A Distribution Scenario Based On IDocs

Last edited: 1999-08-27 00:00 +0200

ALE has become very famous in business circles. While it sounds mysterious and like a genial solution, it is simply a mean to automate data exchange between SAP systems. It is mainly meant to dirstribute data from one SAP system to the next. ALE is a mere enhancement of SAP-EDI and SAP-RFC technology.
ALE is an SAP designed concept to automatically distribute and replicate data between webbed and mutually trusting systems
 Imagine your company has several sister companies in different countries. Each company uses its own local SAP installation. When one company creates master data eg. material or customer master it is much likely that these data should be known to all associates. ALE allows to immediately trigger an IDoc sent to all associates as soon as the master record is created in one system.
Another common scenario is, that a company uses different installations for company accounting and production and sales. In that case ALE allows you to copy the invoices created in SD immediately to the accounting installation.
ALE defines the logic and the triggering events who describe how and when IDocs are exchanged between the systems
 ALE defines a set of database entries, which are called the ALE scenario. These tables contain the information which IDocs shall be automatically replicated to one or more connected R/3-compatible data systems.
ALE is an application put upon the IDoc and RFC mechanisms of SAP
 To be clear: ALE is not a new technology. It is only a handful of customizing settings and background routines that allow timed and triggered distribution of data to and from SAP or RFC-compliant systems. ALE is thus a mere enhancement of SAP-EDI and SAP-RFC technology.