Trading Partner Configuration and Partner Onboarding
Domain 3 tests partner onboarding: how a partner record becomes a working exchange. The exam focuses on the relationship between partner profiles, delivery channels, envelopes, and agreements, and on the order in which they are configured.
Core objects
- Trading partner: the business entity, contacts, and identifiers (DUNS, AS2 ID, EDI IDs).
- Delivery channel: protocol and endpoint details (FTP/SFTP/AS2/HTTP), credentials, certificates, and polling or listening behavior.
- Envelope: the EDI/XML wrapper definition, including sender/receiver qualifiers and control-number rules.
- Document exchange/agreement: binds a partner, delivery channel, envelope, and map so inbound and outbound documents route correctly.
Onboarding sequence
Create the partner and identifiers, configure the delivery channel and test connectivity, exchange and trust certificates, define envelopes, attach maps, then run a test document end to end. In Sterling File Gateway, communities, routing channel templates, mailboxes, and producer/consumer roles replace some direct partner wiring.
Worked example
A partner sends X12 850 over AS2. Configure the AS2 delivery channel with the partner's AS2 ID and certificate, import their signing certificate into the truststore, define the X12 envelope with the correct ISA qualifiers, attach the 850-to-XML map, and test with a signed message requesting an MDN. Reasoning: routing depends on matching all four objects, not just the partner name.
Traps
- Creating a partner but never linking a delivery channel to the agreement.
- Mismatched sender/receiver IDs between envelope and partner profile.
- Importing a partner certificate as a personal certificate instead of trusted.
- Skipping a test message and discovering routing errors in production.