3219349 - External Reference Field is Disabled for Sales Orders created via A2A and B2B Communication

You have created a Sales Order document from an external application and when navigating to the General tab of the document, you noticed that the External Reference field is grayed out.

SAP Business ByDesign

1. Go to the Sales Orders work center.
2. Select the Sales Orders view.
3. Search for ID ABC (ABC represents the Sales Order ID).
4. Click Edit.
5. Click View All.
6. Navigate to the General tab.
7. External Reference field is grayed out.

A2A (Application to Application)
In an Intercompany scenario, the Sales Order is created from a Purchase Order within the same system. In such case, the External Reference Number in the Sales Order will be the ID of the Purchase Order.

B2B (Business to Business)
When a Sales Order is created from a Purchase Order from an External System (via the B2B web service Sales Order Inbound (SAP ESD)), the External Reference Number in the Sales Order will be the ID passed in the payload as shown bellow:

<PurchaseOrder reconciliationPeriodCounterValue="1" itemListCompleteTransmissionIndicator="true">
<ID>XYZ</ID>
</PurchaseOrder>

In both cases the External Reference field will be read only since this is referencing to the Purchase Order ID and should not be changed.

This is the system expected behavior.

As an alternative, if you would like to suggest or propose any enhancement to the system, please reach out via the SAP Business ByDesign Customer Influence Platform.

Sales Order, External Reference, Field, Purchase Order, EDI, webservice, A2A, B2B, Web Order , KBA , AP-SLO-SO , Sales Order , How To