ORA is North America’s largest marine ornamental hatchery, producing aquacultured marine life as an alternative to wild-caught specimens and helping conserve natural reef environments.
President Dustin Dorton had always taken the lead on the company’s systems, networking and integrations. He started using Claude to build tools that connected ORA’s existing systems and automated repetitive work across the business.
“I’m not a programmer. I don’t know any programming languages. But I understand the infrastructure and have the domain knowledge necessary to build something.”
Dorton wanted API access to ORA’s EDI transactions so he could use that data inside the tools and workflows he was building. Getting that access turned out to be harder than expected.
A 20-year EDI setup starts to show its limits
When he asked his existing EDI provider about API access, he couldn’t get a clear answer about what was possible or what it would cost.
ORA tried another EDI platform, expecting onboarding to take a week or two. Several weeks later there was still no clear path to going live.
Meanwhile, a new direct-to-consumer dropship program with one of ORA’s main retail partners required the company to send 856 advance ship notices for the first time. Under the existing setup, staff would have to review the day’s shipping documents manually. On a busy day, that could mean sorting through hundreds of orders.
“We were never going to ask the team to sort through hundreds of orders and manage that process manually. It needed to be automated.”
ORA brings EDI into its own systems
Dorton found Tediware while looking for an alternative. Using Claude Code and Tediware’s API, he built the EDI integration directly into the tools ORA was already creating for the business, working from Tediware’s documentation and ORA’s existing EDI data to build and test it.
“The implementation was easy, and we had no real issues getting up and running.”
What direct EDI access changed for ORA
ORA automated the dropship workflow end to end, and connected EDI to the parts of the business that used to run beside it.
Before
- Staff sort through hundreds of orders on busy days
- Order data copied into a spreadsheet by hand
- Spreadsheet uploaded manually to the legacy provider's portal
- No clear answer on API access, or what it would cost
With Tediware
- Dropship 856s generated and sent automatically
- 810 invoices fire the moment a package ships
- Full EDI history for every order, for questions and proof of delivery
- ORA's own business rules applied before orders move downstream
Invoicing is now tied directly to shipping
When a carrier scans a package for the first time, ORA’s shipping software treats it as shipped and automatically triggers the 810 invoice through Tediware. Every shipment now gets invoiced the same day it ships.
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step.01
First carrier scan
The package is picked up and scanned.
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step.02
Marked shipped
ORA's shipping software updates the order.
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step.03
810 sent
Tediware's API delivers the invoice.
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result
Invoiced same day
No batch, no backlog, no one copying data.
Every order’s history, in ORA’s hands
With direct visibility into its EDI transaction history, ORA can see the full story of each order, which makes it easier to answer questions or provide proof of delivery. It can also apply its own business rules, like changes to shipping days or items, before orders move through downstream systems.
