Vendor MSDS received via email

[former_member247747]

Hello experts.

I would like to confirm if there is a way through customizing to enable EH&S to receive vendor MSDS being sent via email since so far all documentation and IMG activities I found refer to send a MSDS from EH&S using report shipping orders so it seems it is not possible. I know vendor MSDS can be uploaded in transaction CG36VEN but my scenario is EH&S receiving the vendor MSDS sent from an email.

Any information to confirm or discard this idea would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Franco,

What i understood from your question is, automation of receiving vendor msds which we receive as an email. Unfortunately there is no such functionality in standard sap, as you desired.

We can discuss this in other way, anyway the interface is not possible from outlook or email to sap. We can maintain repository, where we can download the msds documents. From there these msds reports can be transferred to sap as Idocs. Can be used sap pi or biz talk tools to interface from other systems to sap.

For this development, you must check the load like per day how many msds reports receiving from the vendors. If these numbers are minimal, this can be managed with the transaction CG36VEN manually. No meaning of going for development.

You have couple of threads available related to Idocs.

Regards

Kamal

[christoph_bergemann · Accepted solution]

Hello Franco

the main reason why this is not possible (as Kamal has explained) is this (let's try to figure out a scenario)

a.) if the vendor would know a general eMail address to use he can use the eMail address and pass on a MSDS

b.) to import the MSDS in SAP EH&S additional information is needed to go on. The Material number is needed, you need a "mapping" to generation variant / language etc.

Actually there is no XML structure  or whatever kind of similar structure available globally for data exchange (here MSDS) so that the relation vendor <=> company is not stable in the sense of IT (in context of SAP EH&S).

One option could be: you create an Internet Portal (e.g. by using BSP, or WebDynpro etc. techniques) for Vendors there the vendor get access and then can select material number etc. and then the vendor could "upload" the MSDS by himself in your system.

Using eMail is not a good option in my opinion.

May be take a look here:

http://155.56.92.22/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=53092

Referring to

Use Case 2: Providing Customers with Material Safety Datasheets

Here you need "only" the other way around.

This SOA approach of SAP is not so known (and I assume/believe rarely used) but this approach might help you to find other options to solve your demand

C.B.

[former_member247747]

Kamal, Christoph.

Thank you both for your prompt and informative answers. I can confirm there's no customizing approach to this requirement now.

With the development option I initially though SAP had some kind of repository like the application server (which I use to store MSDS report models and import them with trx CG34). I was checking also if the web application server can be used as a repository but the alternative of a SOA seems interesting too.

Regardless of that I'll check the amount of MSDS expected to be received to see whether using only CG36VEN is preferable or not.

Regards.