Integration Advisor – GS1 XML Messages of the vers...

Joerg_Ackermann

I am pleased to announce that we have now added older versions (from the 2.x series) of GS1 XML Messages to our predefined Type System content in the Integration Advisor of SAP Integration Suite. In this blog post, I would like to give you a short overview of our new offering.

GS1 XML Messages

The GS1 organization offers the GS1 XML library. This library contains a set of standard messages for GS1 EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) enabling the exchange of transactional information between trading partners. For more background on GS1 XML, you can refer to the GS1 homepage (Link).

Previously, we already offered eight versions (from 3.0 to 3.6) of the newer 3.x series of GS1 XML messages, which were published between 2012 and 2023. For more details, refer to my earlier blog post (Link).

We have learned that the older 2.x series (published between 2006 and 2013) is still in use and that our customers would like to use these versions in Integration Advisor as well. Therefore, we have now added ten additional versions (from 2.0.2 to 2.8) of GS1 XML messages. Incidentally, these messages are sometimes also referred to as EAN.UCC messages.

The new offering contains a total of 86 messages, such as, order, invoice or despatchAdvice:

Please note that the GS1 organization undertook a major refactoring of their offering starting with version 3.0. (For more background, see this page on the GS1 homepage: Link.) For example, versions 2.x include the message type order (in namespace urn:ean.ucc:order:2), while versions 3.x include the message type orderMessage (in namespace urn:gs1:ecom:order:xsd:3). Although the newer orderMessage is considered the semantic successor of the older order, they are structurally quite different and even come with different message type identifiers and namespaces. As a result, Integration Advisor lists the corresponding message types separately.

Use of Envelopes

In the 2.x series of GS1 XML messages, the GS1 organization followed the design principle of combining an envelope structure with the business document (message) structure. Unfortunately, the GS1 schema definitions did not include the full envelope specifications, but only fragments of different parts.

Based on the GS1 Implementation Guide and the original GS1 XML sample payloads, we have derived the allowed variations that were envisioned to be used for exchanging GS1 XML messages. As a result, Integration Advisor provides you with four envelope structures called Envelope1 - Envelope4.

All GS1 XML payloads (of the 2.x series) start with the root node StandardBusinessDocument (from the UN/CEFACT namespace) and always include the StandardBusinessDocumentHeader child node. (Please note the difference compared to the design in the 3.x series: In the latter, the root node is specific for the GS1 business document (like orderMessage or invoiceMessage) and only the child node StandardBusinessDocumentHeader is reused from the UN/CEFACT organization.)

The four envelopes differ in their complexity and flexibility. The simplest Envelope1 just allows you to include one business document, while the most complex Envelope4 provides you with additional hierarchy levels for Message, Transaction, and Document Command. See the table below for an overview of the allowed hierarchy levels in the four envelopes.

Envelope ID	Envelope Name	Message	Transaction	Command	Business Document
Envelope1	Envelope for a 1-level hierarchy				X
Envelope2	Envelope for a 2-level hierarchy	X			X
Envelope3	Envelope for a 3-level hierarchy	X		X	X
Envelope4	Envelope for a 4-level hierarchy	X	X	X	X

When you create your Message Implementation Guideline (MIG) in Integration Advisor, you can combine a GS1 XML business document (like order or invoice) with one of the four envelopes. If you are in doubt about which envelope to use, simply check a sample payload from your business partner to understand the required hierarchy levels for your business transaction.

The next screenshot shows a MIG in Integration Advisor that combines the order Message (marked by the green box) with the Envelope4 envelope (marked by the blue box):

Please see this blog post (Link) to learn more about envelope handling in Integration Advisor.

For the very rare case that you need a special envelope structure that is not part of our standard content, you should proceed as follows: In Integration Advisor, create your MIG without an envelope. In your Integration Flow (in Cloud Integration), use a Content Modifier flow step to remove the envelope parts (for the inbound direction) or to add the envelope parts (for the outbound direction).

A few more technical notes for the older GS1 XML Messages

Standard content and GDSN content:

Our delivery includes the official versions from GS1 International, namely versions 2.0.2, 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 (see also Link).
Additionally, the GS1 GDSN Working Group has also published messages for use cases related to the Global Data Synchronization Network (GDSN). These messages can be found in versions 2.0.2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.7, and 2.8.

Versioning:

In the older 2.x versions, GS1 followed the versioning strategy where a version only contains message types that were updated. For example, message order is included in versions 2.0.2, 2.1, 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6, but is not part of versions 2.1.1, 2.3, 2.7, or 2.8.
In contrast, the newer 3.x versions typically include all message types, regardless of whether they have been changed or not. (This is similar to many other B2B Libraries, like cXML or UN/EDIFACT.)

Codelist support:

The GS1 organization has defined codelists for the older GS1 XML messages, and these codelists are part of the GS1 XML Type System content. The codelists and their code values represent the state at the time of publication. (This is similar to many other B2B Libraries.)
Later on, GS1 changed its codelist publication strategy and now offers their codelists as separate content packages, independent of message standards like GS1 EANCOM or GS1 XML. Integration Advisor also provides these reusable GS1 Codelists as a separate Codelist Type System. (See this blog post for more details: Link). As a result, the 3.x versions of GS1 XML no longer include codelists. but instead refer to the separate GS1 Codelist collection.
If you prefer using a newer version of a GS1 codelist, you can easily switch in your MIG to a codelist from the GS1 Codelist Type System.
Additionally, the GS1 XML standard has defined four special complex types (ISO3166_1CodeType, ISO3166_2CodeType, ISO4217CodeType, and ISO639CodeType) to refer to the standard ISO Codes for Country, Subdivision, Currency, and Language. In Integration Advisor, their child elements (like countryISOCode) are automatically linked with the corresponding codelists from the ISO Codelists Type System.

Conclusion

With this content update, you can now build your Message Implementation Guidelines (MIGs) and Mapping Guidelines (MAGs) based on the older versions of the GS1 XML Message Standard. You get an end-to-end solution, where you can view and customize GS1 XML messages in Integration Advisor and process such messages in Cloud Integration.

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