ALE, IDOC

WHAT IS ALE AND IDOCS? HOW IT IS RELATED TO SD MODULE..

PLEASE HELP US

mail id ravikumar.talluri@gmail.com

SAP Managed Tags:
SD (Sales and Distribution)

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Accepted Solutions (1)

Dear Ram,

concerning EDI concept in SD: the EDI concept is intended to realize the sales and distribution process completely automatically with the help of electronical documents. These documents are sent from one customer to another, are processed mostly on the background and give a possibility to realize the sales process extremely efficiently.

If MM-customer would like to purchase the goods then he creates the IDOC of type ORDERS and send it to SD-customer. On the SD-side the IDOC is processed via the function module IDOC_INPUT_ORDERS and creates the sales order. As confirmation the SD-side can send to MM-side the Order-Response IDOC (function IDOC_OUTPUT_ORDERS). The MM-customer can every thime send a change to the existiong order, then on SD side the ORDCHG IDOC will be processed. It can change the order like in VA02. The creation of the invoice can be made via IDOC of message type INVOIC (function IDOC_OUTPUT_INVOIC).

So, the process can be realized completely automatically between SD and MM partners with the help of IDOCs: ORDERS, ORDCHG, ORDRSP, INVOIC.

That's all concerning the SD-EDI.

Additional processes in SD, where EDI are used:

1) application of delivery schedules to the scheduling agreement: IDOC of type DELINS

2) creation of a delivery order to the scheduling agreement: IDOC of type DELORD

3) creation of external agent service delivery to scheduling agreement: IDOC of type EDLNOT

4) creation of credit advice / credit memo in the frames of self-billing: IDOCs of type GSVERF, SBWAP and for external invoice creation SBINV.

It is all processes which are realized in the SD module via EDI.

I hope this info helps.

Kind regards,

Akmal Vakhidov

Development Support SAP, Walldorf/Germany

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Answers (4)

HI Ram.,

Go through this,You will get better idea on EDI,ALE,IDOCS

The interface concept of the classic R/3 is based on two different strategies: Remote Function Calls (RFC) and data exchange through IDoc message documents. RFC makes direct and synchronous calls of a program in the remote system. If the caller is an external program it will call an RFC-enabled function in R/3 and if the calling program is the R/3 system it will call an RFC-function in another R/3-system or it will call a non-R/3 program through a gateway-proxy (usually rfcexec.exe). BAPIs are a subset of the RFC-enabled function modules, especially designed as Application Programming Interface (API) to the SAP business object, or in other words: are function modules officially released by SAP to be called from external programs.

IDocs are text encoded documents with a rigid structure that are used to exchange data between R/3 and a foreign system. Instead of calling a program in the destination system directly, the data is first packed into an IDoc and then sent to the receiving system, where it is analyzed and properly processed. Therefore an IDoc data exchange is always an asynchronous process. The significant difference between simple RFC-calls and IDoc data exchange is the fact, that every action performed on IDocs are protocolled by R/3 and IDocs can be reprocessed if an error occurred in one of the message steps.

While IDocs have to be understood as a data exchange protocol, EDI and ALE are typical use cases for IDocs. R/3 uses IDocs for both EDI and ALE to deliver data to the receiving system. ALE is basically the scheduling mechanism that defines when and between which partners and what kind of data will be exchanged on a regular or event triggered basis. Such a set-up is called an ALE-scenario.

The philosophical difference between EDI and ALE can be pinned as follows: If we send data to an external partner, we generally speak of EDI, while ALE is a mechanism to reliable replicate data between trusting systems to store a redundant copy of the IDoc data. The difference is made clear, when we think of a purchase order that is sent as an IDoc. If we send the purchase order to a supplier then the supplier will store the purchase order as a sales order. However, if we send the purchase order via ALE to another R/3 system, then the receiving system will store the purchase order also as a purchase order.

REWARD if helpfull

Thanks & Regards

Narayana