I fully agree with your assessment of SPS (though I have to admit I have had some success with their testing personal). Wal-mart I have had very mixed results. Most of the time their EDI system works just fine. But at others it is very frustrating. I once started getting e-mails asking me to resend ASNs that they could not find in their system (even though I had the 997s confirming that they had received them). I would send them again and everything was fine - until the next e-mail. So I decided to call them after each transmission and have someone verify that they could indeed see the ASNs in their system. This went on for a full month before requests for resending the ASNs stopped.
Sincerely, Jason McMahon 8079 Village Drive Cincinnati, OH 45242-4315 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] gutausse.weebly com/articles html gutausse.blogspot com <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b _____ From: Burnbrae EDI [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 4:46 PM To: [email protected]; [email protected] Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [EDI-L] 3rd party testing that wasn't hideous We are a grocery vendor and one of the larger grocery chains in Canada - Loblaws has again joined hands with the hideous, stupid and grossly monopolistic SPS Commerce. Last year they charged us money to test for Warehouse and this year its for DSD ASN's. Its a huge cash grab and I am sure if Loblaws with its CEO Galen Weston (who appears in commercials mouthing platitudes about helping small vendors) were to actually think what they are getting from SPS it will be a big Zero and in mostly huge negative feelings from their vendors. I cannot even think of how murky the agreement is between SPS and Loblaws as SPS gets to ride bareback on all their vendors - they tell you that if you join the SPS webforms or SPS EDI service then there is no testing fee and if you go with any other provider then there are going to be ridiculous testing charges. We use a third party vendor that has many hundred vendors on their EDI solution and they still have to pay SPS for every one of their vendor whereas if you sign up with SPS you dont have to pay testing fees but you are forced to use the hideous, unfriendly and expensive SPS system. So much for free choice - we are a fairly cost conscious company and I think my company might go with the hideous company just because of the savings in testing fees. Steaming mad <http://gfx2.hotmail.com/mail/w4/pr04/ltr/emo/steaming_mad.gif> Galen Weston and all other CEO's who think SPS is the best thing since sliced bread- please wake up and fix things before its too late. For starters your biggest competitor Wal-Mart does not use SPS and Wal-Mart has probably the best supply chain and edi system around. Melissa _____ To: [email protected] CC: [email protected]; [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 10:28:05 -0500 Subject: RE: [EDI-L] 3rd party testing that wasn't hideous Then I am in very good company. On the other hand, I have set up new trading partners who put off testing for weeks so I test with any examples I can find, only to have a production document come through without any warning whatsoever. I then have to call to find out what is going on only to be told that they thought we had completed testing and were ready to go live. So working directly with the trading partner can have its own challenges. One of the nicest compliments I ever received was from Wal-mart who wanted to use us as a beta site for a new document because we were so conscientious about resolving issues when they came up. Sincerely, Jason McMahon 8079 Village Drive Cincinnati, OH 45242-4315 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] gutausse.weebly com/articles html gutausse.blogspot com <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b _____ From: Samantha Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 10:09 AM To: Jason McMahon Cc: Ken Etter; edi list Subject: Re: [EDI-L] 3rd party testing that wasn't hideous Yes, Sears is at the top of my list of hideous experiences and it is, or was, Inovis that did their testing. I don't know if this is who you dealt with or who they replaced the company you refer to with but my experience was similar. I had to go through it 3 time for three different "flow paths" (interpret that to mean 'road to perdition') and each time I filled out the customer survey as the WORST testing experience EVER. I have to say the Sears owns much of that credit themselves, the testing company just frosted the cake. On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Jason McMahon <[email protected]> wrote: Several years ago I had to test documents with Sears so they arranged for a third party to do the testing. It was one of the worst testing organizations I had ever worked with, but to appease Sears I completed testing with them. When we were done they said they would notify Sears and Sears would then get back to me. A week or so later Sears called me to ask if I had completed testing with this third party and I said that they were going to inform you that we were ready to go live. The lady at Sears was so upset after talking with them that she personally supervised another test and we went live two days later. Soon after that Sears fired the company and I only worked with Sears directly after that. Sincerely, Jason McMahon 8079 Village Drive Cincinnati, OH 45242-4315 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] gutausse.weebly com/articles html gutausse.blogspot com <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-mcmahon/11/743/51b _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Etter Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 9:50 AM To: Samantha Scott; edi list Subject: Re: [EDI-L] 3rd party testing that wasn't hideous Aren't you referring to the "Pay for the abuse" industry, you know those third party testing companies...?? It is Friday... Ken [email protected] <mailto:edispec%40yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Samantha Scott <[email protected] <mailto:mossmuncher%40gmail.com> > To: edi list <[email protected] <mailto:EDI-L%40yahoogroups.com> > Sent: Thu, March 3, 2011 10:29:02 AM Subject: [EDI-L] 3rd party testing that wasn't hideous Yes, this is me saying that. You may know how much I personally revile 3rd party testing as being a waste of money, an abuse of vendors (making us pay for the customer's EDI program) and frequently a waste of time because they systems are faulty, give poor results, pass things in testing they reject in production, reject things that are correct and are manned by people who seem to understand little about the business they serve or more than the most rudimentary aspects of EDI. We were directed to use DirectEDI to test with Veterans Canteen service and for a change: I didn't have to pay for the torture (that was truly novel) Their automated system actually worked all the way through and was correct (unlike every single other 3rd party test company I've been subjected to) It still lacks that communication with the business which is the #1 failing of all 3rd party relationships but, all in all, I didn't hate it nearly as much as I usually do. Huzzah! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
