Much of the booking, shipping instruction, and tracking traffic between forwarders' TMS platforms and ocean carriers still moves over EDI message flows, often routed through intermediary networks rather than point to point. An EDI feed is not the same thing as an API: an API is a request-and-response connection, the model behind modern carrier integrations and the DCSA API standards, while EDI is batch message exchange, transmitted and acknowledged on a schedule rather than answered in the moment. The practical decision for a forwarder is which integration pattern each carrier and TMS pairing actually supports, since most stacks run a mix of EDI feeds, APIs, and portal work.
Glossary
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
Electronic Data Interchange, the structured, machine-to-machine exchange of standard business documents (bookings, shipping instructions, status messages) between systems such as a forwarder's TMS and a carrier's platform.