E-market architecture for supporting multiple roles and reconfigurable business porcesses
First Claim
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1. A method for representing a business process within a computing system, comprising the steps of:
- defining the business process using a state-machine based representation where transitions of the state machine represent roles and actions, and states of the state machine represent stages in the business process where the commerce system is waiting for an event to occur;
identifying the actions that participants with particular roles can perform at particular stages of the business process by corresponding state in the state machine and out-going transitions from that state.
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Abstract
A method for allowing flexible creation and alteration of business processes within a commerce system includes using state machines to describe the actions that can be taken by particular roles at particular points in a process. The state machines are used by a commerce system to enforce validity of user actions, to track the execution of actions within an instance of the business process, to provide the user interface with a list of actions available to a user working on an instance of the business process, to provide coordination between state machines, and to allow different organizations to have varied business processes.
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13 Claims
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1. A method for representing a business process within a computing system, comprising the steps of:
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defining the business process using a state-machine based representation where transitions of the state machine represent roles and actions, and states of the state machine represent stages in the business process where the commerce system is waiting for an event to occur;
identifying the actions that participants with particular roles can perform at particular stages of the business process by corresponding state in the state machine and out-going transitions from that state. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A method for executing a business process represented as a state machine running on a computing system, where transitions of the state machine represent roles of participants in the business process and actions that can be taken as part of the business process, and states of the state machine represent stages in the business process where the business process is waiting for an event to occur, the method comprising:
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receiving from a user a command representing a desired action to be performed as part of the business process;
checking the role of the user within the business process and a context in which the command occurs;
if the command is allowable by a user with the role within the context, executing the command. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A system for executing a business process represented as a state machine running on a computing system, where transitions of the state machine represent roles of participants in the business process and actions that can be taken as part of the business process, and states of the state machine represent stages in the business process where the business process is waiting for an event to occur, the system comprising:
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means for receiving from a user a command representing a desired action to be performed as part of the business process;
means for checking the role of the user within the business process and a context in which the command occurs;
means for, if the command is allowable by a user with the role within the context, executing the command.
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12. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for representing a business process within a computing system, the computer program product comprising:
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first instructions for defining the business process using a state-machine based representation where transitions of the state machine represent roles and actions, and states of the state machine represent stages in the business process where the commerce system is waiting for an event to occur;
second instructions for identifying the actions that participants with particular roles can perform at particular stages of the business process by corresponding state in the state machine and out-going transitions from that state.
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13. A computer program product in a computer readable medium for executing a business process within a computing system, the computer program product comprising:
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first instructions for receiving from a user a command representing a desired action to be performed as part of the business process;
second instructions for checking the role of the user within the business process and a context in which the command occurs;
third instructions for, if the command is allowable by a user with the role within the context, executing the command.
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Specification