SAP for Retail Community Page - SAP Retail POS Interface

Business Process Overview

In this activity you determine how your POS systems are integrated with the SAP system. You can configure how data that is sent from the ERP system to the POS systems is prepared, and how the data that is sent by the POS systems to the ERP system is processed in the ERP system.

Communication with the POS systems is achieved using an SAP EDI interface and intermediate documents. In this activity you therefore cannot configure the technical parameters for communication with the POS systems. For the technical settings use the IMG of the EDI interface.

Have you seen the SAP for Retail Business Process Expert wiki homepage on SCN? It is the central entry point to an elaborate knowledge repository for SAP for Retail. It contains a wealthy resource of information provided by business experts at SAP and contributions from community members, such as this page.

SAP IS Retail has an open interface for connecting POS systems. Since a POS system interface may not be defined in the same way as the SAP IS Retail interface, SAP IS Retail communicates with the POS systems in the stores using one or more converters. There would be a constant flow of information from SAP to POS and vice versa to ensure that the data is synchronized.

In 123 retail we are using SAP XI as a middleware that convert IDOC to POS readable file format and POS file format to IDOC. In SAP IS retail side we generate outbound IDOC and then sent this IDOC to SAP Xi system. SAP Xi system convert this IDOC to text file and sent this text file to POS system. When we transfer data from SAP IS retail system to POS system or vise versa then POS system must be link SAP Retail in one of two ways. By certified convert /communication interface or via you own converter interface using EDI and SAP intermediate documents (IDOC*)*

So we can use third party POS software then we integrate that POS system to SAP IS retail system after successful integration POS system and SAP IS retail system share master data ( like Article master) and transaction data (aggregate sale ). SAP Outbound (Data is send in this structure from SAP to the legacy system via middleware). SAP Inbound (Data is received from the legacy system to SAP via middleware).

SAP Outbound IDOC	SAP Inbound IDOC
Article Master	Aggregated sales data
Merchandise category	Inventory count data
Promotion data	Status confirmations
Sales set	Sales per Recepit
Assortment data	Goods movemetnt
Tax related data
Goods receipt in the stores
Price data
Goods return from Stores to Vendor
Goods return from Stores to warehouse
Goods issue - Stock transfer from store to store

Middleware

Should have the functionality of mapping the SAP standard IDOC / extended IDOC structure into the POS compatible format(eg. .txt, .xml etc). Should have the functionality of mapping the POS file format into SAP standard IDOC.

After reading the file(converted from SAP IDOC) from the middleware, POS should send the return acknowledgement that further should be converted into IDOC at the middleware and send the status back to SAP system as an inbound IDOC. Simultaneously the read file should be deleted from the middleware thus ensuring the data size should not increase in the middleware.

POS Outbound

In this activity you define when and how which data is to be prepared for transfer to the POS systems.

IDOC  TYPE	Description	TCODE for Outbound
WP_PLU02	Article Master	WPMA
WP_EAN01	EAN /UPC Reference	WPMA
WPDWGR01	Merchandise Category	WPMA
WPDTAX01	Tax Rate	WPMA
WBBDLD02	Assortment list	WPMA
CREMAS05	Vendor Master	BD14
DEBMAS06	Customer Master	BD12

POS Inbound

In this step you define how data sent by the POS systems is to be processed in SAP system inbound  IDOC processing we can do with the help of RBDAPP01 program either RWPOS_PARA_ENQUEUE  program

POS Interface Monitor

The POS interface monitor provides functions for monitoring POS interface - outbound and POS interface - inbound processing. The system can search for an administrator who is responsible for clarifying every error and item. Workflow technology is then used to trigger automatic subsequent processing so problems can be solved quickly

Helpful Tcode for interface monitoring

TCODE	Description
BD87	Reprocess IDOC
WPER	POS monitor interface
WE05	IDOC monitoring

Useful Links

• Presentation
• SAP Help Portal Documentation