# Partnerships
Source: https://www.stedi.com/docs/edi-platform/configure/trading-partners/profiles-and-partnerships

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title: Partnerships
sidebarTitle: Partnerships
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The first step to add a trading partner is creating a partnership.

## What is a partnership?

Partnerships describe all aspects of the EDI relationship between two profiles in your Stedi account, such as which transaction sets they will exchange and other important information for processing EDI files.

### Types of profiles

Profiles contain the basic information required to construct a valid EDI file. Generally, each profile represents a unique business entity. You can create two types of profiles on Stedi:

* **Local:** Profiles for your company (or a company you represent)
* **Partner:** Profiles for the companies you do business with.

Typically, you create a single local profile for your company and a single partner profile for each of your trading partners. If you're using Stedi to represent multiple companies, then you should create multiple local profiles – one for each of the companies you represent.

In addition to containing important information for processing EDI, profiles also determine the direction of EDI files:

* EDI files are labeled as **inbound** when the **Local** profile is the **receiver**.
* EDI files are labeled as **outbound** when the **Local** profile is the **sender**.

## Create partnerships

To create a partnership manually:

1. Go to the [**Trading partners**](https://portal.stedi.com/app/core/partnerships) page.
2. Click **Create partnership**.
3. Enter the information for a [local profile](#create-local-profiles) and a [partner profile](#create-partner-profiles), or select existing profiles from the menus.

### Create local profile

For most use cases, you will only need to set up a single local profile for your company. You can create a new local profile as part of the [create a partnership](#create-partnerships) flow, or from the [Trading partners](https://portal.stedi.com/app/core/partnerships) page.

You must enter the following information for each local profile:

* **ID Qualifier** and **Interchange ID**: These values are used to populate the [`ISA` header](https://www.stedi.com/edi/x12/segment/ISA) of an EDI file. Your Interchange Qualifier and ID are used by your partner to route EDI files in a similar way to email addresses in an email system. Your trading partner will ask you to provide these values so that they can set you up in their EDI system.
  * In most industries, you can choose these values yourself, since there is no central authority that registers and validates Interchange IDs. A safe choice for the ID Qualifier is `ZZ`, which is a catch-all code that means "Mutually Defined". For the Interchange ID, you can use your company's name (e.g. `STEDI`) or an identifier that you use internally. It's customary for these values to be all uppercase with no spaces or special characters.
  * If you are unsure of what to use, or if your trading partner has specific requirements, [reach out to us](https://www.stedi.com/contact) and we can help you choose the right values.

* **Identifier**: This is never visible to your trading partner and is used for unique identification within your Stedi account only. You can change this value to anything you wish. You cannot edit the name after the profile has been created.

* **Application ID**: This is used to populate the [GS header](https://www.stedi.com/edi/x12/segment/GS) of an EDI file. Stedi will automatically suggest the same value that you inputted for your Interchange ID, which is the right choice for most use cases. This can be changed at any time, and you can add multiple application IDs if needed, so don't worry about getting it right up front. If the need for multiple application IDs arises in the future, you can add them as-needed. For advanced use cases, you can also override the Application ID on the partnership itself.

### Create partner profile

You need to create a partner profile for each of your trading partners. You can create a new partner profile as part of the [create a partnership](#create-partnerships) flow, or from the [Trading partners](https://portal.stedi.com/app/core/partnerships) page.

You must enter the following information for each partner profile:

* **ID Qualifier** and **Interchange ID**: Your partner will provide you with this information as part of the onboarding process. If they haven't already, you should request this from them. If you get stuck or aren't sure what to ask, [reach out to us](https://www.stedi.com/contact) and we can help ensure the profile is set up correctly.
* **Identifier**: This is never visible to your trading partner and is used for unique identification within your Stedi account only. You cannot edit the name after the profile has been created.
* **Application ID**: This value is used to populate the [GS header](https://www.stedi.com/edi/x12/segment/GS) of an EDI file. Stedi will automatically suggest the same value that you inputted for your partner's Interchange ID, which is the right choice for most use cases. Some trading partners use the GS ID to specify a specific department within their business. If your trading partner has asked you to use a specific GS ID (or multiple IDs), you can add them here. This can be changed at any time.

### Finish partnership

Once you have created the local and partner profiles, finalize the partnership:

1. Review the autogenerated **Partnership identifier**. The Partnership identifier is never visible to your trading partner and is only used for unique identification with your Stedi account. You can change it to any value that is the most helpful to you. You cannot edit the name after the profile has been created.
2. Click **Create Partnership**. You will be brought to the partnership details page where you can define additional settings.

## (Advanced) Auto-configure from sample EDI files

If you have EDI files from your trading partner, you can use the auto-configure option to create profiles and partnerships based on those sample files. This is an advanced option that is best suited for migrations.

Stedi extracts information from the file to generate two profiles - one for you and one for your partner – as well as a new partnership between them.

To automatically generate profiles and partnerships from EDI files:

1. Go to the [**Trading partners**](https://portal.stedi.com/app/core/partnerships) page and click **Create partnership**.
2. Click **Advanced** and then the link to **auto-configure partnerships**.
3. Upload an EDI file.
4. Review the profiles to ensure the pre-populated fields are correct. Refer to [create local profiles](#create-local-profiles) and a [create partner profiles](#create-partner-profiles) for field descriptions.
   > **Important:** Set your company as the **Local** profile and your trading partner as a **Partner** profile.
5. By default, a partnership will also be created when you click **Create**. To disable the creation of a partnership, toggle the **Create partnership** option to OFF.
6. Click **Create**. Two profiles and the new partnership are created.

You can view the new profiles and partnership on the [**Trading partners**](https://portal.stedi.com/app/core/partnerships) page.

## Next steps

After you create profiles and partnerships, you can configure the details of each partnership to start processing EDI files.

### Configure connections

Within each partnership, you can create one or more SFTP, FTP, FTPS, or AS2 connections in order to exchange files with your trading partner. Visit [connections](/edi-platform/configure/trading-partners/connections) for details.

### Configure transaction settings

Within each partnership, you can define the EDI transaction sets you plan to exchange with trading partners. Visit [transaction settings](/edi-platform/configure/trading-partners/transaction-settings) for details.

### Configure acknowledgments

Stedi can automatically generate a 997 Functional Acknowledgement or a 999 Implementation Acknowledgment for each inbound transaction within a partnership. Visit [Functional acknowledgments](/edi-platform/configure/trading-partners/functional-acknowledgments) for details.