IDoc Step by Step

IDoc StepBy-Step Monday, 02 June 2008 00:26

ALE – Application Link Enabling is a mechanism by which SAP systems communicate with each other and with non-SAP EDI subsystems. Thus it helps integration of distributed systems. It supports fail-safe delivery which implies that sender system does not have to worry about message not reaching the source due d ue to unavoidable situations. ALE can be used for migration and maintenance of master data as well as for exchanging transactional data. The messages that are exchanged are in the form of IDocs or Intermediate Documents. Do cuments. IDocs act like a container or envelope for the application data. An IDOC is created as a result of execution of an Outbound ALE. In an Inbound ALE an IDOC serves as an input to create application document. In the SAP system IDocs are stored in the database tables. They can be used for SAP to SAP and SAP to non-SAP process communication as long as the participating processes can understand the syntax and semantics of the data. Complete documentation on IDOC is obta ined  by using transaction WE60. Every IDoc has exactly one control record along with a number of data records and status records. Control record has the details of sender/receiver and other control information. Data records contain the actual business data to be exchanged while the status records are attached to IDoc throughout the process as the IDoc moves from one step to other.  Now,  Now, let us understand the ALE Configuration by means of an exa mple scenario below: The Scenario

SAP ALE Scenario Data from custom tables (created in customer namespace) is to be formatted into an IDoc and sent from one SAP R/3 system to another using ALE service. We We need to have two instances of  SAP R/3 systems or we can simulate this on two clients of the same SAP R/3 system. Create three tables as shown below.