COM
Communication Contact. The EDIFACT segment that carries the concrete coordinates — telephone, email, fax — of a party or a contact.
Definition
Per the UN/EDIFACT D.96A function statement, the COM segment is used "to identify a communication number of a department or person to whom communication should be directed". COM consists of a single composite:
- C076 — Communication contact (mandatory), itself broken down into:
3148— Communication number (up to 512 characters), free-text value of the number/address.3155— Communication channel qualifier (mandatory), UNCL 3155 code.
Common UNCL 3155 qualifiers: TE Telephone, EM
Electronic mail, FX Telefax, EI EDI transmission,
AH School telephone, AN Mobile telephone,
FT File transfer, IM Internet messaging.
Origin
COM has been in the EDIFACT directory since the first UN/CEFACT directives
in the late 1980s. The structure is stable since D.93A; UNCL 3155
qualifiers have been extended over time to cover email, EDI, then mobile
telephony. Reference: trsdcom.htm in the TRSD.
Example in context
Full contact block attached to a buyer:
Three successive COM segments carry an email (EM), a
landline (TE), and a mobile number (AN) for the
same person.