How to find-out an IDOC number when we know a specific value(Purchase order) to search.

Issue statement: When we have a very high volume of IDOCs in the system, it is difficult to find a specific IDOC number for the key value. i.e purchase order, clearing document, sales order, or any key data for which IDOC is created. This can be an inbound or outbound IDOC number.

Please follow the below steps to identify an IDOC number without spending a lot of time in analysis. I am taking an example of IDOC for the purchase order creation scenario and in the SAP S4 HANA system.

Step 1: Find a key value for which you want to find an IDOC number. In my example, I am searching for an IDOC number for the purchase order created as I know my specific purchase order number, which means when a purchase order is created an IDOC will be generated. DOC requirement depends on the business case and I am not going into the business case for this POC.

As per the below list of IDOCs, I want to find a specific IDOC number for the purchase order #4500000138 from the message type ORDERS.

As per the below screen, I have a total of 378 outbound, 37 IDOCs for the Message type ORDERS and I want to search the IDOC number created when my purchase order #4500000138 created and IDOC is generated.

Step 2: Look for the exact segment where a purchase order is in the IDOC. As per my example, the purchase order BELNR filed exist in the segment E1EDK02.

Step 3: Now search the purchase order from the list of all IDOC number. So we can search in two ways

Step 3.A.1. You know this IDOC is outbound, so keep the cursor on the ‘Outbound IDocs’ and click on the ‘List specific segment’ button and you will see a popup window. In this window, please give the segment i.e. E1EDK02′ and click on continue

Step 3.A.2: Once you give the segment details and click on continue, the system will populate all the values content of this segment. means the system will show you all IDOCs content where you have a purchase order in the value E1EDK02-BELNR.

Click on the search button above the list, and enter the purchase order. Don’t forget to select the ‘Display Number of Hits’ option in the search window and click on the enter button from this window or click on the enter key button from the keyboard.

As per the below screen, we can see two items found from 378 IDOCs from the outbound IDocs list.

But we don’t know which IDOC is for my purchase order when I created a purchase order. So we have to double click on each entry appears here to identify the exact IDOC number.

IDOC 2001 is for the ‘Message Type’ ORDERS, i.e. this IDOC is created when I created a Purchase order, and this what I am looking for.

IDOC 2002 is for the ‘Message Type’ ORDCHG, i.e. this IDOC is created when I changed a Purchase order.

Step 3.B.1: The second and best option is to search per the message type.

Follow the same procedure as explained above, select the message type ‘ORDERS’ and click on the ‘List specific segment’ button and you will see a popup window. In this window, please give the segment i.e. E1EDK02′ and click on continue.

Step 3.B.2: Now search the purchase order and don’t forget to select the option Display Number of Hits. Here we can see only one entry found.

Double click on the entry we find here and it will open the IDOC number. You can verify the entry in the segment and the message type.

By this 2nd method(B), we can limit the IDOC entries and the result will be accurate and time will be saved as very few chances to get duplicate. There could be cases, you will see more than 1 item as per the message type search but you can still limit the entries with this option.