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CIDX is a membership-based organization operating on behalf of the chemical sector to establish standards for electronic business in the chemical industry.

Chem eStandards are a collection of defined messages and guidelines for linked business processes. Companies use these standards to understand requests and execute electronic business orders and linked transactions. Chem eStandards are built in XML.

Chem eStandards Transactions

CIDX standards standardize business processes between partners in a supply chain. CIDX provides these standards as a specification for Chem eStandards business transactions.

Chem eStandards business transactions comprise the following information:

  • Specification of partner business roles such as buyer and seller
  • Activities performed between the partners
  • Type, content, and sequence of the business process documents that are exchanged between partners during activities.
  • The time, security settings, and authentication of the interactions are defined

The structure and content of the documents exchanged are defined by XML document type definitions (DTDs).

Business partners involved in a Chem eStandards business transaction exchange documents that correspond to these DTDs. They use transport protocols that are defined by the Chem eStandards. Currently, these are HTTP and SMTP.

The CIDX adapter uses the transport protocol HTTP.

Chem eStandards Message Types

Chem eStandards messages are exchanged between business partners involved in Chem eStandards based data exchange. The RNIF 1.1 specification is the basis for Chem eStandards. Message are RNIF action and RNIF signal messages.

  • Chem eStandards action message

    The content of the message is defined and is part of the Chem eStandards message documentation. The message contains business content such as OrderCreate.

  • Chem eStandards signal message

    These messages are acknowledgements sent in response to Chem eStandards actions. Signal messages are usually exchanged asynchronously. They are either positive or negative in nature.

    • Positive signal message

      A receipt acknowledgment is a positive Chem eStandards signal message, It is sent when a message is received by a partner and is found to be a valid Chem eStandards action message as regards content and syntax. It is also used for non-repudiation purposes, to track the reliability of the delivery.

    • Negative signal messages
      • Receipt acknowledgment exception

        This message is sent when a message is received by a partner and is found to be invalid after schema validation with the corresponding DTD.

      • General exception

        This message is sent to indicate an error in processing of the action message as regards business rules, or other processing errors.

CIDX Message Structure

The following figure illustrates the structure of a CIDX message:

The Chem eStandards use the message structure as defined in RNIF version 1.1. The message structure shown above involves three XML documents (a preamble, a service header, and the Chem eStandards message stored as a multipart/related MIME document) as well as length fields and optional signature information.