You can define that user identities are forwarded securely from a sender to a receiver by using an SAP NetWeaver Process Integration runtime engine (either Integration Engine or Advanced Adapter Engine). You can define any number of communication routes between the sender and receiver. This is known as principal propagation.

User refers to a entity that can authenticate itself in a system when the security settings are configured appropriately and the necessary authorizations have been granted. Note that the user name can be different in the sender and receiver systems. Principal propagation means that the identity of the user - and not their user name - is forwarded.