Systems and methods for providing a status management service

• US 20070256049A1
• Filed: 08/23/2006
• Published: 11/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Rapp, Roman, Delvat, Julien
• Application Number:
  US11/508,138
• Publication Number:
  US 20070256049A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for implementing a service-oriented architecture. The service-oriented architecture may include a plurality of foundation business objects and at least one dependent business object for providing a status management service for the plurality of foundation business objects

Claims

1. A data processing system for executing instructions stored on computer-readable media and having a service-oriented architecture, said data processing system comprising:

a plurality of foundation business objects; and

at least one dependent business object for providing a status management service for the plurality of foundation business objects.

2. The data processing system of claim 1, further comprising:

means for instantiating one of the plurality of foundation business objects; and

means for instantiating at least one dependent business object.

3. The data processing system of claim 2, said plurality of foundation business objects further comprising an interface, wherein said interface comprises:

means for determining a status of the instantiated foundation business object from the instantiated dependent business object;

means for setting the status of the instantiated foundation business object; and

means for signaling that the status of the instantiated foundation business object has changed.

4. The data processing system of claim 3, said dependent business object further comprising:

means for determining a default status of the instantiated foundation business object;

means for determining the possible statuses of the instantiated foundation business object;

means for determining the possible actions that can be performed on the instantiated foundation business object;

means for checking if execution of a given action on the instantiated foundation business object is allowed;

means for setting the status of the instantiated foundation business object;

means for determining the status of the instantiated foundation business object; and

means for saving the actual status of the instantiated foundation business object.

5. The data processing system of claim 1, further comprising a configuration component for configuring the status management service, wherein said configuration component comprises:

means for storing first data descriptive of actions that can be performed on at least some of the foundation business objects.

6. The data processing system of claim 5, said configuration component further comprising:

means for storing second data descriptive of allowed statuses of at least some of the foundation business objects and allowed actions that are assigned to the allowed statuses.

7. The data processing system of claim 6, wherein said second data describes an order of the statuses.

8. The data processing system of claim 7, said configuration component further comprising:

means for storing third data describing allowed statuses assigned to a type of business object.

9. The data processing system of claim 5, said configuration component further comprising:

means for storing second data describing statuses of at least some of the foundation business objects;

means for storing third data describing business object types;

means for storing fourth data describing allowed statuses for each said type of business object; and

means for storing fifth data describing allowed actions for each of said statuses.

10. The data processing system of claim 5, said configuration component further comprising:

means for storing allowed statuses depending on business object keys.

11. The data processing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a main memory for storing a temporary status of an instantiated foundation business object; and

a database table for storing the status of the instantiated foundation business object, wherein the temporary status is persistently stored in the database in response to a command.

12. The data processing system of claim 5, further comprising:

at least one application program, said application program being adapted to obtain allowed actions that can be performed on an instantiated foundation business object from said configuration component.

13. The data processing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a user interface for displaying the statuses of instantiated foundation business objects.

14. The data processing system of claim 13, said user interface further comprising:

means for providing a context menu for indicating allowed actions that can be performed on an instantiated foundation business object.

15. A data processing method for a service-oriented architecture, the service-oriented architecture comprising a plurality of foundation business objects, and a dependent business object for providing a status management service for the plurality of foundation business objects, the method comprising:

instantiating one of the foundation business objects;

initiating the instantiation of the dependent business object by the instantiated one of the foundation business objects; and

receiving a status by the instantiated one of the foundation business objects from the instantiated dependent business object.

16. The data processing method of claim 15, further comprising:

getting allowed statuses from the instantiated dependent business object for the instantiated foundation business object; and

changing the status of the instantiated foundation business object to one of the allowed statuses.

17. The data processing method of claim 15, further comprising:

obtaining allowed actions that can be performed on the instantiated foundation business object from the instantiated dependent business object; and

executing one of the allowed actions by an application program.

18. The data processing method of claim 15, further comprising:

checking whether an action to be performed on the instantiated foundation business object is allowed based on the instantiated dependent business object.

19. The data processing method of claim 15, further comprising:

temporarily storing an actual status of the instantiated foundation business object in a volatile memory; and

persistently storing the actual status in a database in response to a command.

20. A computer program product comprising executable instructions for performing the method of claim 15.