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hi friends

Former Member
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can u tell me what is difference b/w conversions and interface

6 REPLIES 6

Former Member
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Hi,

interface acts as a mediator between two applications

conversions : converting one format to other application readable format

ex : converting data format from sap to xml and vice-versa

Regards,

V.Balaji

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thx for ur ans................

can u give me in details

Former Member
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Hi,

Conversions - This type of transfer refers to a one-time transfer from a legacy system to the SAP system. In this case, the “legacy” system is the old system that is being replaced by the SAP system.

For example, the old system being replaced has data for 2,000 vendors that must be transferred to the SAP system.

Interfaces - This type of transfer refers to an ongoing transfer from a complimentary system to the SAP system. In this case, the “complimentary” system is a system that will run along side the SAP system.

For example, customer orders may be taken in another system. For the SAP system to reflect accurate information, these orders must be transferred to the SAP system every night.

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Regards

Palak Behal

Former Member

Former Member
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hi,

As the name says.. an Interface is a service or application that communicates between 2 different applications.

the only difference b/w conversion and interface is that Conversions are run once and interfaces are some thing that are run more than once.

Also technically speaking Interfaces can communicate both ways.. as in.. In and Out.. while conversions are only one sided...

e.g. Data comes from System A to B .. this is conversion (only once)

Data coming and going from A and B.. this is interface (more than once)

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pnakaj

Former Member
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Hi

Conversion: Whenever there is need of loading legacy data(huge data at a time) into current SAP system, we call it conversion. Baically it is one time effort. Once all the data has been loaded(during go-live) we dont need them anymore.

Interface: These are used everyday. for eg. a company receives invoices via EDI(or some other channel) everyday. You develop interfaces to load these invoices into your system from time to time. It should be noted that this is a process that happens everyday and you will need them for ever.

Interface: it is a program that performs communication with External system from SAP.

There are two types of interfaces:

1. Inbound Interface: External system sends the data to SAP

2. Outbound Interface: SAP sends the data to External system.

Let's take a scenario:

There are two Systems SAP ERP and Seibel CRM

Scenario1: Whenever an Order is created in Seibel CRM system it has to be transferred to SAP where the Order confirmation, Delivery and Billing will be performed. This can be enabled by using IDOC as inbound interface.

Scenario2: Whenever a New customer is Created in SAP ERP this customer data has to be transferred to Seibel CRM using Outbound IDOC / RFC.

Basically interfaces are implemented using RFC, BAPI, ALE/IDOC.

INTERFACE programs are the ones which are run at regular intervals, say weekly, monthly or even daily. Here the legacy system continues to co-exist along with SAP system, the legacy system might be useful for certain functionalities but the data might have to run thru SAP transactions for complex data maintenance at regular intervals.

Interface Program

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005/helpdata/en/64/be5b4150b38147e10000000a1550b0/frameset.htm

Conversion:

Migration of data from Legacy system before GO Live (One time data transfer).

So Conversions are always INBOUND interfaces.

Conversions are performed using Batch input(BDC), LSMW and BAPI.

CONVERSION programs are the ones which have one time usage, usually when a legacy system is being replaced by a system like SAP, then the data has to be mapped from the legacy system to SAP system. Here the data to be converted is given on a flat file & is uploaded to SAP tables mostly using LSMW only. Conversions programs are BDC,BAPI and LSMW programs in which you upload all the related tables from the flat files.Those are one time programs.

Interface programs are those programs in which you fetch the data from the application server and process on theose data.These are helpful when you have to run any program in the backgroup when the presentation server is not working.

Conversion Program

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005/helpdata/en/d3/a65a14e96911d1b401006094b944c8/frameset.htm

In Simple

CONVERSIONS : Converting Legacy System DATA into a flat file

INTERFACES : Converting Flat File into SAP