EDI Milestones

How to understand the four phases regarding EDI.

EDI Project Milestones

A carrier feed is another term for an eligibility file feed, or electronic data interchange (EDI) file, that is sent by Namely to your carrier. A carrier feed may include enrollment, demographic, and payroll data, depending on the benefit offered. Every carrier requests their own unique file format and every plan configuration is unique to each client. Namely must go through the following four phases to complete a carrier feed project. 

  1. Phase I: Contract Validation

    • Namely ensures all necessary information is received and billing is complete.

  2. Phase II: Data Validation

    • Namely audits your data to ensure it is ready for the carrier.

  3. Phase III: File Build and Testing

    • Namely builds the file and tests to obtain approval from your carrier.

  4. Phase IV: Go Live

    • The go-live date is scheduled.

Each phase requires work from the carrier, client, and Namely in order to move forward to the next milestone. 

Phase I: Contract Validation

Client Responsibilities

  1. Sign Additional Services Agreement, if needed.

  2. You or your broker of record should continue to manually enroll your employees via the carrier's portal.

  3. As Namely gathers information, you should work with your carrier to ensure they're responsive.

Namely Responsibilities

  1. We need to be sure that we build Namely and your file feed to match the plan structure with your carriers.

  2. Namely will contact your carrier to request the following data:

    • EDI carrier contact information.

    • SFTP information with login and password. This is where your file will be delivered.

    • EDI plan specifications. This maps Namely plans to carrier plans, often via codes or different names.

    • If PGP encryption is requested by your carrier, they will need to provide an encryption key by secure email.

  3. Namely will ensure that the EDI connection is built into your contract, or that you have signed an Additional Services Agreement for this project.

Carrier Responsibilities

  • Your carrier should provide the above information within five to 10 business days. When your carrier requests a Namely email address to send this information, please instruct them to use editesting@namely.com.

Phase II: Data Validation

Client Responsibilities

  1. You may be asked to update your employee enrollment and demographic data depending on the results of our audit. Go to Namely Payroll > Reports > Date Range Reports, and find and run the Namely Data Audit Report. Follow the instructions under the Resolution field to correct any items with “Category = Error.” These errors will cause an issue during carrier file testing and must be corrected before our team can move to phase III. Items with a “Category = Warning” indicate possible errors that a carrier could find during testing, but are not necessary to correct at this stage.

  2. You or your broker of record should continue to manually enroll employees via the carrier’s portal until the project is complete.

Namely Responsibilities

  1. An EDI consultant will contact you to correct the data, if needed. They will work with your EDI engineer and be your project manager and central point of contact until your feed has gone live. They will work with you until the report produces no more errors.

  2. Your EDI consultant will be contacting you with an update every two weeks until the project is complete.

Carrier Responsibilities

N/A

Phase III: File Build and Testing

Client Responsibilities

  1. Testing may reveal discrepancies between the data in your carrier’s enrollment portal and the data in Namely. Your EDI consultant will need a responsive contact in your office to resolve these issues promptly.

  2. Carriers sometimes require sending data scenarios to simulate possible future events. The rigor of this “scenario testing” varies, but it involves additional data preparation on the Namely side. We may contact you to ask you to have your carrier waive this additional “scenario testing.”

  3. You or your broker of record should continue to manually enroll your employees via the carrier’s portal until this entire project is complete.

Namely Responsibilities

  1. Your EDI consultant will work with a Namely engineer to build the file to your carrier’s requirements. Both the engineer and the EDI consultant will be contacting you during this process.

  2. Namely and your carrier will normally need two to three iterations of test files sent before final approval by your carrier.

Carrier Responsibilities

  • Your carrier will need to be responsive for this testing. Carriers range in their response times. Namely will notify you if there are significant delays.

Phase IV: Go Live

Client Responsibilities

  1. Once the carrier has approved the EDI connection, your consultant will contact you to schedule a go-live date. At that point, you would stop manually enrolling employees via your carriers portal.

  2. You will provide the carrier with contact information where future errors may be sent. Unless Namely is your broker of record, you will be responsible to correct these errors. If you receive an error report that seems to indicate a technical problem, please contact the Namely Service Team for assistance.

Namely Responsibilities

  • Namely will obtain the approval from your carrier and contact you to schedule the go-live date

Carrier Responsibilities

  • Your carrier will need to provide a suitable go-live date.