Delays in transferring IDocs may result in an IDoc containing data belonging to a specific object arriving at its destination before an "older" IDoc that contains different data belonging to the same object. Applications can use the ALE Serialization API to specify the order IDocs of the same message type are processed in and to prevent old IDocs from being posted if processing is repeated.

SAP recommends that you regularly schedule program RBDSRCLR to clean up table BDSER (old time stamp).

IDocs generated by BAPI interfaces cannot be serialized at IDoc level because the function module for inbound processing does not use the ALE Serialization API.

ALE provides two function modules to serialize IDocs which the posting function module has to invoke:

• IDOC_SERIALIZATION_CHECK to check the time stamps in the serialization field of the IDoc header.
• IDOC_SERIAL_POST updates the serialization table.