ALE Configuration

This section describes the configuration specific to ALE processing.

There are five places in the message transmission process where something can go wrong in the
transmission of a message with ALE:
1.
Reading the outbound partner profile.
2.
Sending the IDoc to the receiving system.
3.
Reading the inbound partner profile. This may be a configuration problem or an invalid received IDoc
(syntax error or invalid control information)
4.
Calling the application function.
5.
Posting the record to the receiving database. This is generally a logical error, involving a problem with
configuration or with a process problem (such as a customer on credit hold).
The first four possible errors are technical errors, involving the distribution of the IDoc without regard to its
business contents. An error in posting the IDoc is a logical or functional error, involving a problem with the
contents of the IDoc itself, rather than its transfer. We will normally send technical and functional error
notifications to different people in an organization.
We can configure Workflow error handling in each of these five error situations. This table lists the areas
of Workflow configuration for each possible error situation:
Error situation
Workflow configuration needed to handle the error
Reading the outbound partner profile
Maintain the IDoc Administrator on the sending system
Sending the IDoc to the receiving system
Define a Receiver of Notifications in the outbound partner profile
Reading the inbound partner profile
Maintain the IDoc Administrator on the receiving system
Calling the application function
Define a Receiver of Notifications in the inbound partner profile
Posting the document to the database
Configure processing of the corresponding Workflow task
In each case, we can define one or more possible agents to execute the corresponding error-handling
task. We can use any of the organizational objects to do this. That is, we can assign all of the members of
an organizational unit, a position, or a job to the task, or we can assign a single user or person.
The next sections describe these configurations in detail.

Idoc Administrator

Receiver of Notification