IFS Connect for Sending e-Invoices

The purpose with this page is to provide a step-by-step guide how to, in IFS Connect, create new routing rules and how to use them effectively to direct outgoing e-Invoices to different locations, destination addresses.

Use this page when you want to learn more about how to configure IFS Connect for sending of e-Invoices.

Contents

Set up Routing Rules for Outgoing e-Invoice

  1. Open Solution Manager
  2. Navigate to Integration / IFS Connect / Routing Rules
  3. Select the Outbound tab
  4. Select Create New in the menu bar
  5. Select APPLICATION_MESSAGE to route from and ensure the checkbox Enabled is selected
  6. Enter a proper description in the Description field
  7. Select the OUT1 queue
  8. Press New in the Content based conditions area
  9. Select MESSAGE_FUNCTION as Search Criteria (Search), equals as Operand (Op) and SEND_EINVOICE_MESSAGE as Matching Criteria (Match)

  10. As optional conditions you can use the Address defined in Message Setup or the Customer ID to route the E-Invoice to different addresses
  11. Select Destination Address link and choose the Destination Address dedicated to the scenario given in Content based conditions
  12. Press OK
  13. If you have selected several addresses you have to set which of them to be the main address by pressing RMB on one of them and select Set as Main Address
  14. Select Save in the menu bar
  15. Routing Rules will be selected according to the following rules
    1. Most importantly all the Content based conditions should match
    2. If there are more than one Routing Rule with all the Content based conditions matching then the process will select the Routing Rule with most Content based conditions
    3. If there is more than one Routing Rule with same number of matching Content based conditions then the process will select the Routing Rule which is created first

      It is advisable to not rely on the created date/time of the Routing Rule and instead make more specific Content based conditions

  16. Please refer to different scenarios below to get an idea on how to set-up different routing rules to suit different routing needs

Routing Rule Scenarios

Sending All e-Invoices to the Same Address

Sending all e-Invoices to the same address is simply achieved by having a single routing rule defined with only the MESSAGE_FUNCTION as the Content based condition

Sending e-Invoice to Different Destination Addresses for Different Customer Address Setup

In this scenario it is requested to send an e-Invoice to different Destination Addresses with respect to different addresses defined in Message Setup basic data for a Customer

First it is necessary to create separate Routing Rules for each address defined in the Customer’s Message Setup. Then the Content based conditions are used as follows,

  1. Search Criteria (Search) set to RECEIVER
  2. Operand Criteria (Op) set to equals
  3. Matching Criteria (Match) set to <Value of the corresponding Address in Customer's Message Setup address field>
  4. Perform step 1 to 3 for each Routing Rule
  5. Now connect the different Routing Rules to the appropriate Destination Address where the E-Invoice should be sent
    1. ADD_SERVER defined in the Address field in Customer's Message Setup field

    2. ADD_EMAIL defined in the Address field in Customer's Message Setup field

Sending e-Invoice to Different Destination Addresses for Different Customers

In this scenario it is requested to send an e-Invoice to different Destination Addresses for different customers.

To achieve this it is necessary to create separate Routing Rules for each customer.

Then for each Routing Rule, select the Content based condition

  1. Search Criteria (Search) set to C16

    This is the tag used by IFS E-Invoice for the customer identity

  2. Operand Criteria (Op) set to equal
  3. Matching Criteria (Match) set to <The corresponding Customer’s Identity>

Now connect the different Routing Rules to the appropriate Destination Address where the E-Invoice should be sent.

Assume that we want to do the following,

Routing Rule for customer ECUST1

 

Routing Rule for customer ECUST2

Sending e-Invoice to Different Destination Addresses for Multiple Criteria

In this scenario it is requested to send an e-Invoice to different Destination Addresses with respect to multiple criteria, like e.g. the Customer Identity and the Customer Address in the Message Setup.

To achieve this it is necessary to create a Routing Rule with conditions an MESSAGE_FUNCTION, RECEIVER and C16.

Assume that the following Routing Rules have been defined.

Routing Rule Content based condition
Rule 1 RECEIVER = ADDRESS1
Rule 2 C16 = CUST1
Rule 3 RECEIVER = ADDRESS2
Rule 4 RECEIVER = ADDRESS3
Rule 5 RECEIVER = ADDRESS3 AND C16 = CUST2
Rule 6 RECEIVER = ADDRESS4 AND C16 = CUST2

Note: MESSAGE_FUNCTION = SEND_EINVOICE_MESSAGE is common for all Routing Rules in this case and is not shown in the table.

The system will pick Routing Rules according to the following,

CUSTOMER Address (Message Setup) Routing Rule Comment
CUST1 ADDRESS2 Rule 2 Rule 2 is picked with the assumption that Rule 2 is created before Rule 3, else Rule 3 could be picked. Avoid ambiguous situations like this.
CUST1 ADDRESS1 Rule 1 Rule 1 will be picked if it was created before Rule 2, else Rule 2 will be picked. Avoid ambiguous situations like this.
CUST2 ADDRESS2 Rule 3  
CUST2 ADDRESS3 Rule 5 This rule has more details than Rule 4
CUST2 ADDRESS4 Rule 6  

Note: When there are two or more Routing Rules that satisfy the condition, then the most content based condition will be picked.
If number of content based conditions is also equal then the first created Routing Rule will be selected.
Therefore make sure to add more content based conditions to avoid ambiguous scenarios

 

Samples

Sending e-Invoice information leads to the following,

  1. Outgoing data is processed and an internal send e-invoice XML schema is created.
  2. The internal XML is transformed to a schema called IFSEinvoice. This schema is an external schema but with a few modifications for IFS e-Invoice functionality.
  3. The IFSEinvoice schema can now be further processed, transformed, according to customer needs.

The zip file SendEInvoiceSamples contains,

  1. IFSEinvoice.xml
  2. IFSEinvoice.xsd
  3. IFSSendEinvoice.xml
  4. IFSSendEinvoice.xsd