"Remember to configure ONLY what is signed off by the
business in the confirm business requirements stage."
The following steps need to be noted when configuring your ALE solution:
- Confirm business requirements
- Before commencing configuration ensure that you have the detail of the business
requirements for the whole scope of the implementation.
- Configure the ALE basis portion to
enable ALE in the development environment. This involves the following steps:
 | Create Logical System (LS) for each applicable ALE-enabled client; |
| Link client to Logical System on the respective servers; |
| Create background user, to be used by ALE, on each client (with
sufficient rights to do the various ALE postings); |
| Create RFC destination for each destination client; and |
| Generate partner profiles for sending system. (Can only do this if at
least 1 message type exists against the sending system's LS). This automatically generates
the port if the LS and RFC name are the same. |
- Following the basis configuration is the functional
configuration:
| Create a Customer Distribution Model (CDM); |
| Add appropriate message types and filters to the CDM; |
| Generate outbound partner profiles; |
| Distribute the CDM to the receiving systems; and |
| Generate inbound partner profiles on each of the clients. |
Keep your ALE configuration diagram up to date and follow change management
procedures rigorously, as you begin to configure. Areas you need to
document well include the finer details involved with an ALE implementation:
| Listings / classes; |
| Object types / Workflow tasks; |
| Conversion rules; |
| Filters & Segment filters; |
| Change pointers / Fields activating change pointers; |
| Serialization; |
| Partner profiles: Immediate Vs Background; |
| Background job definition and scheduling; |
| Control data required to be in synch; and |
| ... |
- QA & testing: Demonstrate /
workshop this solution with the business. Document and draw up functional specifications
(done by the business) of any extensions to existing scenarios or additional scenarios
required.
- Sign-off each client configuration with
the business owners.
Additional considerations
Never do client copies. If necessary,
remember to redo the configuration pertaining to logical systems as these will be out of
synch. Also remember to archive irrelevant IDocs, remove useless change pointers and
useless customer distribution models.
Deliverables during this stage
| ALE Configuration Procedure - Details how to perform the
configuration. |
| ALE Detailed Configuration Guide - Details what the actual
values are for each of the ALE-configurable areas are for your particular solution. |
| ALE Basis Configuration Procedure - Details how to perform the basis
configuration for ALE. Used by the Basis team. |
| ALE Workflow Configuration Procedure - Details how to configure the
workflow error message handling for ALE. |
| 