Need help from EDI experts.
We are now implementing EDI 850 to send PO from SAP ERP to vendors (ECC->PI->3rd party subsystem->vendor).
In the PO text there can be some special characters (¼, ×, ©, etc.) and they will appear in outbound IDOC.
3rd party EDI subsystem rejected our IDOC, giving reason that these characters are not supported by X12 standard.
We were also told that any character out of below scope cannot be processed by EDI.
It doesn't make sense to me that all business documents transmitted throught X12, have each of their characters limited in this set, considering this is a global EDI standard.
So I would like to be clear about following questions, before raising this issue to our client.
1. Can special characters in a business document, be sent through X12 standard?
2. If it's possible, how is it acheived technically? In SAP or EDI subsystem? (Just some explanation in brief, please.)
3. How do these special characters look like in the final EDI message? (as it is? encoded)
Any information is appreciated. Thanks!