IFS Cloud and TrueCommerce integration

What moves between them

Purchase orders flow from IFS Cloud to TrueCommerce as X12 850 EDI files, reaching trading partners through the managed network. Advance ship notices (856) and invoices (810) flow inbound from trading partners through TrueCommerce and are polled by ml-connector to update shipment and invoice records in IFS. The sync runs on a daily or hourly schedule controlled by your operations team. All EDI documents are tracked in the audit log with their control numbers and functional acknowledgment status.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector stores IFS OAuth credentials and refreshes the bearer token when it expires. For each IFS purchase order flagged for supplier delivery, ml-connector queries the purchase order details via OData, maps line items to X12 850 segments, and uploads the EDI file to TrueCommerce SFTP with the expected filename convention (provisioned during setup). On the inbound side, ml-connector polls TrueCommerce SFTP for 856 (advance ship notice) and 810 (invoice) files on a daily or hourly basis, parses the EDI segments, looks up the matching IFS purchase order by supplier and order number, and updates shipment and invoice records in IFS. ETag-based concurrency control is enforced on IFS mutations; ml-connector reads each purchase order record first to capture its ETag before posting any status update. TrueCommerce file naming and paths are customer-specific, so ml-connector maintains a configuration per customer mapping IFS company code to TrueCommerce integration path. Rate limits on IFS (1000 requests per minute) are respected with exponential backoff on HTTP 429. Functional acknowledgments are tracked to detect duplicate documents by ISA control number.

A real-world example

A mid-sized manufacturing company uses IFS Cloud for production planning and procurement and works with multiple electronics suppliers through a TrueCommerce-managed network. Before the integration, the procurement team created purchase orders in IFS, exported them manually, converted them to X12 EDI format, and uploaded them to the supplier portal. When suppliers shipped goods, EDI advance notices came back into an email inbox, and the team manually parsed them into IFS to confirm shipments and match them to receiving. Invoices required the same manual decode step. With IFS Cloud and TrueCommerce connected, purchase orders flow automatically to suppliers as EDI 850 documents within minutes of approval, and inbound 856 and 810 documents are parsed nightly and matched to IFS purchase orders without human intervention. Month-end invoice reconciliation is faster because all shipments are recorded and matched in real time.

What you can do

• •Export IFS Cloud purchase orders to TrueCommerce as X12 850 EDI documents, reaching trading partners through the managed VAN.
• •Import advance ship notices (856) and invoices (810) from TrueCommerce, matching them to IFS purchase orders by supplier and order number.
• •Handle OAuth 2.0 token refresh on IFS side and manage ETag-based optimistic concurrency for IFS mutations.
• •Maintain customer-specific mappings between IFS company codes and TrueCommerce integration paths, since TrueCommerce paths are not standardized.
• •Track functional acknowledgments and control numbers to prevent duplicate document processing and provide a full audit trail.

Questions

Why does IFS Cloud require an ETag header for mutations?

IFS Cloud uses ETag-based optimistic concurrency control to prevent lost updates when multiple systems modify the same record. ml-connector reads each purchase order or invoice record first to capture its ETag, then includes that ETag in the mutation request. If another system modified the record in between, IFS returns a 412 Precondition Failed, and ml-connector retries the read-mutate cycle, ensuring the update is based on the latest state.

How does ml-connector handle the fact that TrueCommerce integration paths are customer-specific?

TrueCommerce does not publish standardized integration paths or APIs. Instead, each customer receives custom SFTP credentials, directory paths, and filename conventions during account setup. ml-connector stores a configuration per customer that maps IFS company codes to the correct TrueCommerce SFTP path and filename pattern, so the same connector code can serve multiple customers without hard-coding paths.

What happens if a purchase order is updated in IFS after it has already been sent to TrueCommerce?

ml-connector can re-export updated purchase orders as new X12 850 documents with incremented control numbers, and include a Purchase Order Change (860) EDI message to notify the supplier of the modification. The audit log tracks all versions of the PO and when each EDI export occurred, providing a complete history for reconciliation.