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SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba || Part 4 ||

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Welcome to this comprehensive and informative series on SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba.This is S/4HANA Integration with Ariba Part 4 before diving into this topic please refer S/4HANA Integration with Ariba Part 3.

In this integration journey, I will teach you the complete end-to-end configuration required to integrate S/4HANA with all solutions of Ariba for smooth and accurate data transformation.

This series is divided into multiple parts, so before reading any specific integration topic, please ensure you have gone through the previous parts for better understanding.

Note – This integration is also valid for SAP ECC system.

Table of Contents

SAP S/4HANA Integration with Ariba Integration – Prerequisites

So far in this integration series, we have been discussing the integration prerequisites. In this blog, I have explained the next mandatory and most important prerequisite, which is the bgRFC setup.
This bgRFC configuration is the responsibility of the Basis team, but as a CIG consultant, it is important to understand the purpose and usage of this configuration but you still want know how it get configured you can refer this SAP Blog.

bgRFC Configuration

What is bgRFC (Background Remote Function Call)?

bgRFC is SAP’s mechanism to send and receive data asynchronously in a reliable way. Instead of processing data immediately, SAP stores the data first and processes it later in the background. This ensures:

  • No data loss
  • No duplicate processing
  • Correct processing order (when required)
  • Automatic retry in case of failures


In S/4HANA–Ariba integration, bgRFC plays a critical role in both outbound and inbound communication.

Why bgRFC configuration is Mandatory for Ariba Integration

Ariba integration involves:

  • High document volume (POs, Confirmations, Invoices, SES, etc.)
  • Network dependency
  • Cloud-to-on‑premise communication


Because of this, simple RFC calls are not sufficient. bgRFC is required to ensure business-critical documents are processed safely and consistently.

Why bgRFC Configuration is needed for Outbound

  • Ensures guaranteed delivery of documents
  • Prevents data loss during network or system downtime
  • Avoids duplicate messages
  • Maintains correct document order (especially important for PO changes)
  • Improves system performance by not blocking user transactions

Outbound bgRFC ensures that business documents created in S/4HANA reach Ariba safely, in the correct order, and without user delay.

Why bgRFC Configuration is needed for Inbound

  • Protects S/4HANA from overload when many documents arrive together
  • Ensures correct processing sequence
  • Avoids data loss if S/4HANA is busy or temporarily unavailable
  • Allows parallel background processing for better performance

Inbound bgRFC ensures that data coming from Ariba is safely queued and correctly posted in S/4HANA without overloading the system.

What Happens If bgRFC Is Not Properly Set Up?

  • Messages may fail without retry
  • Risk of data loss or duplicate postings
  • Incorrect document sequence
  • System performance issues
  • Ariba integration becomes unstable

That is why bgRFC setup is mandatory in S/4HANA–Ariba(Or any other external System) integration
In S/4HANA–Ariba integration, bgRFC is the backbone that ensures reliable, ordered, and asynchronous inbound and outbound processing of business documents.

bgRFC is better than tRFC and qRFC because it combines trustability, ordering, and performance in a single, ultramodern medium. Like tRFC, bgRFC guarantees formerly- only delivery, but unlike tRFC it can also control the processing order when needed. Compared to qRFC, bgRFC is much more effective because it determines dependences at the time the data is recorded, not every time the scheduler runs, which reduces above and improves performance. bgRFC also supports true resemblant processing, allowing multiple ranges to be reused at the same time, making it largely scalable for high- volume integrations. In addition, bgRFC has stronger error running, automatic retries, and better cargo and gateway control, which protects systems from load. Because of these advantages, bgRFC is the preferred and recommended technology for ultramodern integrations like S/ 4HANA – Ariba, where high volume, correct order, and guaranteed delivery are all critical.

Till this point, we are covering the SAP Ariba Integration prerequisites, and the next few parts will complete these prerequisites. After that, we will move on to the actual integration configuration. Once again, it is my humble request that you go through all the previous parts of the integration series, as it is mandatory. Only then will you be able to understand the integration configuration more clearly, quickly, and without confusion.

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