✒️ABAP Introducción a IDocs
ABAP Introducción a IDocs
Introduction to IDocs
Basic Concepts
Integration needs between business processes within and outside companies are increasingly crucial. The most commonly used technologies for integration are ALE and EDI, which utilize IDocs for data exchange. These are cross-application technologies used across various SAP R/3 modules (SD, MM, and FI) but are applicable to any data exchange requirement.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
It is a communication standard that describes the electronic exchange of structured business data between different applications. EDI provides integration for business processes between companies exchanging documents (business documents) such as purchase orders, invoices, etc.
We refer to EDI when describing information sent to an external partner. In EDI, the sender and receiver are called Trading Partners, and communication between them occurs by sending messages based on EDIFACT and X12 standards.
Its architecture consists of:
- EDI-Enabled Applications: support automatic processing of business processes.
- IDoc Interface: serves as the link between the application and the external system (sending or receiving).
- EDI Subsystem: responsible for converting the IDoc into an EDI message and vice versa.
The main component of the interface is the IDoc type, which is a SAP standard specifying the structure and format of the information to be transferred to other systems.
Application Link Enable (ALE)
Describes the exchange of information between different applications or business processes within the company. It is the mechanism that defines when, between whom, and what type of information will be exchanged on a regular basis.
We refer to ALE when describing data changes between secure systems to store redundant copies of the IDoc information.
Two systems can directly exchange IDocs between each other via ALE or EDI subsystems or convert data to EDI standards and then exchange them.
ALE was designed for integrating SAP systems with other SAP systems. However, ALE's flexibility allows any non-R/3 system to use ALE as an integration tool.
Differences between EDI and ALE
- ALE is used to support integrated yet undistributed processes across the SAP system, while EDI is used for the exchange of business documents between trading partners' systems, which may not be SAP.
- ALE is a technology designed to support a distributed environment. EDI is a process used for exchanging standardized format business documents.
- Both require data exchange. An IDoc is a data container used for data exchange.
IDoc (Intermediate Document)
It is the standard format SAP defines for data exchange between systems. They are text documents encoded with a rigid structure, used to exchange data between SAP and non-SAP systems.
It contains a header and segments, but all data belongs to the same entity, meaning that to transmit data from multiple providers, more than one IDoc would be required.
Instead of calling the program, the data is first packaged into an IDoc and then sent to the receiving system, where it is analyzed and processed. Therefore, the exchange of IDocs is an asynchronous process.
Key Concepts
- Message-oriented: Information is managed in applications but in different formats (application documents). The IDoc unifies the different formats across applications. It doesn't matter if the application is SAP.
- Asynchronous: Before an application document is created, the information is stored in the IDoc. This is important, for example, if errors occur when generating the application document. The IDoc can be modified and reprocessed.
- Within R/3, only IDoc formats are used. The EDI subsystem converts data into IDoc formats. Therefore, applications only need to know this format, not all EDI standards.
Types of IDocs
- Inbound: those that enter the SAP system.
- Outbound: those that exit the SAP system.
Sobre el autor
Publicación académica de Jaime Eduardo Gomez Arango, en su ámbito de estudios para la Carrera Consultor ABAP.
SAP Expert
Jaime Eduardo Gomez Arango
Profesión: Ingeniero de Sistemas y Computación - España - Legajo: SW34C
✒️Autor de: 149 Publicaciones Académicas
🎓Cursando Actualmente: Consultor en SAP Fiori
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Ingeniero de sistemas y computación con 8 años de experiencia el desarrollo frontend & backend (react/node) y en cloud (aws), actualmente desarrollando habilidades en sap btp, ui5, abap y fiori.
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