Items on workplaces

• US 20070150490A1
• Filed: 12/22/2005
• Published: 06/28/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Kilian-Kehr, Roger
• Granted Patent: US 7,761,850 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

This document discusses, among other things, a system and a method for using a meta-model to manage relationships between software artifacts, the method comprising determining a meta-model; identifying one or more available artifacts in one or more software applications; using the meta-model to define one or more relationships between the one or more available artifacts, wherein each relationship is a specific instance of a possible association defined in the meta-model; and providing the one or more relationships as one or more configurations to the one or more software applications.

Claims

1. A computer-assisted method for creating and maintaining relationships between software applications, the method comprising:

determining a meta-model;

identifying one or more available artifacts in one or more software applications;

using the meta-model to define one or more relationships between the one or more available artifacts, wherein each relationship is a specific instance of a possible association defined in the meta-model; and

providing the one or more relationships as one or more configurations to the one or more software applications.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the one or more relationships comprises managing one or more configuration files that define the relationships.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the configuration file uses a standardized interface language.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the standardized interface language is the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) standard.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the one or more relationships comprises directly configuring at least one of the software applications using application-to-application communication.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the meta-model is defined by a standardized modeling language.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more available artifacts include a calendar entry, a contact, a task item, an email message, a document, a meeting, an employee, an order, an organizational data, a material, a customer, and an asset.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more available artifacts are represented as one or more classes.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein using the meta-model to define one or more relationships includes creating a relationship between one or more elements of the one or more classes.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein using the meta-model to define one or more relationships includes defining a recursive relationship.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein using the meta-model to define one or more relationships includes defining a mode of managing a relationship in the one or more software applications.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the mode of managing a relationship includes at least one of:

providing a context-sensitive menu;

providing a drag-and-drop ability;

providing a drag-and-relate ability;

providing a menu command; and

providing a keyboard command.

20. A machine-readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform the method of claim 1.

7. The method of 6, wherein the standardized modeling language is the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

14. A system for managing relationships between software applications, the system comprising:

a processor coupled to a memory;

a user-interface coupled to the processor;

a gather artifacts module to run on the processor to identify and manage any available artifacts in one or more software applications;

a presentation module to run on the processor to use a meta-model and the available artifacts in a modeling environment, wherein the modeling environment is such that a user can interact and manage one or more relationships between the available artifacts using a definition provided by the meta-model; and

a configuration output module to run on the processor to provide the one or more relationships as one or more configurations.

15. The system of claim 14, comprising a meta-model reader module to run on the processor to read the meta-model.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more configurations are stored as one or more files on one or more computers.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more configurations are stored in a database.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more software applications use the one or more relationships in the one or more configurations to provide a user-interface to a user such that the user can manage specific instances of the relationships in the software applications.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the one or more software applications use an inter-application interface to provide access to one or more of the available artifacts.