Glossary

Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP)

Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP) is a programming language developed by SAP for application development purposes.

Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI)

Standardized programming interface that enables external applications to access the business processes and data of the R/3 System. Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs) are defined in the Business Object Repository (BOR) as methods applied to SAP business objects, in order to perform specific business tasks.

Business Object

Represents a central business object in the real world. R/3 business objects describe complete business processes. This type of encapsulation reduces complexity because the inner structure of the business object remains concealed. By invoking methods known as BAPIs (Business APIs), external applications can access and manipulate the business objects via the Internet, DCOM or CORBA.

BAPI Browser

BAPI-oriented view of the Business Object Repository (BOR). The BAPI Browser displays all the business objects, for which BAPIs have been implemented.

IDoc

A specific instance of an IDoc type.

IDoc type

The IDoc type indicates the SAP format that is to be used to transfer the data for a business transaction. An IDoc is a real business process in the form of an IDoc type. An IDoc type is described using the following components:

·a control record is the format of the control record which is identical for all IDoc types.

·one or more data records is a data record consists of a fixed administration part and a data part (segment). The number and format of the segments can be different for each IDoc type.

·status records is the status record describing the processing stages which an IDoc can pass through, and have an identical format for each IDoc type.

Example: Purchase order no.4711 was sent to a vendor as IDoc no.0815. IDoc no.0815 is formatted in IDoc type ORDERS01 and has the status records "created" and "sent".

IDoc interface

Definition of IDoc types and data interchange methods (port definition) between SAP systems and partner systems. Partner systems can be:

• EDI subsystem

• other R/3 System

• other R/2 System

• third-party software