This type of number assignment is relevant only for initial data transfer. It is never used in the distribution of data by ALE since an article is always distributed with the number that it has in the source system.

With integrated data transfer, it is not possible to assign article numbers internally in the target system when posting the relevant IDocs, since this would require a dummy article number to be replaced in all IDocs belonging to this article. As a result, the internal numbers for both single articles and generic articles with x variants must always be obtained from the target system before the IDocs are created. This requires you to call one or both of the following business application programming interfaces (BAPIs):

The BAPI obtains the internal numbers from the target system by remote function call (RFC). You must then transfer the internal numbers to the relevant IDocs.

In contrast to online mode, external number assignment is also supported for variants.

In the header segment, a flag can be used to determine whether a check is to be made against the number range. This flag can be used only when transferring article data for the first time, not for the distribution of data by ALE.