Detailed SAP Interface design Fundamental Document.

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Detailed Interface design Document

In real-time business scenario a company can have a centralized system where all
related information can be maintain (like financial data, HR Master data etc.) There is
always a need to communicate with the third party vendors or with legacy systems
to supply information from the centralized information system .Need could be to
provide employee detail to the third party vendor (lets say CIGNA)so that ,they can
run the benefit function on behalf of company. Or employee data needs to be passed
on to legacy system to run the payroll. Similarly partial hiring process could be
handling by third party vendor and then data can feed over to SAP.

This document talks about such scenarios where SAP is the Centralized information
system. One of the ways to establishes a communication from SAP to Legacy/Vendor
system or from Legacy/Vendor systems to SAP could be by designing an interface
between the two systems.

Types:-

Interface can be of categories in 2 types depending upon the direction of data flow.

Inbound – If SAP is the receiver system with respect to the Legacy systems/Vendor
system then this would be an inbound interface.

Outbound – When SAP is the sender system i.e. data is going from SAP to legacy
system /Vendor system then this would be an outbound interface.

Use of Middleware: - Interface can be designed to directly send data to third party
or by using a middleware like XI, depending upon the business requirement. For
example if employee data to be send on regular basis to different banks for
processing employee salary and information format differ for each bank while data
remains the same. Here XI, as a middleware suffices the purpose by formatting data
in required format as per different third party systems. While if business need is to
just send lets say education data to Data Mart then it can directly be send to Data
Mart without using middleware .So it depends upon the context. There are number of
middleware available in the market for that matter.

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Exchange of information : - Sending generated file from SAP to Third party

(Outbound) system or taking data from third part to SAP system (Inbound) is
facilitated via exchange protocol /standard like EDI (Electronic data interchange) OR
MQ FTE. It completes the communication channel.

These exchanges take file/s from SAP and put it into the third party server
(Outbound) OR take file from the third party server and place it to SAP Application
server (Inbound) and that how the process gets automated.

Points to remember while designing the Interface: - While designing an

interface below points should be considered.

1. Do we have to send full file (entire population data) or change file or both?
2. If change file required- comparison needed between current data and prior
run data. Do we want to do previous file vs. current file comparison or should
we add previous entries to custom table?
3. What should be the naming convention of files (Full /change files)?
4. What should be the file format (Fixed or Variable file format)?
5. Any header requires preceding the file or following the file?
6. What should be the file length i.e. how many characters?
7. What should be the naming convention of generated file?
8. Is there data and time stamp needed with the file name?
9. What should be the file type i.e. whether it would be txt file, excel file or CSV
file etc.?
10. Should it go to EDI?
11. If yes, do we need to have option of check box to decide when to send and
not to send it to EDI?
12. Whether the total file length included header character or not?
13. What would be the selection criteria (i.e. for active/inactive pernr or Molga
etc)?
14. Whether it would require fetching latest record or require multiple record
handling?
15. What should be the corresponding field mapping to SAP?
16. Do we require mechanism to handle special characters in data?
17. What should be the run date –system date or record Changed date?
18. Do we need to have date range option in the selection screen?

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19. What would be the frequency of sending file?

20. Whether file should be placed directly to the application server or will it be
routed through any middleware (like XI)?
21. What would be the error handling mechanism?
22. Will there be any error report (Like writing in the spool how many records
sent) required for?
23. If yes what would be the format and what are the different fields require to
display?
24. Do we have to have specific information in the output?
25. Do we need count of records sent in file/s (Full/change), run date, file name,
file path in the output?
26. What would be the directory name and directory path?
27. Will it be the existing directory/folder or do we need a separate
directory/folder?
28. If separate directory/folder needed then channelized basis with appropriate
process to have directory/folder created.
29. Whether archiving of file required?
30. Do we require to have date/time stamping in the archived file?
31. If yes whether it would require "replacing" the existing file or "copying" the
existing file?
32. If we are generating spool, do we want to send that spool to the business
users via email as soon as interface run completes?

Testing:-

Developing an interface is a tedious job (depending upon the complexity which

further depends upon the number fields you are fetching/updating and the
complexity of logic behind).Similarly testing could be equally tedious. Below are
couple of points (but not limited to) which could help doing end to end testing of
an interface):-

Common Aspect of Outbound and Inbound

1. Does the selection screen appear as expected?
2. Does the output screen appear as expected?

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3. Do the file names appear correctly?

If Outbound:-
4. Do the generated files contain the expected fields?
5. Do the generated files fetching the appropriate data from different
infotypes/tables?
6. Does all headers appearing in correct text/name, in correct sequence.
7. Does data under every header column appearing correcting?
8. Dose the generated file contains required no of characters?
9. Dose every field is of desired length?
10. Check if file is going into right directory?
11. Check for the file format.
12. If archiving the file then check is it getting "replaced "or "copied "(as per
the requirement)?.
13. Do the file is going to EDI/MQ FTE server when option to send them
selected?
14. Is the third party vendor receiving the file?

If it inbounds:-

15. Does the program run successful reading the file?

16. Does the data getting updated properly in respective tables/infotypes in
SAP after interface run?
17. If the file is getting archived successfully (if we have archiving
functionality).
18. Does file/s getting archived with date/time stamp?
19. If archiving the file then check is it getting "replaced "or "copied "(as per
the requirement)?.

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