EDI knowledge base & standards > IDOC

About IDOC

IDoc or Intermediate Document is a standard data structure for electronic data interchange (EDI) between SAP application programs or between a SAP application and an external program. IDocs serve as the vehicle for data transfer in SAP's Application Link Enabling (ALE) system and are used for asynchronous transactions: each IDoc generated exists as a self-contained text file that can then be transmitted to the requesting workstation without connecting to the central database.

Documents

IDocs have two levels, the technical level and the business level. IDoc documentation can be extracted from SAP by executing the WE60 transaction.

Example of IDOC structure

BEGIN_RECORD_SECTION
BEGIN_CONTROL_RECORD
BEGIN_FIELDS
NAME	TABNAM
TEXT	Name of table structure
TYPE	CHARACTER
LENGTH	000010
FIELD_POS	0001
CHARACTER_FIRST	000001
CHARACTER_LAST	000010
.
.
.
END_FIELDS
END_CONTROL_RECORD
BEGIN_DATA_RECORD
BEGIN_FIELDS
NAME	SEGNAM
TEXT	Segment (external name)
TYPE	CHARACTER
LENGTH	000030
FIELD_POS	0001
CHARACTER_FIRST	000001
CHARACTER_LAST	000030
.
.
.
END_FIELDS
END_DATA_RECORD
BEGIN_STATUS_RECORD
BEGIN_FIELDS
NAME	TABNAM
TEXT	Name of table structure
TYPE	CHARACTER
LENGTH	000010
FIELD_POS	0001
CHARACTER_FIRST	000001
CHARACTER_LAST	000010
.
.
.
END_FIELDS
END_STATUS_RECORD
END_RECORD_SECTION
BEGIN_SEGMENT_SECTION
BEGIN_IDOC	ORDERS03
BEGIN_SEGMENT	E2EDK01005
SEGMENTTYPE	E1EDK01
LEVEL	01
STATUS	MANDATORY
LOOPMIN	0000000001
LOOPMAX	0000000001
BEGIN_FIELDS
NAME	ACTION
TEXT	Action code for the whole EDI message
TYPE	CHARACTER
LENGTH	000003
FIELD_POS	0001
CHARACTER_FIRST	000064
CHARACTER_LAST	000066
NAME	KZABS
TEXT	Flag: order acknowledgment required
TYPE	CHARACTER
LENGTH	000001
FIELD_POS	0002
CHARACTER_FIRST	000067
CHARACTER_LAST	000067
.
.
.
END_FIELDS
END_SEGMENT
END_IDOC
END_SEGMENT_SECTION

IDoc Transactions

The table bellow contains some of the IDOC transactions and their EDIFACT and X12 equivalent messages.