ALE-Monitoring with WLF_IDOC

What is WLF_IDOC?

SAP has released a new transaction for monitoring IDOCs with EhP5 SP10 and EhP6 SP07 (SAP_APPL application component).

It’s a nice transaction which is very interesting for people who have to deal with IDOCs in production environments. It combines the functions of BD87, WE02 and WE05 in a more modern UI than you know it from the older transactions:

• overview
• IDOC detail view 
• change status directly without using program RC1_IDOC_SET_STATUS
• compare different IDOCs with each other
• copy IDOCs (and remove segments)
• send IDOC to another system using RFC (not tried yet due to missing authorizations)
• change IDOC header of faulty messages

This screenshot should give a small impression (the toolbar icons realize the above mentioned functionality):

If you are used to BD87 or WE02 then you can easily use WLF_IDOC.

How do I get it?

If you’re interested in how to make it easier for your users to handle ALE-monitoring have a look at SAP note 1724644 “IDOC Monitor”. You cannot import the new monitoring tool by using SNOTE – you have to upgrade your support package level.

First impressions?

Up till now I haven’t used every feature but the comparism of IDOCs is sometimes very useful. And in development systems I think that the possibility to call “WE19 – IDOC test transaction” saves the copy & paste you might have needed before.

What’s missing?

Due to some minor issues (like short dumps) I have not seen all functionality provided by the tool yet. But on a first look I couldn’t find a function to display IDOCs as XML (like in an IS-U specific transaction called EDATEXMON01, there you can display all IDOCs as XML) which makes it easier to find values (Strg + F) and get an comprehensive view on the IDOC.

What about authorizations?

Unfortunately I had to learn that the authorization checks aren’t implemented stringently. Any user who is allowed to execute this transaction is enabled to change the IDOC status as well. There’s no separate authority check (please SAP, please implement auth.checks for this feature – not every user who is allowed to display IDOCs is allowed to change their status, too!). As far as I know today the only way to prevent users to change the IDOC status is to set this transaction on the black-list (some users may have ‘*’ in S_TCODE authorization object).

Related SAP notes

• If you receive a short dump when leaving the detail view of an IDOC then you have to implement the SAP note 1893363.
• If you receive the message  “Idoc Monitor: Fehler EA 257, segment in release unknown” have a look at SAP note 910051

As soon there are new technical expertise findings I will update this blog.