Show TOC

 Error Correction: Receipt of Confirmations Via EDI

Use

Errors may occur during the electronic interchange of data between you and your vendors. You will wish to correct such errors. SAP Business Workflow can support you in identifying and remedying them.

Reasons for Errors

When you receive a confirmation from your vendor via EDI, the system usually updates the relevant purchasing document.

For example, when a shipping notification is received, the system will generate an inbound delivery with an inbound-delivery document and update the data in the associated purchase order.

When an order acknowledgment is received, the acknowledgment number is entered in a field of the associated PO.

In the following cases, the system is not able to update the purchasing document on the basis of an incoming EDI confirmation.

  • The confirmation control key has not been maintained or does not cover this type of confirmation.

  • The purchasing document to which the confirmation relates happens to be blocked at the time the incoming confirmation is received via EDI.

  • The problem is due to technical reasons (for example, the maximum field length has been exceeded).

  • One or more of the applicable tolerances for delivery date, quantity and price checks in the case of order acknowledgments received via EDI has/have been exceeded.

Error Correction

The error correction facility works as follows:

  • When an error occurs, you are advised accordingly by SAP Business Workflow through the appearance of a work item (a Notification ) in your integrated inbox.

  • You can process the work item, and thus branch directly into the faulty IDoc .

  • In the IDoc, you can branch to the status records to obtain information on the source of the error.

Several status records, each relating to different document items, may exist for a document.

  • In a status record, you can obtain status information by displaying the long text of the error (for example, the status information that the confirmation control key has not been maintained correctly for item 20 in purchase order no. 12345.)

(If the source of the error lies with the vendor, get him to change the document and re-transmit it.)

From the long text of the error message, you can directly invoke the relevant PO and there maintain the confirmation control key.

  • As soon as you save the purchase order, you are returned to the long text of the error message in the status record of the IDoc.

  • From within the IDoc, you can initiate the renewed processing of the IDoc.

The system can now update the data correctly.

For detailed information on error handling, refer to the Basis documentation under The IDoc Interface (section Exception Handling ).