[jetti]

I worked at a healthcare company at my last job and dealt with the X12 EDI. We had several ETL processes just to convert X12 834s (benefits/membership enrollment) into a common file format because every client seemed to do something different that was not part of the spec. It was hard because we would get the data from clients and since we were taking their money we had to accommodate their butchering of the specs. The thing is, though, that many of the files we received were generated from a COBOL program and then moved to our SFTP server. It isn't like there are many (if any) COBOL libraries that validate or enforce the standards and it isn't like they would be able to just update their COBOL programs to make API calls either.

[donzog]

I second that; it is the core of all EDI issues. Outdated software and ancient complex maps that no one dares touch. That's why so many adapter/data cleansing projects spring up to isolate the COBOL-style software from the rest.