XML Hierarchy Converter

The XML Hierarchy Converter does not use integration object metadata, but instead relies on simple rules for converting between an XML hierarchy and an XML document. The important distinction between this service and the XML Converter is a Property Set of type XMLHierarchy, which is always presented as a child of Service Method Arguments and as a parent of the XML document root element.

As shown in the following, every XML element becomes a property set where the XML tag name becomes the Type. For example, the XML element Contact becomes a property set of the type Contact in Siebel CRM. In addition, every XML attribute becomes a property within the element’s property set. For example, if the attribute of the XML element Contact is City = Toronto, then "City=Toronto" will be a property for Contact.

The convenience of having this representation is that the XML Hierarchy Converter can convert to and from this representation in the same way, independent of whether or not the XML document includes a Siebel Message or an external XML document. This representation is also handled in Siebel Workflow because it allows all the XML documents in memory to be treated as the Hierarchical Service Parameter of type XMLHierarchy.