Lesson 3 of 6
Inbound order confirmations (855 / ORDRSP)
8 min
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An order confirmation tells Contoso whether Lakeside will deliver what was ordered, when, and at what price. If confirmations update the purchase order automatically, buyers stop chasing suppliers by email and MRP plans with the supplier's real dates. That only works if the purchase order item is set up to receive them.
Confirmation control: the prerequisite
SAP records confirmed quantities and dates only if the PO item carries a confirmation control key. Without a key, and with no confirmation expected, an incoming order acknowledgment is informative only: SAP records the acknowledgment number and nothing else. If the IDoc carries a confirmation the item's key does not provide for (no key at all, or a key without that confirmation category), inbound processing stops with status 51. Keys are defined in Customizing for Purchasing under Confirmations, Set Up Confirmation Control, and each key lists the confirmation categories it expects in sequence.
At Contoso, rotors CMC-RTR-200 from Lakeside use key 0001, defaulted from the purchasing info record. Before go-live, a data check found 40 open POs created in ECC without a key; Lesson 2 of sap-edi-208 shows what happened to the first ORDRSP for one of them.
The inbound ORDRSP
Process Orchestration maps Lakeside's 855 to an inbound IDoc of message type ORDRSP with basic type ORDERS05. The inbound partner profile for LI 17300001, message type ORDRSP, uses process code ORDR, which calls function module IDOC_INPUT_ORDRSP (check the assignment in WE42). The IDoc carries Contoso's PO number in the header reference segment, the PO item in the item reference segment, and the confirmed quantities and dates in schedule line segments.
When the IDoc posts, SAP writes a confirmation line of category AB on the PO item with the confirmed quantity and date and the supplier's acknowledgment number. In the item's confirmation overview, the creation indicator shows 3, meaning the confirmation arrived by EDI.
The checks SAP runs
| Check | Compares | Configured in |
|---|---|---|
| Quantity | Total confirmed quantity against ordered quantity | Over- and underdelivery tolerances on the PO item |
| Date | Confirmed dates against PO schedule line dates, line by line | Tolerances on the confirmation control key; the system message for date variances decides warning or error |
| Price | Confirmed price against PO price (only if Price is selected) | Price indicator and tolerances in the confirmation sequence |
| Supplier material | Supplier material number in the IDoc against the PO | Optional adoption setting in the confirmation sequence |
Checks on inbound order acknowledgments received by EDI.
If a check fails or the PO item is locked by a buyer at that moment, the IDoc ends in status 51 and SAP Business Workflow can send a work item to the responsible person, who branches from the work item into the IDoc, reads the long text, fixes the PO and restarts processing. Enhancement MM06E001 lets developers adapt the quantity and price tolerance logic and supplier material adoption if the standard rules do not fit.
Partial confirmations: the rule that surprises everyone
An order acknowledgment always relates to a whole PO item, not to one schedule line. When a new acknowledgment arrives by EDI, SAP replaces all previous acknowledgments for that item, whether they were entered manually or by EDI. So if Lakeside first confirms 300 of 500 rotors for October 20 and later sends a second 855 confirming only the remaining 200 for October 27, the PO shows 200 confirmed, not 500. Every new 855 must restate the full picture for the item. Put that rule in Lakeside's mapping specification and test it explicitly.
Who sees the errors
The inbound partner profile names a permitted agent for post-processing: the user, position or organizational unit that receives the work item when an ORDRSP fails. At Contoso that is the purchasing group 001 buyers for Lakeside, not the integration team, because nearly every ORDRSP error is a purchasing question: a missing key, a locked PO, a date outside tolerance. Theo's team is the agent for technical errors such as 56 and 60, which the same partner profile cannot distinguish, so they also watch BD87 daily during hypercare.
- Quantities and dates are recorded only when the PO item has a confirmation control key, such as standard key 0001.
- Inbound ORDRSP uses process code ORDR (IDOC_INPUT_ORDRSP) and writes AB confirmation lines with creation indicator 3.
- SAP checks quantity against PO tolerances, dates against key tolerances, and price only if the Price indicator is set.
- A new EDI acknowledgment replaces all earlier ones for the item, so suppliers must send the complete picture each time.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. What must exist on the PO item for an EDI order acknowledgment to record quantities and dates?
2. Lakeside sends a second 855 confirming only 200 remaining rotors. What will the PO item show?
3. Which inbound process code usually handles ORDRSP for purchase orders?
4. When does SAP check the confirmed price on an EDI acknowledgment?