Attach documents to outbound delivery by IDOC

[former_member497945]

Hi Gurus,

We have a requirement to attach documents  to an outbound delivery by an IDOC type.

Is there any Standard SAP functionality that we can use (by IDOCS or SAP PI interface) where a change can be done to outbound delivery by attaching the documents sent by third party carriers.

Can you please advise me or point me in right direction.

Thanks in advance,

Regards,

Naga.

[former_member497945]

Hi All ,

Thank you for your replies.

All sorted now.

This requirement does not exist anymore.

Best regards,

Naga.

[Jelena]

The right direction would be to (1) translate the business requirements into proper SAP terms (how exactly "change can be done to outbound delivery by attaching the documents" would be achieved in SAP? "attaching the documents" and "changing" are two different things, this makes no sense); (2) use Google to search existing SCN posts using correct SAP terminology.

There are tons of posts already about creating attachments. None of them involve IDoc, unsurprisingly.

[former_member497945]

Hi Jelena,

I have got the requirements correct. Probably i did not explain correctly what i wanted to achieve in system. Sorry for the confusion.

Process is we get a carrier to transport the goods to customer.

Then Carrier sends us some documents that are related to the delivery (Like Delivery progress stage, their reference number)  which we need to store those documents as PDF documents in attachments section of outbound delivery for our future tracking purposes.

Now there is no scope for a user going manually and attaching those documents into the Delivery. So we need to some how achieve this in system automatically.

My understanding was that we need to attach those documents to delivery by changing the delivery and attaching those in transaction VL02n.

I was thinking of doing this by IDOC and message types which will attach the documents to the Delivery.

Correct me if that is not the correct approach or any other alternative option to achieve this?

Hope i am clear now.

Let me know if still any questions or more information is needed.

Thanks,

Regards,

Naga.

[Jelena]

What I'm having trouble understanding is how did you arrive from "we need to attach a document to delivery" to the conclusion that this can be achieved using an IDoc? Could you share your analysis?

As I noted, you need to get the right terminology first. There is no "attachment section" in the outbound delivery in SAP standard. Either you are talking about "services for object" button or DMS or some kind of custom functionality (in the last case SCN won't be able to help you). As soon as you get the terminology right, run Google search to see if any of that can be done in background (because you will need it to run in a background job eventually, won't you?).

P.S. Even if the attachments are added in VL02N, it does not mean you are making a change in the delivery. If you are searching for "how to change delivery" then you are on a wrong path.

[VeselinaPeykova]

From what I know, the information, which you can get from a forwarding agent related to route execution falls into three major categories:

1. Actual execution times. You can use that to update the times in the shipment or in some custom tables to have a realistic information on the trip execution. What is more important for managers, this can be used to evaluate the forwarding agent performance.

2. Actually delivered quantities, on-delivery returns, returns without preceding document. This can be used for example to prepare data for automated route settlement. You are not updating the original deliveries with delivery quantities (of course), this is not possible.

3. Scanned copies of signed proforma documents. In some companies it is allowed to execute route settlement if there are no differences in delivery execution without paper printouts even if the truck is not expected to return back on that date. The forwarder is still obliged to present the originals at a later date (for example once per week). It usually makes sense to record somehow the information whether the paper originals are received and push the forwarding agent in case he forgets to bring some of them.

In my opinion, using PDF files as a source of information does not seem to be the best way to take advantage of a custom-made transportation portal functionality, because it is not that easy to use them for reporting/further processing. I doubt that the users would agree to go and open every single PDF one by one for each separate delivery anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

[prashant_sharma21]

Hello Naga,

Not sure why you are looking for attached file  with Idoc sent by Third party system to change the Delivery document in SAP ?? I havenot seen any attached file with IDOC .

Logically when SAP receive the IDOC from third party system or non SAP system we use EDI sub- system/ Middle ware to convert the data/format from third party system to IDOC readable data. this middle ware takes care conversion and send the data to SAP, SAP system receive it and Inbound Idoc generated, this Inbound Idoc makes changes in existing delivery.

Thanks,

Prashant Sharma