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Business Data Flow

Each Standard Integration or Custom Integration is based on the creation of Business Data Flows. A Business Data Flow controls the transformation of an SAP data object to a Siebel data object and a Siebel data object to an SAP data object. Figure 1 illustrates inbound and outbound Business Data Flows. The outbound dataflow starts when the EAI Siebel Adapter extracts a record from the database, processes it through a Business Service data map, and then uses a BAPI or an IDOC to pass the record to SAP. SAP processes the record, and returns it through a BAPI or an IDOC to the inbound dataflow, which uses a Business Service data map, and the EAI Siebel Adapter.

Figure 1.  General Architecture of the Integration Process

As Figure 1 shows there are two types of Business Data Flows possible, Outbound to SAP (Send) and Inbound from SAP (Receive). The processing flow for each is largely contained within a Siebel Workflow.

Outbound Business Data Flows generally contain a call to the EAI Siebel Adapter to first extract data from the Siebel database corresponding to a Siebel Business Object. This data is then used to populate a corresponding Siebel Integration Object. The Siebel Integration Object is passed to a Business Service whose job is to transform the Siebel Integration Object structure into an SAP Integration Object structure. The data transformation within the Business Service Data Map can be written using Siebel eScript or can be done through the use of Siebel Data Mapper. SAP integration objects can represent either an IDOC structure in SAP or a BAPI function interface. The IDOC Adapter converts the IDOC data into a special format and then passes that data to the BAPI Adapter. The BAPI Adapter then interfaces to the SAP Application Server directly. All data passing into SAP passes through the BAPI Adapter.

Inbound Business Data Flows must start with the tRFC BAPI Receiver Component. The tRFC BAPI Receiver runs in the background continuously waiting for data from SAP. This data can be in the form of an IDOC or RFC function call. When the tRFC BAPI Receiver receives an IDOC, it calls the IDOC Workflow Processor to convert the raw SAP IDOC data into an IDOC Integration Object. The IDOC Workflow Processor then invokes a workflow to process the data further. When the tRFC BAPI Receiver receives an RFC call, it creates a BAPI Integration Object that it sends to a workflow for processing. The workflow typically contains a Business Service Data Map to transform the data into a Siebel Integration Object. The Siebel Integration Object is then passed to the EAI Siebel Adapter where it can be processed as a business object into the Siebel database.