EDI and IDOC for PO creation

[Former Member]

I used IDOC before, but not sure the difference between  using EDI to create PO and using pure IDOC to create PO, under which circumstance, we have to use EDI? in WE20 partner profile, partner type LS and given a partner number, how would I know this IDOC is generated by pure IDOC or EDI interface?

[SuhaSaha]

Hello Robin,

Robin Tiang wrote:
 ... how would I know this IDOC is generated by pure IDOC or EDI interface?

Do you need separate handling of the IDocs for ALE (where partners are defined as Logical Systems) and EDI (partners are non-Logical Systems viz., Customers)?

If yes, you can use the additional other "logical" message values - Message Variant(MESCOD) & Message Function(MESFCT) - to differentiate the processing. Please note in case of inbound processing the external system must populate these fields.

You'll have to maintain the details in WE57, WE42 prior to maintaining in WE20.

Hope i'm clear.

BR,
Suhas

PS: Remember that IDocs are only a medium to transfer the data. EDI & ALE are two different architectures which are used to interact with external systems.

[Former Member]

No,  in WE20, we have partner type LS(logical system), partner number Z01(outbound delivery) this is EDI, according to you logical system is ALE.

we use webmethods to generate EDI inside SAP, do you have any idea how normal webmethod is configured to generate EDI?

[TuncayKaraca]

Hi Robin,

EDI means with SAP a separate software that handles EDI messages and converts them as IDOCs and submits to SAP (inbound), and converts IDOCs to EDI messages and sends to partner's EDI (outbound).

There are EDI software that work with SAP, for example Gentran, etc.. IDOCs are used by EDI software, but also can be used internally in SAP.

Search on SAP IDOC ED software.

[Former Member]

how do I know it is inbound IDOC or outbound IDOC?

previously we only use IDOC, no edi, , now some vendor using EDI to send inbound IDOC to us, you mean we don't need to do extra setup regarding our IDOC configuration? if it is not the case, pls list down the additional configuration we need for EDI

Vendor is using non SAP system, they will transfer text file to us, if without using EDI, can IDOC do the same transfer?