Advantages | Basic process flow | Tutorials
The full form of ALE is Application Link Enabling. ALE is the fundamental component of SAP for exchanging data between SAP system and non-SAP systems for business integration purpose. ALE is using Synchronous/asynchronous communication for reading data and asynchronous communication for writing data. The major advantages of ALE are
- Application data can be distributed between different SAP releases
- Data can continue to be exchanged after a release upgrade without requiring special maintenance
- Customers can add their own enhancements
- Communication interfaces enable connections to non-SAP systems
IDOCs (Intermediate Documents) are used to transfer the data in ALE. These IDocs are created and dispatched in distributed systems using message types and BAPIs.So ALE distribution can be Distribution using BAPI or Distribution using message types.
Basic process flow of ALE
- In Outbound system the IDOC containing data will be created and prepared for dispatch.
- Then this IDOC will send to the target system
- In target system inbound processing will start on IDOC and the data will be posted in application.
ALE System structure
- Application layer
- ALE layer
- Communication Layer
Outbound and inbound processing is occurring at Application layer and ALE layer. Communication layer is responsible for transferring the data between system using trfc or EDI file interface.
ALE provides various tools for Monitoring data transmission, Error Handling, Synchronization, Consistency checks etc for the communication between distributed application systems.
Transaction code SALE can be used to view the basic ALE settings and description. To access the ALE tools choose the path Tools -> Business Framework -> ALE.
Tutorials
- Idoc Structure
- Steps to create a basic type Idoc
- IDOC status codes
- IDOC Reprocess reports
- ALE Idoc Transaction codes
- ALE Distribution model using Message types
- ALE Distribution model using BAPI