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.