So you think you do PunchOut?

I’ve had – in the last week five emails from people asking for help with PunchOut eProcurement systems.  One or two isn’t uncommon but five or six becomes a trend.    So in an effort to reclaim my evening hours for watching House, Supernatural and helping my son with his homework (we’re doing Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” this week)… I thought I’d round up some of the more frequently asked questions I’ve seen.

Q: What is OCI? 
A: OCI is the Open Catalog Interface.  It’s largely used by SAP – and yes, believe it or not can be used with cXML.

Q: What is EBD Format?
A: EBD is the EPO Bibliographic Data Format… which is a mouthful and yes – there are companies, usually those dealing with legal documents such as patents and such that sell them online.   EBD in the case of SAP and Punchout however does not use this format… what you’re referring to is SAP Enterprise Buyer Data which isn’t a format it’s an application.  You use this if you want to create a process for direct and indirect shopping and the shopping cart ends with the entry of the invoice.

Q: What is the difference between PunchOut, TapOut and Roundtrip?

A: Contrary to an article and paper sent out by a service consultancy a while back… PunchOut, TapOut and RoundTrip – are all the same thing using different methods (IMHO – but then I’m Old School and picky about my definitions and not trying to sell something).  They’re eCommerce Shopping solutions that involve a shopping catalog “punchedout” and sent to a customer from a vendor.  Ariba’s name – which is the oldest is PunchOut, Commerce One and a few others call it  “RoundTrip” and Commerce One likes to use “TapOut”.  Bottom line … it’s all B2B – the only difference is the methods used to get there. 

 

I’ll toss out more later on in the week – but figured this was a start for the week since I hadn’t posted in a while.