Communicating and Processing IDocs

After installing SAP JCo and the SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x, configure the adapter and use it in business processes. To communicate with SAP and your trading partners, and to process IDocs, Sterling B2B Integrator provides several business processes that work together. These business processes use BPML activities, services, and adapters to retrieve documents, perform EDI and IDoc translation, and send documents. These business processes must be used together. To implement the business processes, you must perform minimal configuration.

There are two types of IDoc processing: file-based and ALE-based.

For file-based IDoc processing, Sterling B2B Integrator provides the following business processes:

SAP Inbound IDoc
SAP Outbound IDoc
SAP Inbound Delivery

For ALE/IDoc processing, Sterling B2B Integrator provides the following business processes:

SAP Outbound ALE
SAP Delivery ALE

SAP Inbound IDoc (SAPInboundIDoc.bp)

SAPInboundIDoc runs after the translation of inbound EDI data to IDoc. Sterling B2B Integrator envelope definitions are associated with SAP routes using the SAP cross-reference configuration. SAP Inbound IDoc inserts the proper routing information into the IDoc control record and transfers the completed IDoc to SAP using the SAP Inbound Delivery business process.

To exchange IDocs through ALE, modify the SAP Inbound Delivery business process to invoke an adapter instance of a SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x. Ensure that you have configured SAP Route and SAP Cross Reference information before exchanging IDocs through ALE.

SAP Outbound IDoc (SAPOutboundIDoc.bp)

The SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x retrieves IDocs from SAP. After retrieving IDocs, the SAP Outbound IDoc business process provides end-to-end processing of IDocs. The SAP Outbound IDoc business process enables IDocs to be grouped based on the user-provided EDI envelope definitions. While processing IDocs and preparing them for translation, the SAP Outbound IDoc business process generates status messages that describe processing results. After translation, the SAP Outbound IDocs business process calls the SAP Inbound Delivery business process, which uses FTP to send the status messages back to SAP.

SAP Inbound Delivery (SAPinbDelivery.bp)

Both the SAP Inbound IDoc and SAP Outbound IDoc business processes use the SAP Inbound Delivery business process to send documents. That is:

As a prerequisite, modify the SAP Inbound Delivery business process to invoke an adapter instance of a SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x. After the SAP Inbound IDoc business process performs the final translation on the IDoc (such as adding the routing information to the IDoc control record), the SAP Inbound Delivery business process uses FTP to send the IDocs to SAP.
After the SAP Outbound IDoc business process translates an IDoc received from SAP to EDI, the SAP Inbound Delivery business process uses FTP to send status messages to SAP. An RFC trigger call is run to direct SAP to collect the file from the SAP file system.

SAP Outbound ALE (SAPOutboundALE.bp)

The SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x receives IDocs from SAP using ALE technology. After receiving IDocs, the SAP Outbound ALE business process provides end-to-end processing of IDocs. The SAP Outbound ALE business process enables IDocs to be grouped based on the user-provided EDI envelope definitions. While processing IDocs and preparing them for translation, the SAP Outbound ALE business process generates status messages that describe processing results. After translation, the SAP Outbound ALE business process calls the SAP Delivery ALE business process to send the status messages back to SAP.

SAP Delivery ALE (SAPALEDelivery.bp)

As a prerequisite, modify the SAP Delivery ALE business process to invoke an adapter instance of a SAP Suite adapter for JCo 3.x. The SAP Outbound ALE business process uses the SAP Delivery ALE business process to send status messages back to SAP after IDoc to EDI translation is complete.

For more information, see Implementing the SAP Business Processes.