The SmartPlant schema describes the structure of the data in the SmartPlant data warehouse, along with its rules. Each authoring tool that uses configurable mapping also has its own schema called a tool schema. In order to make data publishing and retrieval easier, mapping is done between the SmartPlant schema and the tool schema.
Integration with SmartPlant is done in a modular fashion with minimal impact to the application itself. Each authoring tool delivers an adapter that supports the key functionality to publish and retrieve data to the SmartPlant data warehouse. For tools that support configurable mapping, a map must be defined between the application's internal data structures and the SmartPlant schema.
Mapping is not necessarily required because some hard-coding has been done in the tool adapters to allow the adapter to publish default data. However, without mapping, data retrieval back to the tool may not work as desired. If mapping is done correctly, an authoring tool also will be able to retrieve data from other tools.