Your trading partner profiles, used in conjunction with trading partner agreements (TPAs) and process models, define how you and your trading partners exchange business documents. The different roles, for example, initiator/buyer or fulfiller/seller, in a process model define what actions your company can take in certain transactions, as well as the actions you expect your trading partners to perform during those transactions. In fact, the concise definition of profiles, the configuration of process models, the application of TPAs, and the implementation of the PARs are what enable you to successfully interact with your trading partners.

You are likely to need to act in different roles with different trading partners. For example, you might need to act as a buyer toward your suppliers and as a seller toward your distributors. With the webMethods Chem eStandards Module, you define a single trading partner profile for yourself (Enterprise) and then customize the pertinent process model template to define each role you will perform in conducting transactions with your trading partners. You also must define a trading partner profile for each trading partner with whom you will conduct transactions, and again customize the pertinent process model template for each role those partners might play.

A trading partner's role figures prominently when you customize the process model templates for Chem eStandards transactions. When you customize a process model template, you will use the various trading partner profiles to help define the sender of the business document, the receiver of the business document, the target server's URL, and other criteria that depend heavily on the role of the trading partner. For information about customizing process model templates, see Customizing a Process Model Template. For information about process models in general, see the Software AG Designer Online Help.