A partner represents an external or internal entity that sends documents to be processed or receives processed documents from B2B Data Exchange. A partner can be an organization such as a vendor or a customer, or an internal system such as an accounting application or an ERP system.

Each partner contains one or more accounts. In a customer organization, an account can be a division, a department, or a subsidiary. In an internal system, an account can be a customer ID or a vendor code.

A workflow represents the transformation logic required to process documents for a partner. The B2B Data Exchange developer creates a PowerCenter workflow to process the documents and a workflow in the B2B Data Exchange Operation Console to represent the PowerCenter workflow.

Profiles enable you to associate a workflow with a partner or an account. A profile defines how to process a document for a partner or an account. You can add parameters to the profile that customize the selected workflow for a partner. When you run a workflow that is associated with a profile, the PowerCenter workflow processes the documents for the partner that is defined in the profile.

You can restrict access to partners, accounts, and profiles with categories. Categories are classifications that can represent regional division or departments in the organization. When you assign categories to objects, you also restrict access to related objects, such as events, endpoints, and SLA rules. The B2B Data Exchange administrator assigns categories to user groups to determine which users can access the objects.