What is BDC in SAP ? Types of BDC ?

BDC(Batch Data Communication) is a batch interfacing technique which is used to insert mass data
into SAP R/3 system, in BDC the data will be loded into R/3 using SAP Screen which we use to
create a record(Example: Material in MM01).In simple BDC is a technique in SAP, which is used to
upload mass data into R/3 server from a flat file( .txt, Excel etc).
In BDC the data will be flowing in SAP R/3 through screens (Ex: MM01), BDC is a inbound
process.

The BDC can be performed in two methods:

Call Transaction.
Session Method.

Call Transaction and Session Method differances

CALL TRANSACTION METHOD:

It is the process of transferring the data from flat file into SAP by calling a transaction through a
series of sequence of steps.

Properties of call transaction method

This method is used for transferring less amount of data(<10,000 records).
This method uses Synchronous and Asynchronous updates.
This method will update the DB immediately.
We need to handle the errors and the success messages by declaring an internal table of type
BDCMSGCOLL.
This method is very fast.
CALL TRANSACTION ''
USING
UPDATE ''
MODE ''
MESSAGES INTO .

*T CODE, is a transaction to which we are loading data ex:MM01

*bdcdata is a table which contains data related to each screen
*A/S asynchronous or synchronous method.
*A/E/N all screen mode or error screen mode or no screen mode.
*MESSTAB is a message table to store messages (success, error, warning etc)

BDCDATA is a structure defined with below fields in data dictionary, it holds the information
related to each screen field .
Program - Name of the program.
Dynpro - Screen Number.
Dynbegin - Start the process.
Fnam - Field name on the SAP screen.
Fval - Field value on to the field name of SAP screen.

Use of BDCDATA
It is a structure which holds the information related to each screen i.e. program name, screen no,
field name, field values, information of that particular screen to be transferred into the SAP.
In simple words, it holds all the screen related information and field information to be transferred
into corresponding SAP transaction. Program Dynpro Dynbegin Fnam Fval
SAPLGMM 0060 "X"
RMMG1-MATNR "1011"
RMMG1-MBRSH "FOOD"
RMMG1-MTART "FERT"
SAPLGMM 0070 "X" RZSEL "X"

To find the above information for each field, press F1 on particular field It will display help
information.
Click on the button "technical information".
It will show the entire technical information of a screen.
Please note down the program name, screen number, screen field name.
This procedure has to be repeated for each field on a SAP screen.Since, it is very difficult to note
down the technical information for each field, we have an alternate and easy method called as
"RECORDING METHOD".
Update: There are two types of updates are available.
Asynchronous update (COMMIT).
Synchronous update (COMMIT & WAIT).
DIALOG WORK PROCESS: A work process which is dedicated to process screen information is
called "Dialog work process".
There will be 6 to 7 dialog work processes.
These dialog work processes are defined by basis consultant.
UPDATE WORK PROCESS: This work process is responsible for updating the data into the
database.
There will be always only "1" update work process

ASYNCHRONOUS UPDATE (COMMIT):

In this type the call transaction screens will communicate with the update work process to
update the data into database.
It doesn"t wait for the update to be finished.
It immediately starts to process the next record without waiting for the update to be finished.
That"s why this process is very fast.
It is generally not recommended for the large amount of data, because the called transaction
does not return any success or error messages.

SYNCHRONOUS UPDATE (COMMIT & WAIT):

In this mode, the called transaction communicates with the update work process to update
the data into database.
It will wait for the update to be finished.
Once the update is finished, then it continues to process the next record.
Thats why this process is very slow.
It is generally recommended for large amount of data because it returns success and error
messages.
MODE:
It specifies the type of the mode to execute the transaction.
There are 3 options for mode
A All screen mode(Foreground).
E Error screen mode (only error screens will be displayed).
N No screen mode (Background).

RECORDING METHOD:
Since, it is very difficult to find technical information of each field on the screen, we go for a
method called as "Recording method".
The recording method is going to record all the fields in the transaction and it generated the
technical information such as program name, screen no, field name, field value for each field on the
SAP screen.
By using the recording method, it is very easy to create a BDC program

Recording a transaction using SHDB