Order - conversion into human-readable equivalent - principles and requirements

Requirements for the senders of orders

In order for the conversion of the Order into a human-readable equivalent and the sending via email to be successful, the sender needs to follow a number of rules.

Email

The sender must provide the email address of the recipient in the element  Order/SellerSupplierParty/Party/Contact/ElectronicMail.

Example: <ElectronicMail languageID="NL">email </ElectronicMail>

NB: senders are kindly requested to be very careful and use valid email addresses - see als “exception handling” below.

Language

The sender  must pass a language code (only “FR” or “NL”) in attribute "Lang" of UBL data element Order/SellerSupplierParty/Party/Contact/ElectronicMail . The Language code is compulsory. There is no default/backup language.
Example: <ElectronicMaillanguageID="NL"> email </ElectronicMail>

Own PDF

Mercurius provides a mechanism to use the customer's own PDF rather than the Mercurius generated PDF. This may be necessary when the Mercurius generated PDF is too generic - see also section “mercurius Generated PDF: Layout” below.

Typical such cases are:

1. the order is so complex that the generic conversion process produces a very log/cumbersome human-readable equivalent.

2. another language (then  NL or FR) is needed

3. the sender wishes to use his own layout (logo or other visual aspects are considered critical)

To use this possibility,

1. the sender must use UBL data element  Order/AdditionalDocumentReference

2. Value of sub-element Order/AdditionalDocumentReference/DocumentType must be "human-readable equivalent order".

Additional useful information

Mercurius generated PDF: Layout

1. Integrity: All data from the UBL are displayed on the PDF. In order to display all data in a meaningful way, the PDF layout is broken into a fixed zone and a flex zone

2. Fixed zone vs Flexible zone:

   1. Fixed zone:

      • Contain fields that occur on a usual, typical, standard order.

      • All fields are identified with labels. These labels only exist in Dutch and in French.

   2. Flex zone :

      1. Contains data that does not occur often and therefore data that is not included in the Fixed zone

Exception handling

If Mercurius detects an error in this conversion/expedition process, then a manual exception handling process will kick in → the Mercurius support team will get notified and will take appropriate action.

Important notes regarding selected parts of the order

1. Negative prices:

   1. Not BIS standard and therefore not supported

   2. The sender is obliged to send own PDF

2. Element "Description" vs "Name":

   1. In the conversion this will lead to repeating the info on the PDF (once in the fixed part, the second time on the FlexZone of the LineItem).

   2. “Name”:

      1. Cardinality: 1..1

      2. “A short name for an item. A short name given to an item, such as a name from a Catalogue, as distinct from a description.”

   3. “Description”:

      1. Cardinality: 0..1

      2. “Free-form field that can be used to give a text description of the item. A detailed description of the item.”

3. Measurement Unit (MEH)
   On the basis of the list Units of Measurement, see PEPPOL BIS version 3 | Rules. All values in the list may be used.

4. Delivery address ID :<DeliveryLocation><ID>

   1. Some customers work with unique codes per delivery address

   2. Sometimes a GLN code is used, sometimes its own code

   3. There is no guarantee that it is interpretable by all possible recipients – it can be very specific.