Method, apparatus, and system for managing status of requests in a client server environment

• US 20070016639A1
• Filed: 09/29/2001
• Published: 01/18/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Mukundan, Anil, Yip, Sing, Coker, John, Tyrell, Denis
• Granted Patent: US 7,461,119 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method is provided in which a request submitted by a user via a user-interface is sent from a client to a server for processing. Upon being notified by the server that the request may take a long time to process, inform the user of the status of the request. The user is informed of the progress of the request based upon progress information received from the server.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

sending a request submitted by a user via a user-interface from a client to a server for processing;

receiving one or more notifications from the server regarding the processing of the request, wherein

each notification comprises an indication of progress of the processing of the request;

informing the user that the processing will exceed a threshold length of time, if one or more of the notifications indicates that the processing of the request will exceed the threshold length of time; and

informing the user of progress of the request based upon the notifications from the server.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the server is to determine whether processing will complete after the threshold length of time based upon one or more factors relating to one or more of a type of the request, a priority of the request, resources available for request processing and a workload of the server.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to receiving one or more notifications from the server indicating that the processing of the request will exceed the threshold length of time, locking the user interface during the processing of the request.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving the one or more notifications from a business object on the server at a corresponding business object on the client.

8. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

locking the user interface and informing the user of the progress of the request until the processing of the request is finished.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

displaying a progress bar showing progress of the processing of the request to the user.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising updating the progress bar in response to receiving the notifications from the server.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the request relates to a remote procedure call.

32. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a request to access a customer relationship management database.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a request to synchronize data stored in the client with data stored in the server.

3. (canceled)

4. (canceled)

6. (canceled)

11. A system comprising:

logic to receive, at a server, a request from a client submitted by user via a user-interface for processing;

logic to determine progress information regarding the processing of the request, wherein

the progress information includes an indication of whether a period to process the request will exceed a threshold period; and

logic to transmit the progress information from the server to the client to inform the user of progress of the request.

12. The system of claim 11 further comprising:

logic to determine whether the period to process the request will exceed the threshold period based upon one or more factors.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the one or more factors relate to one or more of a type of the request, a priority of the request, resources available for request processing, or a workload of the server.

14. The system of claim 12 further comprising:

logic to notify the client of the one or more factors.

15. The system of claim 11 further comprising:

logic to instruct the user interface to be locked during the processing of the request in response to the client being notified that the period to process the request will exceed the threshold period.

17. The system of claim 11 wherein the logic to transmit the progress information comprises:

logic to transmit notifications from a business object on the server to a corresponding business object on the client.

18. The system of claim 15 further comprising:

logic to transmit the progress information until the processing of the request is finished.

16. (canceled)

19. (canceled)

20. (canceled)

21. A machine-readable medium having instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

sending a request submitted by a user via a user-interface from a client to a server for processing;

receiving one or more notifications from the server regarding the processing of the request, wherein

each notification comprises an indication of progress of the processing of the request;

informing the user that the processing will exceed a threshold length of time, if one or more of the notifications indicates that the processing of the request will exceed the threshold length of time; and

informing the user of progress of the request based upon the notifications from the server.

22. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the server is to determine whether processing will complete after the threshold length of time based upon one or more factors, at least one of the one or more factors being selected from the group consisting of a type of the request, a priority of the request, resources available for request processing, and a workload of the server.

25. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 having further instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform operations further comprising:

in response to receiving one or more notifications from the server indicating that the processing of the request will exceed the threshold length of time, locking the user interface during the processing of the request.

27. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 having further instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform operations further comprising:

receiving the one or more notifications from a business object on the server at corresponding business object on the client.

28. The machine-readable medium of claim 25 having further instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform operations further comprising:

locking the user interface and informing the user of the progress of the request until the processing of the request is finished.

29. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 having further instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform operations further comprising:

displaying a progress bar showing progress of the processing of the request to the user.

30. The machine-readable medium of claim 29 having further instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform operations further comprising updating the progress bar upon receiving the notifications from the server.

34. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the request relates to a remote procedure call.

35. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the request includes a request to access a customer relationship management database.

36. The machine-readable medium of claim 21 wherein the request includes a request to synchronize data stored in the client with data stored in the server.

23. (canceled)

24. (canceled)

26. (canceled)