SAP-BODS integration using IDOCS

1.Introduction:

Imagine you want to build a Reporting Solution, not a Data Warehouse in pure terms. So somebody opens the balance sheet report and does not like the way it looks. So a booking in SAP is created to correct it and then....he has to wait the entire night until the Data Warehouse gets refreshed. Another option would be to configure SAP so it sends all changes to the reporting database immediately. And that is what IDOCs are for.

On the downside though, to configure SAP to actually send changes is quite a challenge. If an IDOC is provided by SAP already it is not that bad, but if you want to distribute changes for data SAP never thought about, you have to write your IDOC from scratch and hook it into every single application dealing with that data.

The basic problem is the IDOC design. It is not like a database triggers that is independent from all the applications and fires no matter who and how a change happened. It is happening on application level, so there is a common ABAP call that has to be done at every single application.

Inside SAP, a couple of settings have to be made, this configuration is mandatory for both sending and receiving IDOCs. The following configurations steps are involved to send IDOCs from BODS to SAP ECC.

1.     Define Logical Systems

2.     Define RFC Destination

3.     Defining RFC Port(Transactional RFC)

4.     Define Partner Profile

Let us see in brief how to configure the above steps:

2.SAP Configuration settings:

2.1 Define Logical Systems:

Defining Logical systems is done in SAP ECC with the transaction ‘SALE’.

Note: This entire documentation refers to SAP IDES system refer the below screen shot for detail.

Enter the Transaction ‘SALE’ to define logical system and its assignment. As this confirmation doesn’t have authorization we will request basis to create it. Hence we used the following logical system as shown below.

Click on the above shown to define the logical system. The below popup come just continue

The Logical system created by basis is ‘ID3CLNT801’ as shown below.

2.2 Define RFC Destination:

Enter the transaction ‘SM59’ to configure the RFC destination in SAP ECC as shown below.

Click on TCP/IP connections as shown above and the create it.

Once the RFC created with Registered Server Program (Program ID) as ‘DI_RFC’ as shown here. With the defined program ID, configure this from BODS side from management console as shown below. Logon on to Management console and click administrator.

RFC server configuration is done as shown below.

The configured served need to be started the interface as shown below.

Now check the connection from SAP side as shown below. Click on the connection test as shown.

If the connection is fine then the following screen will appear.

2.1 Defining RFC Port (Transactional RFC):

Enter the transaction ‘WE21’ to create the Port as shown. The RFC destination will be defined here.

2.2 Define Partner Profile

And finally, we can configure SAP to route all IDOCs of a given type to DI by running the transaction "WE20". You click on "New", type in the Partner Number created in "/nsale" (we called it ID3CLNT801) and its type is "LS"....Logical System. Then you click on save.

Configure the Inbound parameters as SAP need to receive the IDOCS.

Note: From SAP if we need to send the IDOCS to BODS then configure outbound parameters, vice versa to receive the IDOCS (Inbound).

In this case it is considered to create the customer which comes from BODS; hence the configuration should be Inbound. It is shown below. Click on Add

Enter the message type “DEBMAS” and process code as ‘DEBM’, click on save.

Note: The following are the IDOC types, Message types on category wise.

General	Message types / IDoc types / BAPI
Vendor	CREMAS / CREMAS02
Customer	DEBMAS / DEBMAS03
Material master	MATMAS / MATMAS03
Accounting	Message types / IDoc types / BAPI
G/L account	GLMAST / GLMAST01
Cost center	COSMAS / COSMAS01
Cost element	COELEM / COELEM01
Cost center group	COGRP1 / COGRP01
Cost element group	COGRP1 / COGRP01
Activity type	COAMAS / COAMAS01
Activity group	COGRP1 / COGRP01
Activity price	COACTV / COACTV01
Profit center	PRCMAS / PRCMAS01
Profit center group	COGRP1 / COGRP01
Profit center account group	COGRP1 / COGRP01
Logistics	Message types / IDoc types / BAPI
Article master	ARTMAS / ARTMAS02 / RetailMaterial.Clone
Additional	MMADDI / MMADDI01 / RetailMaterial.SaveAdditionalReplicas
Product catalog	PRDCAT / PRDCAT01
Product catalog item	PRDPOS / PRDPOS01
Price list	PRICAT / PRICAT01
Assortment	ASSORTMENT / ASSORTMENT01 / Assortment.SaveReplica
Service master	SRVMAS / SRVMAS01
Characteristic	CHRMAS / CHRMAS02
Class	CLSMAS / CLSMAS03
Classification	CLFMAS / CLFMAS01
Document	DOCMAS / DOCMAS04
Purchasing info record	INFREC / INFREC01
Conditions	COND_A / COND_A01
Order book	SRCLST / SRCLST01
Change master	ECMMAS / ECMMAS01
Bill of material	BOMMAT / BOMMAT01
Document BOM	BOMDOC / BOMDOC01
Work breakdown structure	Project / PROJECT01
Human Resources	Message types / IDoc types / BAPI
PA object type person	HRMD_A / HRMD_A03
PD object types	HRMD_A / HRMD_A03

3. Sending IDOCs:

Sending an IDOC to SAP is an asynchronous task. One or many IDOCs are posted to SAP, just like inserting into a database table, and get stored in the SAP database. Later, SAP starts to process the IDOC and e.g. creates this new material record. Once the processing is done, no matter if successful or not, the status of this IDOC is updated in the SAP table EDIDC.

As a consequence, unlike with BAPIs, you get no return of the processing. Your only choice is to periodically query above status table and copy the status back into the senders table. If an immediate return code is required or the actual error message you have to use BAPIs. On the counter side, IDOCs are supposed to be faster while still running full data consistency tests.

Before sending the IDOCs we need to have SAP Data store to be created and then import the required IDOC. For our case to create the customer ‘DEBMAS06’