This section provides an overview of the necessary settings within the SAP R/3 System as well as information on additional adjustments made available in the R/3 customer functions.

You can also use the following sources of information:

• Implementation Guide/SAP Reference IMG (Online)

• Master Menu (Online)

• More in-depth can be found in the following printed documentation:

• RFC manual

• ALE consultant’s manual

• Workflow manual

Transmitting IDocs using Remote Function Call takes place on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) basis. If an error occurs during this process, the connection between transmitter and recipient is interrupted. The transmitter can use the return codes of the RFC functions to control whether the function was successfully called up in the recipient system or not. If there are any TCP/IP errors, the connection must be disconnected and the IDoc must be re-transmitted.

Errors in the ALE service layer that occur during transmission or receipt of the IDoc are indicated as technical errors. The R/3 system generates a work item for every incorrect IDoc when technical or logical errors occur (see below). A work item is part of the workflow processing. For the most part, the work item is an error message that is sent to all the users in the system who are assigned to a particular position. The error message contains an error text. If one of the users views the message in the inbox, analyzes the error and posts the document, the error message will disappear from all inboxes.

On receipt, the IDoc is saved in the database before any processing begins, thus unlinking the communication from processing. In this way, the communication is unlinked from processing. If an error occurs during processing, such as updating with disallowed or incorrect transaction type (=logical application error), SAP creates a work item with the appropriate error text.

If a logical error occurs during processing of an IDoc, a message is sent to one or several users. The following text describes how error processing is set up.

Technically, the system triggers a standard task specific to the message category. The standard task must be assigned to a position that has either a user or holder.

You can create one or several positions. These are contained within a central organizational unit.

You then have the following options:

• You can enter an organizational unit in the partner definition but no further specifications in the partner profile per message category. All the messages will then go to the users assigned to that organizational unit who have a position where the standard task appeared.

• You enter a certain position instead of the organizational unit in the partner definition.

• You override the entry in the partner definition with entries in the partner profile for a message category.

Normally, you would use the first alternative. However, if you have two subsystems that serve two different transportation planning points, where the administrators for the errors are two different people, you could use the second alternative to send the same error via the two different partner numbers.

The inbox display can be adjusted individually. The following describes a setting that allows you to display the messages by IDoc category:

Call up transaction SIN1. Click on Configuration under settings and create a new configuration. Choose the switch for "Start configuration". In this way you ensure that you always use this configuration automatically. Save to the database.