Creating, storing and viewing process models

• US 20060200476A1
• Filed: 11/23/2005
• Published: 09/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rohwer, Cary, Natu, Madan Gopal, Gottumukkala, Ramakanthachary S., Lowe, Nicholas Justin, Honeyman, Josh W., Ehrenberg, Michael V., Jensen, Thomas Emil
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,555 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/953 Organization of data
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical

Abstract

The location of a drawing of an activity, a property of an element in the drawing and the structural relationship of elements in the drawing are stored in a database. The database is accessed to form a user interface that provides a hierarchical representation of activities and the elements within activities.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

storing the location of a drawing of an activity in a database, the drawing comprising a plurality of elements;

storing at least one property in the database for each element in the drawing; and

storing a structural relationship in the database that describes the structural relationship between at least two elements in the drawing.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein storing a structural relationship comprises storing an entry for each of a set of flow elements in the drawing, wherein each entry indicates which elements are connected by the flow element.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein storing a structural relationship in the database comprises associating an identifier for the element with an identifier for the activity in the database.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing the location of a plurality of drawings for a plurality of respective activities in the database and storing at least one property for each element in each drawing.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the same element appears in a first drawing for a first activity and a second drawing for a second activity and wherein storing a structural relationship comprises storing an association between an identifier for the element and an identifier for the first activity and storing an association between the identifier for the element and an identifier for the second activity.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein associating an identifier for an element with an identifier for an activity comprises storing the identifier for the element and the identifier for the activity in a first table in the database and wherein storing a property for the element comprises storing the identifier for the element and the property for the element in a second table in the database.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising creating the drawing of the activity by placing elements in the drawing and setting properties for the elements.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein setting properties for an element comprises providing values for properties displayed in a user interface.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the properties for the element are displayed on the user interface when the element is selected while the drawing appears in the user interface.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising accessing the database to retrieve information to generate a user interface that shows a hierarchical representation of activities and the elements in the activities.

11. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

providing a user interface to edit a business process diagram;

receiving a command to save the changes to the process diagram;

determining if a remote database comprising data that describes the structures of process diagrams is accessible; and

storing the process diagram as edited on a local storage device if the remote database is not accessible.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having computer-executable instructions for performing further steps comprising:

storing information that describes the structural relationship between elements of the process diagram in the remote database if the remote database is accessible.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 having computer-executable instructions for performing further steps comprising:

determining if a user has rights to store information related to the process diagram before storing the information.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 having computer-executable instructions for performing further steps comprising:

determining if the process diagram is checked out by another user and refusing to store information related to the process diagram if the process diagram is checked out by another user.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12 wherein the remote database further comprises data representing properties of elements in process diagrams and the steps further comprise storing properties of elements of the process diagram in the remote database.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein providing a user interface to edit a process diagram comprises providing a user interface to edit properties of elements in the process diagram.

17. A method of modeling a process, the method comprising:

decomposing a process into at least one task and at least one additional element; and

decomposing a task in the process into at least one step and at least one additional element.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein decomposing a process further comprises decomposing the process into a subprocess.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein decomposing a process into at least one additional element comprises decomposing the process into an event.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein decomposing a process into at least one task comprises linking the process to the task through a task reference.