Cross Reference To SAP Sales Area From External Customer Number – SAP EDSDC Table

If you have ever converted an external file into a SAP Sales Document IDOC (ex: ORDERS05) you may have hard coded the E1EDK14 segments of the IDOC which specify Sales Area and order type for the SAP Sales Document.  However, these segments are not required if you populate the E1EDKA1-LIFNR segment of the IDOC with the External Customer Number and populate the EDSDC table with the Sales Area and Order Type for the customer.  Your SAP system contains a standard utility that converts the External Customer Number to the Sales Area values and Order Type value contained in this table.

Sales Area Cross Reference From IDOCs ORDERS05 and DELFOR02

This utility is available in the standard SAP package to convert External Customer Number to SAP Sales Area when processing inbound IDOCs (ex: ORDERS05, DELFOR02) from non-SAP systems.  It eliminates the need to add E1EDK14 segments to the IDOC as it populates the Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, Division, and Sales Document Type using the entries in the EDSDC table which is populated using transaction VOE2.  In order for this process to work, you must have the Customers External number populated in the E1EDKA1-LIFNR field of the IDOC where E1EDKA1-PARVW is ‘AG’ and the EDPAR Customer Conversion table set up to convert the Customer External number to the SAP Customer number.  See my blog ‘SAP EDPAR Table – External Customer Number cross reference to SAP Customer Number’ for instructions on the External Customer Conversion.  By properly doing this, the standard SAP function module will use the EDSDC table to convert the External Customer Number to the SAP Sales Area and Document Type.  The following instructions will explain how to populate the inbound IDOC and the EDSDC table.

On the Inbound IDOC do not create any E1EDK14 segments.  The use of the EDSDC table will populate the Sales Area and Document Type of the Sales document and therefore no E1EDK14 segments are required.  Populate the E1EDKA1 segment for the Sold-To party where the PARVW field is ‘AG’ and the LIFNR field is the External Customer Number (Note: the EDPAR table must be populated to convert this External Customer Number to the SAP Sold-To number).

Use transaction VOE2 to populate the EDSDC table.  Enter the SAP Sold-To Customer number in the Customer field and your Customer’s External Sold-To number in the Vendor number field.  You will then populate the SOrg, DChl, and Dv fields on VOE2 with the Sales Area information(Sales Organization, Distribution Channel, and Division) related to your SAP Customer number.  Finally, you will enter the Sales Document Type(ex: OR = Standard Order) in the SaTy field.  These values will be used as the Sales Area and Document Type on the SAP Sales Document once the IDOC is processed.

So eliminate hard coding multiple E1EDK14 segments in the inbound IDOC, just use the Standard SAP Utility designed to populated the Sales Area and Order Type of your Sales Documents.  Populate the EDSDC table using the VOE2 transaction and send the External Customer Number in the E1EDKA1-LIFNR field of the IDOC.

Have you ever had a project where you are converting a customer file into an SAP Sales Document IDOC (ex: ORDERS05) and the customer file contains their Internal Customer Number?  So you need to determine what the SAP Customer Number will be on the IDOC.  If you are not familiar with the SAP interface process you may hardcode the SAP Customer Number or create external tables in your third party mapping software to accomplish this conversion process.  However, this involves customer specific logic or updating the tables with your SAP Customer Numbers and having a process to maintain this table as new SAP Customer Numbers are created.  There is a much easier way to perform this conversion with no additional coding as it is a standard SAP utility.

Customer Conversion For IDOCS ORDERS05 and DELFOR02

This utility is available in the standard SAP package to convert External Customer Numbers to SAP Customer numbers (Sold-To, Ship-To, etc.) when processing inbound IDOCs (ex: ORDERS05, DELFOR02) from non-SAP systems.  When working with data that will be imported into SAP via IDOC format the data usually  contain your customers external sold-to and ship-to numbers and not the associated SAP customer numbers.    Therefore, you would need to convert this External Customer Number to  your internal SAP Customer Number.  Instead of creating cross-reference tables or conversion routines in your third-party translation software you can populate the E1EDKA1-LIFNR field of the inbound IDOC with the External Customer Number and use transaction VOE4 to populate the EDPAR table.  By properly doing this, the standard SAP function module will use the EDPAR table values to convert the External Customer Number to the SAP Customer number.  The following instructions will explain how to populate the inbound IDOC and the EDPAR table.

Configuration Of IDOC Segment E1EDKA1

On the inbound IDOC, the only fields you will need to populate on the E1EDKA1 segment is the PARVW(Partner Function) field and the LIFNR(Vendor Number at Customer Location) field.  In most cases you will have an E1EDKA1 segment for the Sold-To party and another E1EDKA1 segment for the Ship-To party.  For the Sold-To party you would enter ‘AG’ in the PARVW field and the External Sold-To Number in the LIFNR field.

For the Ship-To party you would enter ‘WE’ in the PARVW field and the External Ship-To Number in the LIFNR field.

Populating SAP EDPAR Table Via Transaction VOE4

Prior to processing an inbound IDOC you would use transaction VOE4 to populate the EDPAR table.  The SAP Sold-To number will always be entered in the Customer number field.  The Ext Function field will be populated depending on the External number.  If you are converting the Sold-To number you would enter ‘SP’ in the Ext Function field.  If you are converting the Ship-To number you would enter ‘SH’ in the Ext Function field.  The External Sold-To/Ship-To number would be entered in the External partner field.    Finally, you would enter the SAP Sold-To number or Ship-To number in the Int no. field.  This value will be used as the Sold-To/Ship-To on the SAP Sales Document once the IDOC is processed.

So if you ever need to convert External Customer Number to SAP Customer Numbers take advantage of the utilities that SAP supplies.  You can even incorporate the EDPAR table entry updates  into the SD Business Configuration processes so when a new customer number is created and it is designated as an EDI Customer, the personnel creating the new customer can also update the EDPAR table entries.

This blog is a recap of the liveblog of the keynote address of the SAP TechEd 09 conference.  To read in chronological order, start from the bottom and work your way up.

• Craig Stasila: 8:57 am on October 13, 2009

  If you missed anything, check back for the full blog posting at http://www.dataxstream.com/category/sap-consultants-blog/

• Craig Stasila: 8:55 am on October 13, 2009

  Well, that’s it. The keynote speeches are over. I hope you enjoyed following along with the DataXstream’s first foray into liveblogging. Make sure you check back tonight at 11pm EDT (8pm PDT) for our liveblog of the Demo Jam.

• Craig Stasila: 8:53 am on October 13, 2009

  Ray’s parting shot: Even life expectancy is growing exponentially.

• Craig Stasila: 8:52 am on October 13, 2009

  2029: An intimate merger $1,000 of computation = 1,000 times the human brain Reverse engineering of the brain complete Computers pass the Turing test!! Skynet goes online (OK, I made this one up)

• Craig Stasila: 8:48 am on October 13, 2009

  There are only about 800 million bytes in the entire genome and it can be compressed into about 50 million bytes. The brain is made up of about 25 million bytes of data.

• Craig Stasila: 8:45 am on October 13, 2009

  

  The brain is getting reverse-engineered.  Individual brain components (e.g. visual cortex, cerebellum, etc.) are getting reverse engineered by researchers.

• Craig Stasila: 8:44 am on October 13, 2009

  Ray is now on Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is all around us, but we’re too accustomed to it to notice it.

• Craig Stasila: 8:42 am on October 13, 2009

  They already had this technology in the 80s. I saw Innerspace (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093260/usercomments)

• Craig Stasila: 8:41 am on October 13, 2009

  Someday you will have millions or billions of nano-engineered devices coursing through your body keeping you healthy.

• Craig Stasila: 8:40 am on October 13, 2009

  Miniaturization is another exponential trend. “What used to fit in a building now fits in my pocket. What fits in my pocket now will fit inside a cell in a few years”

• Craig Stasila: 8:39 am on October 13, 2009

  Ray is now going over how the exponential growth in technology power is also mirrored by exponential decrease in price. RAM, processing power, human genome decoding, wireless devices. All adhere to the exponential growth curve.

• Craig Stasila: 8:38 am on October 13, 2009

  

  Ray thinks we’re due for a new paradigm shift away from flat integrated circuits.  He’s been talking to Intel about their development of 3D processors.  I’ve not heard of this before, but it sounds very cool.

• Craig Stasila: 8:34 am on October 13, 2009

  

• Craig Stasila: 8:32 am on October 13, 2009

  Some critics say that exponential growth can’t go on forever. Ray counters that by saying that there can be periods of relatively slow advancements, but over time, progress will catch up.

• Craig Stasila: 8:29 am on October 13, 2009

  You may think that he only picked events that matched his theory. But, now he’s showing another graph comparing his viewpoints with 15 others. There is a very high correlation.

• Craig Stasila: 8:27 am on October 13, 2009

  

  From life to now, this chart shows how life and technological advancements have followed a constant, exponential growth.  Both axes are logarithmic.  Very cool, indeed.

• Craig Stasila: 8:24 am on October 13, 2009

  

  As big as a washing machine.  Stevie Wonder bought one.  In 2002, it was still a desktop device.  Now, it is a cell-phone based app.

• Craig Stasila: 8:21 am on October 13, 2009

  It took 10 years to bet the first billion phones in the market. Now 2/3 of the world’s population has them!

• Craig Stasila: 8:20 am on October 13, 2009

  “The tools of disruptive change are in everybody’s hands”

• Craig Stasila: 8:20 am on October 13, 2009

  Technology is a democratizing force. Back in the day, you had to be a recording studio or movie studio to create content. Now a couple of hundred dollars can be used to create great content.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:18 am on October 13, 2009

    Back in the 70s, Ray projected that the two-thousand user ARPAnet would grow into a million user internet in the 90s. Umm. Yeah. I saw that coming, too!

  • Craig Stasila: 8:17 am on October 13, 2009

    Exponential growth even applies to solar energy. Solar energy may be a fringe player now, but Ray sees it growing.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:16 am on October 13, 2009

    This exponential growth is unaffected by any financial or other external pressures.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:15 am on October 13, 2009

    There are many underlaying properties of technology (MIPS, # of bits, # of genomes typed). Regardless of the property, technology follows a smooth exponential growth.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:13 am on October 13, 2009

    Not many pictures right now. Ray is just standing in one place and talking.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:12 am on October 13, 2009

    Only 10 years ago, people barely used search engines.  Now we can’t live without them.

    I’m always amazed how true genius can point out the obvious and make it sound profound.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:10 am on October 13, 2009

    Using the human genome project as an example of exponential growth in technology.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:09 am on October 13, 2009

    And progress is getting faster…

  • Craig Stasila: 8:09 am on October 13, 2009

    Your phone in your pocket is a thousand times more powerful and million times cheaper than a computer from 40 years ago. “What fit in a building 40 years ago, fits in your pocket today”

  • Craig Stasila: 8:08 am on October 13, 2009

    Ray thinks genes are software written in COBOL.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:08 am on October 13, 2009

    Oh Ray! Retalling the story of how Viagra was developed and discovered. Got a few chuckles from the crowd.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:06 am on October 13, 2009

    Ladies & Gentlemen, Ray Kurzweil

  • Craig Stasila: 8:06 am on October 13, 2009

    Vishal is done. Last parting shot: “Timeless Software”

  • Craig Stasila: 8:05 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Vishal’s only slide.  All the rest were just pretty pictures.  Notice the public clouds in the lower right.  SAP is looking to be able to be run on public clouds in the future.  Currently there are development and test systems on public clouds.  Getting production systems on public clouds is coming.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:03 am on October 13, 2009

    

  • Craig Stasila: 8:03 am on October 13, 2009

    “Change is the fundamental dimension in which we all live”

  • Craig Stasila: 8:02 am on October 13, 2009

    Cestbon “listens” for business content on your computer and links to it. You can hop straight from Cestbon to the data in SAP.

  • Craig Stasila: 8:01 am on October 13, 2009

    The presenter is British and doesn’t like the frenchies. Demoing Cestbon–An Outlook integration example.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:59 am on October 13, 2009

    Example #4: Ambient, Real-Time Systems

  • Craig Stasila: 7:59 am on October 13, 2009

    Six blade servers = 1 Nehalem processor.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:58 am on October 13, 2009

    Vishal is talking about optimization across all layers. This relates to hardware manufacturers (memory, processors, blade servers). Modularity is making optimization happen.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:57 am on October 13, 2009

    All the demos were very cool. As a geek, I would love to check out the technology involved in each one.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:57 am on October 13, 2009

    Excel integration now being demoed. The 166 million records can’t be loaded to Excel (for memory reasons). The solution allows the end-user to drill down and get the data from SAP as needed.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:55 am on October 13, 2009

    Business Objects Explorer being demoed. Crunching through 166 million records. The example is trying to be green by reducing paper and electricity.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:55 am on October 13, 2009

    

  • Craig Stasila: 7:53 am on October 13, 2009

    A Dilbert Example! Wow, the pop-culture touchpoints never end!

  • Craig Stasila: 7:52 am on October 13, 2009

    Example #3: Coherent Visualization of Massive Information. Looking at Coherent Modularization.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:50 am on October 13, 2009

    Containers need not only modularity, but also locality of design.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:49 am on October 13, 2009

    Now talking about SOA and its growth. Using it as a basis of modularity and coherence.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:49 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Too many tools on the stage… (ahem)

  • Craig Stasila: 7:47 am on October 13, 2009

    

  • Craig Stasila: 7:46 am on October 13, 2009

    Live tracking of tools being checked in and out of the tool crib.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:45 am on October 13, 2009

    Aircraft mechanics were using SAP, but equipment check-in check-out took too long via SAP GUI.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:43 am on October 13, 2009

    Example #2: Extending Information into Physical Systems. SAP runs on aircraft carriers. I hope they bring one in…

  • Craig Stasila: 7:42 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Google Wave and SAP!  So happy together.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:42 am on October 13, 2009

    Cutting edge technology BCE edition: Rosetta stone. Using the analogy to show that we need to be able to work with others

  • Craig Stasila: 7:38 am on October 13, 2009

    They’re pulling out all the stops!!! Google Wave! Google Wave isn’t complying with the demo. “Thank god that’s Google software and not SAP!” Big crowd laughs.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:37 am on October 13, 2009

    The example is now showing our good-ole familiar SAP GUI showing the timesheet approval process for the contractor timesheet application

  • Craig Stasila: 7:36 am on October 13, 2009

    Containers need to be extended. Either to SAP applications or to other Web 2.0 applications.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:35 am on October 13, 2009

    Another ooh-ahh moment! iPhone timesheet app.

• Craig Stasila: 7:34 am on October 13, 2009

  

  Content separated from applicatons

• Craig Stasila: 7:34 am on October 13, 2009

  Oh Snap!!! Cloud computing!! The example is running through a container. The backend is on Amazon S3

• Craig Stasila: 7:32 am on October 13, 2009

  Example uses managers, contractors, and purchasing department.

• Craig Stasila: 7:32 am on October 13, 2009

  Examples of design thinking, and separation of intent and optimization.

• Craig Stasila: 7:31 am on October 13, 2009

  An example of intent being separated from optimization: A painter does not need a scaffolding to paint a building, the scaffolding optimizes the process.

• Craig Stasila: 7:29 am on October 13, 2009

  

• Craig Stasila: 7:29 am on October 13, 2009

  Next, the intent needs to be separated from the optimization.

• Craig Stasila: 7:28 am on October 13, 2009

  Techies need to start with “design thinking”. Start with end-user in mind. “Start from the screen and work backwords”

• Craig Stasila: 7:27 am on October 13, 2009

  

• Craig Stasila: 7:25 am on October 13, 2009

  Content is independent of containers in long-lived systems

• Craig Stasila: 7:24 am on October 13, 2009

  Looking back at the IT industry, a new, major language emerges about every ten years. While Java will be around for a long time, we’re due for a new major language. SAP thinks that Ruby is the future. Ruby reached 1 million developers faster than any other programming language in history.

• Craig Stasila: 7:22 am on October 13, 2009

  Vishal is teasing Ray Kurzweil’s speach on how the rate of change is increasing. Moore’s law gets a shout out.

• Craig Stasila: 7:22 am on October 13, 2009

  There are hundreds of SAP customers that have been using the software for over 30 years. None have left SAP. Vishal is highlighting the change that the companies underwent and how SAP changed with their customers.

• Craig Stasila: 7:20 am on October 13, 2009

  SAP has been around for 37 years. Have worked with over 85,000 customers, tens of thousands of partners, and tens of millions of users.

• Craig Stasila: 7:19 am on October 13, 2009

  Vishal isn’t going to be focusing on the technology. He’ll be focusing on… “change”. Do you sense a theme?

• Craig Stasila: 7:18 am on October 13, 2009

  Dr. Vishal Sikka, CTO SAP is now on the stage. He is the first of two keynote speakers.

• Craig Stasila: 7:18 am on October 13, 2009

  

  “Welcome to TechEd 2009. You are the star of the show”

• Craig Stasila: 7:16 am on October 13, 2009

  Zia is really pumping up “the community”. The SAP user community is almost 2 million strong now.

• Craig Stasila: 7:16 am on October 13, 2009

  “After the PowerPoints, it’s time for action” SAP wants the BPEs to make it happen! I already feel pumped. Let’s go out there an do this!!!! Oh wait, the Keynote hasn’t even started yet.

• Craig Stasila: 7:14 am on October 13, 2009

  

  • To enter a new market, business process have to change. SAP’s emphasis on Business Process Expert community will pay dividends.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:12 am on October 13, 2009

    Zia is giving an example using Dunder Mifflin as a “well-run company”. Perhaps he hasn’t seen The Office…

  • Craig Stasila: 7:11 am on October 13, 2009

    Zia is telling the conference attendees that we are the agents of change–A very person-centric focus.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:11 am on October 13, 2009

    

  • Craig Stasila: 7:10 am on October 13, 2009

    The world is changing. SAP is changing.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:09 am on October 13, 2009

    Change is constant. Michael Jackson gets a shout-out!

  • Craig Stasila: 7:09 am on October 13, 2009

    On the stage now: Zia Yusuf, Executive Vice President, Global Ecosystem & Partner Group, SAP

  • Craig Stasila: 7:08 am on October 13, 2009

    Inspirational Video: “Clarity is a necessity”.

    and

    SAP: “It’s time for a clear new world”

  • Craig Stasila: 7:06 am on October 13, 2009

    And away we go. Lights down. Check. Ominous Music. Check. Inspiring Opening Video. Check. Can you feel the excitement?

  • Craig Stasila: 7:05 am on October 13, 2009

    

    The crowd is filling in nicely.  Sorry guy-behind-me for accidentally flashing the camera in your face TWICE before I snapped one without the flash.

  • Craig Stasila: 7:03 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Uploaded from backup backup plan.  This is from my iPhone.  Doug, Adam, Tim say “hi”

  • Craig Stasila: 7:00 am on October 13, 2009

    Cell phones off, y’all!

  • Craig Stasila: 6:59 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Pictures will be slow, but here is a teaser

  • Craig Stasila: 6:57 am on October 13, 2009

    Five minutes to go. With me are Tim Cooper, Doug Foss, and our good friend Adam Blum from Grom & Associates

  • Craig Stasila: 6:55 am on October 13, 2009

    

    Here we go!

  • Craig Stasila: 6:49 am on October 13, 2009

    We had an awesome setup to capture pictures from the event, but it relied on the conference WiFi. We’re working on a backup solution now.

  • Craig Stasila: 6:48 am on October 13, 2009

    The conference public WiFi isn’t working. I have to be working on backup off of my Verizon Aircard, so posts may be a little slower.

  • Craig Stasila: 6:47 am on October 13, 2009

    First take from the keynote address. The welcoming music is horrible, but we’ll survive

  • Craig Stasila: 6:45 am on October 13, 2009

    Welcome to the DataXstream Liveblog of the SAP TechEd 09 Conference Keynote address

Head over to live.dataxstream.com on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 to get up to second updates from the show.  We will be getting our liveblog on starting at 8am PDT (that’s 11am for you right-coasters) for the general keynote session.  We’ll also be liveblogging from SAP TechEd 09 Demo Jam at 8pm PDT on Tuesday.  The Demo Jam promises to be a great time, so plan to join us online after you put the kiddies to bed!

This is our first foray into liveblogging.  Hopefully it will go off without too many technical glitches.  We hope you’ll enjoy following the events with us!

In their SAP environment they produce a single DESADV IDoc per order/purchase order.  This could amount to several hundred DESADV IDocs being generated.  The initial development was a 1 to 1 translation in that each DESADV IDoc that was produced would be translated into a single EDI-856 document.

Because of a single data error, due to department procedures not being followed in the warehouse in the closing of orders, the bad data element resulted and was repeated throughout all of the DESADV IDocs that were generated.  Translation of the IDocs was successful because this error was not conceived at the point of map development.  The hundreds of translated documents were sent to the trading partner and subsequently resulted in failed documents.

Because the trading partner generated a charge back for each document sent, my client was billed thousands of dollars in charge back fines.  This simple example shows how a single error repeated in each document can turn out to be a very costly problem.

I hope to show you in the next few postings how to bundle the IDocs together to:

• Bundle and reduce the number of IDocs being translated
• Reduce the number of EDI documents being sent to the trading partner
• Minimize the charge back cost, should and error occur