F4F’s Gateways allow you to exchange documents with your trading partners in the way that most readily suits their technology and business processes. Some of your trading partners may already do some B2B document exchange; others may be unable to import documents directly into their back-office system; some may prefer just to enter orders onto a Website. 

F4F removes that complexity for you through its range of seven Gateways, which together enable us to offer any-to-any connectivity:

EDI:  The EDI Gateway connects to the GXS Tradanet network via an F4F mailbox on that network. Bridges enable hops from here to other EDI VANs. This ensures that you can exchange documents electronically with those who have already invested in traditional EDI services.

EPG: Our External Protocol Gateway allows F4F to deliver your documents as e-mails (bearing your company logo and preferred layout, if desired), as faxes, or as files which they can print themselves. It allows F4F to receive on your behalf files sent by your trading partners using (S)FTP or HTTP(S) protocols.

OCR: The Optical Character Recognition Gateway is at the heart of our Electronic Data Capture business solution. It enables us to receive at the Hub data which has originated from scanned-in paper documents faxes, or PDF files. These are processed by our OCR Engine to deliver structured files, exactly like those received from other sources.

WEB: Our WEB Gateway enables us to facilitate document exchange between a Trading Site and your back-office system. This means that Purchase Orders created on a website can be imported directly into your system without re-keying, and that you can improve customer service by exporting everything from confirmations, and delivery information to invoices and previous purchase history…as well as your complete product catalogue and prices.

HUB: This Gateway connects to a range of other trading hubs and is ideal for setting up connections with trading partners who have already embarked on electronic document exchange with other service providers, perhaps with those focussing on related industries.

SMS:  This Gateway to allows you send key data from documents as a text message….and for F4F to receive data back on your behalf by text. An example of its usage, is for notifying farmers (who may be out in the field) of the likely arrival time of a lorry load of fertilizer or animal feed.