during the execution of the script processor 37 to save data from the data bag 44 out to the export data target 33 also shown in fig2 and fig3 the system includes a configuration management user interface 39 to define the components of the present invention which include external data connections 51 views 52 data bags 53 rule sets 54 and scripts 55 these component definitions are stored in the metadata database 38 the data bags are stored in the internal datastore 35 the component definitions will be described in detail below the transformation and exchange system 13 includes a script processor 37 in order to run scripts 55 defined in the metadata database 38 the script processor 37 identifies the script command and invokes the correct method for that script command the transformation exchange system 13 also contains a rule processor 36 that is invoked by the script processor 37 to transform one data bag into another data bag based on a rule rules will be described below fig5 is a flow diagram showing the components that can be defined using the configuration management user interface 39 and the actions taken when defining each component connections 51 must have their connection type and properties defined the connection type will be any of the industry standard data storage types such as odbc enabled databases spreadsheets message oriented middleware and text files the properties will include the name and location of the external data storage views 52 must be associated with either an import data connection 41 fig4 or an export data connection 46 each data connection has one.