ALE business object structure

During ALE processing, the adapter exchanges business objects with the SAP application. The business object represents an individual IDoc or an IDoc packet. This business object is a top-level wrapper object that contains one or more IDoc child objects, each one corresponding to a single IDoc. The same business object format is used for inbound and outbound processing.

Wrapper business object

The wrapper business object contains a transaction ID, a queue name, and one or more IDoc business objects. The transaction ID (SAPTransactionID) is used to ensure once-only delivery of business objects, and the queue name (qRFCQueueName) specifies the name of the queue on the SAP server to which the IDocs should be delivered. If you are not using transaction IDs or queues, these properties are blank.

For individual IDocs, the wrapper business object contains only one instance of an IDoc business object. For IDoc packets, the wrapper business object contains multiple instances of an IDoc business object.

The following figure illustrates a wrapper business object, which, in this example, contains one IDoc business object.

Figure 1. Example of an ALE wrapper business object

Screen capture of SapAlereq01, showing that it contains a transaction ID, queue name, and the SapAlereq01 business object.

Note that the transaction ID and queue name attributes are present in the business object even if you are not using the tRFC or qRFC features.

IDoc business object

The IDoc business object (SapAlereq01IDocBO, in the example) contains a control record, a data record and a dummy key.

Figure 2. Example IDoc business object structure

Control record

The control record business object contains the metadata required by the adapter to process the IDoc business object.

The control record can be generated from SAP field names or from SAP field descriptions. While configuring the properties for the control record you can specify if you want the control record generated from SAP field names or from SAP field descriptions. Check the check box to use SAP field names to generate attribute names if you want the control record generated from field names.

Figure 3. Configuration properties window

A screen capture of the configuration properties window showing the check box to generate attribute names using SAP field names.

The control record gets generated as shown below:

Figure 4. Control record generated with SAP field names

Screen capture of a control record generated with SAP field names

If you do not check the Use SAP field names check box, the control record structure would be displayed as shown in the figure below:

Figure 5. Control record generated with SAP field descriptions

A Screen capture of Control record generated with SAP field descriptions

Data record

The data record business object contains the actual business object data to be processed by the SAP application and the metadata required for the adapter to convert it to an IDoc structure for the RFC call. The data record business object is generated for a parsed IDoc. The data record business object contains all the segments of the IDoc. Each segment in turn has a child business object as shown below. The segment attributes can also be generated using SAP field names or field descriptions. You can use SAP field names to generate attribute names.

Figure 6. Example data record business object structure

A screen capture of SapAlereq01DataRecord, which points to SapAlereq01E2aler1001.

Unparsed IDocs

For an unparsed IDoc, in which the data part of the IDoc is not parsed by the adapter, the IDoc business object contains a dummy key, a control record, and the IDoc data. The IDoc data is of hexBinary type and represents the whole data record containing segments in binary content.

The following figure illustrates a wrapper business object for an unparsed IDoc and the associated IDoc business object.

Figure 7. Example of an ALE wrapper business object for an unparsed IDoc

Application-specific information

Additional information about the business object can be found in the application-specific information of the business object. For example, the application-specific information for SapAleReq01 lists whether the IDoc packet is split and provides information about the operation.

Figure 8. Application-specific information for the business object

Screen capture of ALE business object metadata for an outbound operation

Dummy keys

You use a dummy key to map a key field from an IDoc control or data record business object to the DummyKey property of the top-level business object. The DummyKey property is used for flow control and business process logic. You can use the DummyKey when you need the top-level business object to participate in a relationship.

The adapter supports dummy key mapping in the following manner:

You must configure the property-level application-specific information of the dummyKey property as the path to the property from which the value should be set. For example: dataRecord/SapOrders05e2edk01005/idocDocumentNumber
The following figure shows an example of property-level application-specific information that includes the DummyKey field.
Figure 9. Property-level application-specific information for DummyKey
Multiple cardinality objects are not supported. If the path contains a multiple cardinality object, the value is ignored and the default first index is used.
If the application-specific information is incorrect or if the mapped property value is empty, the adapter causes the event to fail. This is also the case when the application-specific information is configured to set an object type value as the dummyKey.
Note: The dummyKey property can contain only a simple type.

Dummy key processing is not supported for unparsed IDocs. You can use dummy keys in the ALE inbound interface.