Whereas a document that has been archived via ArchiveLink is immediately available to SAP, the Messenger allows importing documents into ImageMaster before linking them to SAP. This is often required in scenarios which involve scanning of documents and bulk import. SAP access to documents, which have been registered via the SAP Messenger, is still achieved via ArchiveLink, i.e. the Messenger is not run in a stand-alone fashion in practice.
In an ImageMaster environment typically a bulk import via FIS (the File Interoperability Service) is performed on an ImageMaster document type that has been prepared as SAP document type, i.e. the document structure of this type must fulfill the requirements as specified by ArchiveLink (see chapter ArchiveLink documents structure). An import operation of this document type triggers the Messenger extension which in turn prepares the environment for further processing steps that have to be undergone before a document becomes accessible to SAP (see chapter Messaging for ERP). From a technical perspective the Messenger can be divided into two components:
-
The Messenger extension is initially triggered in the import process of an SAP document type.
-
The Messenger command line interface is used after an import to perform several processing steps which are required to make documents available to SAP, e.g. including consistency checks.
The processing steps that are performed by the command line interface may be embedded in an automated scheduling process. However, the design of such a process is not part of this documentation because it is likely to be subject to project specific requirements.
