SAP created the Business Framework to allow for economical data transfer between SAP components themselves and between SAP and Not-SAP components. An important part of the Business Framework are the Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs) that form the visible interfaces on the edges of components and, based on their properties, allow for the integration of those components. BAPIs are SAP function modules that are implemented in ABAP and can be accessed by other systems. They form the interface to the business object types (e.g. Sales Order or Employee) and allow for object-oriented access to the SAP system. The BAPI features can be accessed via a SOAP web service.
