In addition to what Ricky said above, you can also use the IDoc type SYSTAT01 for sending status records to SAP.
Regarding your second question: in general it is NOT possible to call arbitrary function modules via ALE. However, there is a number of special BAPIs, which can be converted to an ALE IDoc type and thus be called via ALE (which means asynchronously). Not all BAPIs support this feature. The SAP System must define a “mapping” between the “BAPI Importing Parameters” and the “Segements of the corresponding IDoc type”.
Check out the SAP Adapter documentation regarding the “BAPI transport”. I don’t know about newer versions, but in version 4.6 it was possible to customize a parameter in the BAPI Transport Routing Rule, which specified whether the BAPI should be called “synchronously” or “asynchronously”. This pretty much defines, whether the BAPI is execute via RFC or via ALE.
Regards, Lanzelot
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