IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Services and service-related functions > Access external services with adapters > Configure and using adapters > IBM WebSphere Adapters > Siebel Business Applications > Overview of WebSphere Adapter for Siebel Business Applications > Technical overview
Business objects
To send data or obtain data from Siebel Business Applications, the adapter uses business objects. A business object is a structure that consists of data, the action to be performed on the data, and additional instructions, if any, for processing the data. The data can represent either a business entity, such as an invoice, an employee record, or an unstructured text.
How business objects are created
You create business objects by using the external service wizard, launched from IBM Integration Designer. The external service wizard connects to the application, discovers data structures in the application, and generates business objects to represent them. It also generates other artifacts needed by the adapter.
Business object structure
The adapter supports business objects that are hierarchically structured. The top-level business object must have a one-to-one correspondence with the Siebel business component, and collections that occur within the top-level object are child objects of it. Information about the processed object is stored in the application-specific information for the object and each of its attributes.
Business graphs
You can optionally choose, during adapter configuration, to generate a business graph. In version 6.0.2, each top-level business object is contained in a business graph, which includes a verb that an application can use to specify additional information about the operation to be performed. Beginning version 7.0, business graphs are required only in these situations:
- If you need to use the outbound ApplyChanges operation
- When adding business objects to a module created with an earlier version
If business graphs exist, they are processed, but the verb is ignored for all operations except ApplyChanges.
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