IDOCS -Intermideate documentes
IDOCS means -Intermideate documentes.
IDoc (for intermediate
document) is a standard data structure for electronic data
interchange (EDI) between application programs written for the popular SAP business
system or between an SAP application and an external program.
SAP to SAP : ALE(Application link
emblening)
SAP to NON SAP : EDI (Electronic data
interchange)
Direction :
Inbound : 1 ,Status 50 above
Outbound : 2 ,Status : 1 to 50 : outbound
IDoc or Intermediate Document is a standard SAP document exchange
format. IDocs allow different application systems to be linked via a
message-based interface. The IDoc interface consists of the definition of a
data structure (where the data structure is the IDoc) and a processing
logic for this data structure.
The main aims behind the use of
IDocs:
The structured exchange of
business documents so that they can be processed automatically.
The various degrees of
structural complexity as displayed by different application systems can be
reduced to a structure which is as simple as possible.
A typical scenario is the system data administration, where material master records have to be distributed from one central to several satellite systems. Nowadays, pure EDI scenarios are more and more executed on the basis of ALE technology, only that the system connection is 'just' bilateral.
IDocs allow for extensive exception handling before the data is posted to the application.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was the first form of data transfer to use IDocs. In EDI application scenarios, the processes, by definition, involve two partners: The sender and the recipient of an EDI message. EDI is a bilateral, document-oriented form of data transfer
Application Link Enabling (ALE) enables integration of business processes that are developed across several SAP systems or non-SAP systems. Thus, ALE is oriented to connect different applications on different systems. System-wide ALE message flows are modelled in a so called 'distribution model'.
In an SAP System the Application Link Enabling (ALE) is one of the core integration technologies. It involves the exchange of hierarchical data documents known as Intermediate Documents (IDOCs).
Idocs has three main Structure/Records.
- Control recored
- Data record
- Status Record
Control record is a kind of “envelope” record
that contains information about the IDOC like
- Ÿ IDOC type (“what data is in the IDOC”)
- Ÿ Message type (“how is the IDOC being processed”)
- Ÿ Sender information (“who is the sender of that IDOC”)
- Ÿ Receiver information (“who is the receiver of that IDOC”)
- Ÿ Latest status of EDI processing.
- Ÿ EDI standard and version.
- Ÿ The only two mandatory fields that must be filled are the
- Ÿ Message type (MESTYP) and IDOC type (IDOCTP)
Ÿ
Ÿ The sender information - along with
additional information - is
automatically filled in by the ALE layer (in function module
“MASTER_IDOC_DISTRIBUTE”)Ÿ
The receiver information is optional:
If a receiver is specified,
a check is carried out against the Distribution Model if this receiver is
valid. If it is, an IDOC is created; otherwise no IDOC will be created.If no receiver is
specified, “MASTER_IDOC_DISTRIBUTE” will determine all valid receivers that are
maintained in the distribution model for that message type and create an IDOC
for each receiver !
Data Record
- Ÿ The IDOC data records contain the data of the message. The data records are passed in an internal table and they have to match the structure of the IDOC (sequence of segments, min/max, hierarchy etc.)Ÿ
- EDIDD is a generic structure used for all IDOC segmentsŸ
- SEGNAM field identifies the segment typeŸ
- SDATA contains the actual data of the segment
- Status number
- Message
- IDoc type
- Direction
- Data and time stamp
- Detailed description of status by code and text
- Location of exception in Intermediate Document
- Detector of exception by program and user.
Ÿ The statuses for outbound IDocs are
between '01' and '49', while the statuses for inbound
IDocs begin from '50'.Ÿ
When an IDoc is created, the IDoc
Interface sets the status in the function module EDI_DOCUMENT_CLOSE_CREATE. All
additional status records are written explicitly by
the function module EDI_DOCUMENT_STATUS_SET. It is possible to have Custom Statuses
also.
table EDIDS –Information we get from Status
record:
