Subprocesses and user interactions for a business process management integration server

• US 20050193061A1
• Filed: 01/28/2005
• Published: 09/01/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Paul, Bikram, Schmidt, Patrick
• Application Number:
  US11/045,548
• Publication Number:
  US 20050193061A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/547 Messaging middleware
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A process may be executed at an integration server adapted to provide a messaging service for at least two business applications in an enterprise system. According to some embodiments, a subprocess may be called during execution of the process (and other processes may also call the subprocess). According to other embodiments, input may be received from a user (and further execution of the process may be based at least in part on the received input).

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

executing a first process at an integration server adapted to provide a messaging service for at least two business applications in an enterprise system; and

during execution of the first process, calling a subprocess to perform a task, wherein the subprocess may also be called by a second process at the integration server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein execution of the first process is blocked while the subprocess performs the task, and further comprising:

continuing execution of the first process after the subprocess performs the task.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said calling includes submitting parameters to the subprocess, and further comprising:

receiving response data from the subprocess.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining the first process in a repository containing a set of design-time business messaging service processes; and

defining the subprocess in the repository.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said defining includes:

declaring a signature associated with the first process, the signature being associated with inbound and outbound messages.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the subprocess calls another subprocess.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the subprocess is called semantically synchronously and performs the task asynchronously.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

canceling the subprocess before the subprocess completes the task.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the subprocess is a first subprocess and further comprising:

cascading the cancellation to a second subprocess called by the first subprocess.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

mapping exceptions associated with the subprocess to the first process.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the messaging service is associated with at least one of:

(i) a logical routing of a message, (ii) a mapping of a message from a first business application to a second business application, or (iii) a physical address resolution of a business application.

6. The method of claim 6, wherein said defining includes:

setting a value of a configurable parameter based on the subprocess.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

creating a configured first process service in a directory; and

creating a configured subprocess service in the directory, wherein the configured subprocess service includes enterprise-specific message routing information.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein information associated with the signature and the configurable parameter are passed from the repository to the directory.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

activating the configured first process service in a runtime engine associated with the integration server, wherein said executing and calling are performed by the runtime engine.

16. A system, comprising:

an integration repository storing enterprise system design-time descriptions of at least two business applications, the design-time descriptions including (i) a set of design-time business processes and (ii) at least one design-time business subprocess;

an integration directory storing enterprise system configuration-specific descriptions of the business applications, the configuration-specific descriptions including (i) configuration-specific business processes to be executed between the business applications and (ii) at least one configuration-specific business subprocess to be called by multiple configuration-specific business processes; and

an integration server including a business process management runtime engine to execute a configuration-specific business process that calls the configuration-specific business subprocess.

17. A medium storing processor-executable process steps, the process steps comprising:

executing a first process at an integration server adapted to provide a messaging service for at least two business applications in an enterprise system; and

during execution of the first process, calling a subprocess to perform a task, wherein the subprocess may also be called by a second process at the integration server.

18. A method, comprising:

executing a process at an integration server adapted to provide a messaging service for at least two business applications in an enterprise system; and

during execution of the process, receiving input from a user, wherein further execution of the process is based at least in part on the received input.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

displaying to the user a set of potential selections, wherein said receiving comprises receiving from the user an indication associated with at least one of the potential selections.

20. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

defining the process in a repository containing a set of design-time business messaging service processes.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said defining includes:

declaring a configurable parameter associated with the user.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

creating a configured process service in a directory, wherein the configured process service includes enterprise-specific message routing information.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the configurable parameter is replaced with at least one of (i) a user identifier, or (ii) an organization identifier.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein information associated with the configurable parameter is passed from the repository to the directory.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

activating the configured process service in a runtime engine associated with the integration server, wherein said executing is performed by the runtime engine.

26. The method of claim 18, wherein said receiving is associated with a container element.

27. A system, comprising:

an integration repository storing enterprise system design-time descriptions of at least two business applications, the design-time descriptions including a set of design-time business processes;

an integration directory storing enterprise system configuration-specific descriptions of the business applications, the configuration-specific descriptions including configuration-specific business processes to be executed between the business applications;

an integration server including a business process management runtime engine to execute a configuration-specific business process; and

a user input device to provide a response to the integration server during execution of the configuration-specific business process.

28. A medium storing processor-executable process steps, the process steps comprising:

executing a process at an integration server adapted to provide a messaging service for at least two business applications in an enterprise system; and

during execution of the process, receiving input from a user, wherein further execution of the process is based at least in part on the received input.