EDI Communications with Union Pacific
Union Pacific has its own private VAN, Transentric, which has a direct connection to all the commercial VANs as well as all Class One railroads. All types of communications envelopes are acceptable, although the standard ISA envelope is preferred. Union Pacific will send functional acknowledgments using the communications envelope format utilized by the originating transaction.
Transentric is one of Union Pacific's subsidiaries, specializing in business to business messaging, so call them today.
A functional acknowledgment is an EDI reply to an original EDI message. The acknowledgment indicates that the message was received and whether or not it could be read using ASC X12 standards. It is the electronic equivalent of registered mail, and is a valuable tool for confirming business transactions. Union Pacific requires that functional acknowledgments be sent for all the purchase orders it sends, and sends functional acknowledgments for all the invoices it receives. We strongly encourage our trading partners to review any functional acknowledgments received, to assure successful transmission.