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What is Component Interface (CI)?

Component Interface (CI) is an object within PeopleSoft. It is a part of Integration technology. The purpose of it is for developers (anybody who would like to interface with PS apps from outside of the environment) to interface with Component and maintain business logic and data integrity.

You can look at CI as an instance of a Component - like a textbox or listbox on a form are instances of textbox or listbox in toolbox. Component to CI is like cookie cutter to cookie basically. When a CI is created, you can decide what properties/methods (record.fields/actions) to expose to outside world. This means CI has another layer of security control by the developer. Once it is created, the CI has to be granted to permission list for the operator to access it. No menu is involved in terms of developing or using it.

You may develop 3rd party application with CI in C/C++, VB, Java, and ASP. The best source for CI is in PeopleBook "Introduction to Component Interfaces." It took me about a day to understand it then I wrote a VB program to replace a ROBOT program I had written for version 7.6. It works perfectly. This application does entries into Group Entry in Student Financial (Student Information System). Mainly it is used to eliminate human data-entry. Think about enter 500 records into two-page Component (minimum 14 fields per component) can be done is minutes. This is one of the benefits.

Basically, CI can be used to extract or enter information with business logic enforced automatically. How it is used in real world is really left to the developers' wild imagination.