Addressbook as the name suggests stores the address of the partners. This is applicable to protocols such as X400 and AS1.
The mailbox addresses for X400 and other related protocols could be so long that it could not be accommodated in the Identifier field in Party configuration of PI. This is because the limitation with the length of Identifier field is 60 characters. In order to map the original Mailbox name with an alias which could be used in PI, Addressbook option is used. In the example below, Test_Party would be the name of the alias for the mailbox address.
Note here that Agency name "ITU" and Scheme name "X.400" are X400 adapter specific requirement
When you open the Addressbooks from Seeburger Workbench and select your specific Protocol, you will find the following entries:
The Status should be Active for those entries which are in use. If the adapter polls from a mailbox of an unknown partner, a new entry is created in the Addressbook but it remains in Inactive state.
Primary ID here would be the actual Mailbox ID and Secondary ID would be the Name provided in the Alternative Identifier of Party.
Above you can just an example of Primary ID. Meaning of this specific ID would be
S=pid/O=cg/OU1=101/A=x400/C=in
S is the Surname which is pid.
O is the Organization Name which is cg.
OU1 is the Organizational Unit which is dummy 101 here.
A is Administration Management Domain Name which is x400 here.
C is Country which is in.
The above configuration could be seen in Adressbooks as follows
The specifications of the Primary ID could be found here.
http://www.itu.int/itudoc/teltopic/x400/20656.txt
This Addressbook option therefore turns out to be a handy tool in defeating field length problem for Party Identifiers in SAP PI.
