ALE/EDI

[Former Member]

Difference between ALE and EDI? Knowledge of common transactions used in EDI & ALE?

[Former Member]

Difference between ALE and EDI? Knowledge of common transactions used in EDI & ALE?

[Former Member]

<b>Hi aruna

ALE and EDI are basically used in cross application linking.

ALE- is used in scenarios between R/3 and R/3

EDI- is used in scenarios between R/3 and non R/3

But now a days XI is preferred.

regs

Vijay</b>

provide points if u r satisfied with the reply

[Former Member]

Hi Aruna,

Please refer to

,

or search the forum with ale,edi you will get enough information.

<i>Reward Points If It Helps YOU.</i>

Regards,

Raghav

[Former Member]

The basic difference with ALE and EDI is ALE used for internal communications and EDI is meant for external communications.

Since ALE uses an IDOC format to exchange data between systems, both participating systems should understand the IDOC format.

In other words ALE normally used to distribute the master data (Ex: Material Master, Vendor Master) with in a company when you are maintain the distributed environment.

For example data transfer between a SAP R/3 and SAP APO where the data transfer is implemented using ALE technology.

EDI is for exchanging transaction data (Purchase order, Delivery) between two different business partners.EDI is all about the standards (Ex: ANSI X12, EDIFACT) you have to follow when you are transferring business documents.

Technically speaking, ALE transfers the data using memory buffers whereas EDI uses file port to transfer the data.

With EDI technology you always need a translator to convert the IDOC to X12 (Outbound), X12 to IDOC (Inbound).But with ALE you don’t need a translator.

[Former Member]

Hi,

Please don't get confused with the terminology. EDI is a industry standard that allows partners to exchange data electronically using a standard format or message. It is not a SAP term. There are two major EDI standards, EDIFACT and ANSI X12. There is a non-profit organization that keeps coming up with new message formats based on industry needs. There are some industry specific EDI standards in place.

Since EDI is a constantly changing one and the focus of EDI is exchange of data between the systems of partners, SAP did not try to implement EDI compatability in SAP. Instead, SAP came up with its own IDOC technology. So if EDI has a EDI 850 stabdard for order acknowledgement, SAP has an IDOC for the data format and a message for identifying its meaning. So IDOC is SAP's proprietery answer for EDI. But since partners still need to exchange data using EDI standards and the data they want to exchange is in SAP, some third party tools have come into existence. Gentran is one such tool (collectively called as EDI subsystems) that maps a SAP IDOC to a EDI message and vice-versa.

ALE uses IDOCs to exchange data, but it is primarily the technology to transfer data from one SAP system to another.

Hope this clarifies, and if so, please close the post. If you have more questions, please revert back to the forum.

As far as transactions are concerned, please use WEDI area menu transaction. This will give you almost all IDOC related transactions. Also look at BD* transactions.

Thanks.

[Former Member]

hello deepak...

your response was very helpful to me...

however do you know what are the difference between x12 or edifact with idoc....because i am not finding any logic why would we invent the wheel if we already had good standards...

thank you...