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    Detailed SAP Interface Design Fundamental Document

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    amitava_bapi
    1) The document discusses designing interfaces between SAP and third party vendors or legacy systems to exchange data. Interfaces can be inbound, with SAP receiving data, or outbound, with SAP sending data. 2) Middleware like XI can be used to format data being sent to different third party systems. 3) Many factors must be considered when designing an interface, including file formats, naming conventions, error handling, and testing procedures. Thorough testing of interfaces is important due to their complexity.

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    Detailed SAP Interface Design Fundamental Document

    Uploaded by

    amitava_bapi
    187 views4 pages
    1) The document discusses designing interfaces between SAP and third party vendors or legacy systems to exchange data. Interfaces can be inbound, with SAP receiving data, or outbound, with SAP sending data. 2) Middleware like XI can be used to format data being sent to different third party systems. 3) Many factors must be considered when designing an interface, including file formats, naming conventions, error handling, and testing procedures. Thorough testing of interfaces is important due to their complexity.

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    Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document

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    1) The document discusses designing interfaces between SAP and third party vendors or legacy systems to exchange data. Interfaces can be inbound, with SAP receiving data, or outbound, with SAP sending data. 2) Middleware like XI can be used to format data being sent to different third party systems. 3) Many factors must be considered when designing an interface, including file formats, naming conventions, error handling, and testing procedures. Thorough testing of interfaces is important due to their complexity.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    187 views4 pages

    Detailed SAP Interface Design Fundamental Document

    Uploaded by

    amitava_bapi
    1) The document discusses designing interfaces between SAP and third party vendors or legacy systems to exchange data. Interfaces can be inbound, with SAP receiving data, or outbound, with SAP sending data. 2) Middleware like XI can be used to format data being sent to different third party systems. 3) Many factors must be considered when designing an interface, including file formats, naming conventions, error handling, and testing procedures. Thorough testing of interfaces is important due to their complexity.

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    At a glance
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    The key takeaways are that interfaces can facilitate communication between SAP and other systems, and there are important design considerations like file formats, naming conventions, and error handling.

    The two main types of interfaces are inbound interfaces, where SAP receives data, and outbound interfaces, where SAP sends data to another system.

    Important points to consider when designing an interface include file formats, naming conventions, selection criteria, error handling, frequency of file transfers, and directory structure.

    Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document.

    doc

    Detailed Interface design Document

    In real-time business scenario a company can have a centralized system where all
    related information can be maintain (like financial data, HR Master data etc.) There is
    always a need to communicate with the third party vendors or with legacy systems
    to supply information from the centralized information system .Need could be to
    provide employee detail to the third party vendor (lets say CIGNA)so that ,they can
    run the benefit function on behalf of company. Or employee data needs to be passed
    on to legacy system to run the payroll. Similarly partial hiring process could be
    handling by third party vendor and then data can feed over to SAP.

    This document talks about such scenarios where SAP is the Centralized information
    system. One of the ways to establishes a communication from SAP to Legacy/Vendor
    system or from Legacy/Vendor systems to SAP could be by designing an interface
    between the two systems.

    Types:-

    Interface can be of categories in 2 types depending upon the direction of data flow.

    Inbound – If SAP is the receiver system with respect to the Legacy systems/Vendor
    system then this would be an inbound interface.

    Outbound – When SAP is the sender system i.e. data is going from SAP to legacy
    system /Vendor system then this would be an outbound interface.

    Use of Middleware: - Interface can be designed to directly send data to third party
    or by using a middleware like XI, depending upon the business requirement. For
    example if employee data to be send on regular basis to different banks for
    processing employee salary and information format differ for each bank while data
    remains the same. Here XI, as a middleware suffices the purpose by formatting data
    in required format as per different third party systems. While if business need is to
    just send lets say education data to Data Mart then it can directly be send to Data
    Mart without using middleware .So it depends upon the context. There are number of
    middleware available in the market for that matter.

    Vaibhew Dubey Page 1 7/31/2013


    Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document.doc

    Exchange of information : - Sending generated file from SAP to Third party


    (Outbound) system or taking data from third part to SAP system (Inbound) is
    facilitated via exchange protocol /standard like EDI (Electronic data interchange) OR
    MQ FTE. It completes the communication channel.

    These exchanges take file/s from SAP and put it into the third party server
    (Outbound) OR take file from the third party server and place it to SAP Application
    server (Inbound) and that how the process gets automated.

    Points to remember while designing the Interface: - While designing an


    interface below points should be considered.

    1. Do we have to send full file (entire population data) or change file or both?
    2. If change file required- comparison needed between current data and prior
    run data. Do we want to do previous file vs. current file comparison or should
    we add previous entries to custom table?
    3. What should be the naming convention of files (Full /change files)?
    4. What should be the file format (Fixed or Variable file format)?
    5. Any header requires preceding the file or following the file?
    6. What should be the file length i.e. how many characters?
    7. What should be the naming convention of generated file?
    8. Is there data and time stamp needed with the file name?
    9. What should be the file type i.e. whether it would be txt file, excel file or CSV
    file etc.?
    10. Should it go to EDI?
    11. If yes, do we need to have option of check box to decide when to send and
    not to send it to EDI?
    12. Whether the total file length included header character or not?
    13. What would be the selection criteria (i.e. for active/inactive pernr or Molga
    etc)?
    14. Whether it would require fetching latest record or require multiple record
    handling?
    15. What should be the corresponding field mapping to SAP?
    16. Do we require mechanism to handle special characters in data?
    17. What should be the run date –system date or record Changed date?
    18. Do we need to have date range option in the selection screen?

    Vaibhew Dubey Page 2 7/31/2013


    Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document.doc

    19. What would be the frequency of sending file?


    20. Whether file should be placed directly to the application server or will it be
    routed through any middleware (like XI)?
    21. What would be the error handling mechanism?
    22. Will there be any error report (Like writing in the spool how many records
    sent) required for?
    23. If yes what would be the format and what are the different fields require to
    display?
    24. Do we have to have specific information in the output?
    25. Do we need count of records sent in file/s (Full/change), run date, file name,
    file path in the output?
    26. What would be the directory name and directory path?
    27. Will it be the existing directory/folder or do we need a separate
    directory/folder?
    28. If separate directory/folder needed then channelized basis with appropriate
    process to have directory/folder created.
    29. Whether archiving of file required?
    30. Do we require to have date/time stamping in the archived file?
    31. If yes whether it would require "replacing" the existing file or "copying" the
    existing file?
    32. If we are generating spool, do we want to send that spool to the business
    users via email as soon as interface run completes?

    Testing:-

    Developing an interface is a tedious job (depending upon the complexity which


    further depends upon the number fields you are fetching/updating and the
    complexity of logic behind).Similarly testing could be equally tedious. Below are
    couple of points (but not limited to) which could help doing end to end testing of
    an interface):-

    Common Aspect of Outbound and Inbound


    1. Does the selection screen appear as expected?
    2. Does the output screen appear as expected?

    Vaibhew Dubey Page 3 7/31/2013


    Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document.doc

    3. Do the file names appear correctly?

    If Outbound:-
    4. Do the generated files contain the expected fields?
    5. Do the generated files fetching the appropriate data from different
    infotypes/tables?
    6. Does all headers appearing in correct text/name, in correct sequence.
    7. Does data under every header column appearing correcting?
    8. Dose the generated file contains required no of characters?
    9. Dose every field is of desired length?
    10. Check if file is going into right directory?
    11. Check for the file format.
    12. If archiving the file then check is it getting "replaced "or "copied "(as per
    the requirement)?.
    13. Do the file is going to EDI/MQ FTE server when option to send them
    selected?
    14. Is the third party vendor receiving the file?

    If it inbounds:-

    15. Does the program run successful reading the file?


    16. Does the data getting updated properly in respective tables/infotypes in
    SAP after interface run?
    17. If the file is getting archived successfully (if we have archiving
    functionality).
    18. Does file/s getting archived with date/time stamp?
    19. If archiving the file then check is it getting "replaced "or "copied "(as per
    the requirement)?.

    Vaibhew Dubey Page 4 7/31/2013

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