ale idoc guide

8/11/2019 Ale Idoc Guide

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What is ALE ?

ALE stands for Application Link Enabling. Application Link Enabling is a very common

technology used in SAP to transfer master and transactional data between different LogicalSystems. ALE is a proprietary SAP technology.

What is EDI ?

EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange. EDI is a much older term and has been used in

eistence much before SAP. EDI is a generic technology that has been standardi!ed using A"SI

and EDI#A$% standards. EDI is a very standard Industry standard used for businesscommunication across partners.

What is IDOC ?

ID&$ stands for Intermediary DOCument. ID&$ is an SAP proprietary format for storingbusiness data that needs to be communicated across systems. 'hen we mean systems( this could

be between multiple systems ) *oth SAP as well as non+SAP systems,.

What is the Diference between EDI & ALE ?

ALE is used for distributing large volumes of similar data between different Logical systems. #or

eample( distributing customer master data between two SAP systems is easily done using ALE.Similarly( when invoices from the core SAP system needs to be transferred to a different non+

SAP invoice processing system( ALE is used.

EDI is also used to communicate data between different logical systems. #or e.( sending out

invoices( or order acknowledgements to customers is a perfect eample to use EDI. Similarly( wecould use EDI to receive inbound orders from customers.

%here is a general confusion that ALE is a technology to be used between different SAP systemsand EDI is the technology to be used between SAP and non+SAP systems. 'hile this is truestatistically( in principle the difference is much more subtle.

EDI is used to communicate with Partner Systems( while ALE is used to communicate between

Logical Systems. Please do however observe that a Partner System could also be a logicalsystem.


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Customization

$ustomi!ation of ALE - EDI is pretty similar technically. Lets concentrate on ALE first.

/SALE0 +1 %his is the transaction code used for ALE configuration

/'EDI0 +1 %his is the transaction code used for ALE Development.

'e will be doing all the customi!ation in an E$$ 2.3 IDES system. So( please get access to onebefore following along.

Logical System

In SAP( a logical system means a client in an SAP instance. A logical system is 4ust a label thatneeds to be assigned to a client in SAP. 5oto /SALE0+1*asic Setting+1Logical Systems. 6ere is

where you define logical systems and assign them to a client.

A shortcut to view the list of clients is /S$$70.

Lets pick client 833 )double click , and as you can see( the name of the logical system is%93$L"%393. :ou can change it if you want to.


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Similarly( there is another client 8;3. "ow( lets try to establish master data communicationbetween client 833 and client 8;3. )ie, between the two logical systems.

If a new logical system needs to be defined( it can be defined here. Each logical system needs to

be assigned to a client.

Con!guration to be "one on SE#DE$ system

RFC Connection


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As you can see( there are different types of


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Cross Company Code

'hen transferring master data that has company code relevant data ) #or eample( the #inance

view of the customer master data ,( SAP mandates that we maintain a cross+company code. %his

is more of an SAP hack and might be taken away in the future.

Define a new cross+system company code say B5L=C33B +

And follow further configuration to assign the company code to $hart of Accounts and actualcompany code.It is pretty self+eplanatory.

All of these functions can be handled in the menu path shown above. As discussed( these are 4ustlabels and do not have any controls.

6ere is assigning cross+system company code 5L=C33 to company code =C33 and to I"% chart

of Accounts.


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%he log of the partner profiles will be generated. Sometimes SAP does not do this automatically

and we might have to create the partner profiles manually.


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If you go to /'E=30 you can see that SAP has generated partner profiles for us automaticallybased on the previous step. )Select Partner %ype LS ,.


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ale idoc guide

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