee at your organization has the correct URL and login credentials to access the hird-party testing portal for testing to begin.
Thoroughly review all testing requirements.
Discuss any discrepancies with your Trading Partner and/or the portal host.
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Critical Callout
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Some portals require testing fees which are not covered or paid for by TrueCommerce. You can discuss testing fees with your Trading Partner or portal host when applicable.
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Testing Process and Transactions
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Portal testing processes and transactions vary based on your Trading Partner.
Some portals test connectivity with TrueCommerce, while others require manual intervention for file transfers. Your Implementation Specialist is available for any assistance you may need.
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Warning Callout
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Most portal testing validates the “syntax” or structure of your EDI data and not necessarily the accuracy of the data. However, it is highly recommended to ensure your data is as accurate as possible for Trading Partner requirements to facilitate a smooth transition from test to production.
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Support and Best Practices
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You can request the assistance of your Implementation Specialist’s for third-party portal testing.
TrueCommerce can manually test transactions for you but will not have access to your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for integration testing.
If you choose to have a TrueCommerce Specialist complete portal testing on your behalf, the Specialist will supply a testing summary of transactions tested and any relevant notes for use during the production phase.
It is highly recommended to test your ERP integration before moving to production and validate your internal testing against any manually tested transactions for accuracy.
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Tip Callout
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Always test your ERP integration ahead of production and compare results with manually tested transactions for accuracy.