BUSINESS CONTEXT DATA COMPANION TOOL

• US 20090083058A1
• Filed: 12/13/2007
• Published: 03/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Tarlin, Eliot, Beringer, Joerg
• Granted Patent: US 8,250,169 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/348
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses enable rendering business context data in a desktop widget. The business context data describes a resource, a view, and actionable context data that relate to a business scenario. The business context data is processed to determine a UI component to generate to represent the business context data. The component is then generated and rendered in a desktop widget to provide access to the actionable context data on a client device via the desktop widget. An active business client receives and processes the business context data. The active business client can operate as a widget engine for the business context data to enable the rendering of the business context data on the client device.

Claims

1. A method in a client comprising:

receiving, at a client device from a server, business context data that describes a resource, a view, and actionable context data related to a business scenario, the business context data not specific to a particular user interface (UI) type;

processing the business context data to determine a UI component to generate to represent a portion of the business context data;

generating the component based on the business scenario, the component being specific to a type of UI available on the client device; and

rendering the UI component in a desktop widget to provide access to the actionable context data on the client device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the business context data comprises:

receiving a meta object that includes business objects from multiple different backend systems.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein receiving the meta object that includes business objects from multiple different backend systems comprises:

receiving a business object that is bound to its respective backend system.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein rendering the UI component in the desktop widget comprises:

rendering multiple business objects in the desktop widget to provide access to data and functionality of the multiple business objects.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the UI specific component comprises:

generating one or more of a data layout, a graphic associated with a function, or a text field.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the UI specific component and rendering the UI component in the desktop widget further comprise:

generating and rendering a task detail toolbar customized to display details related to a task accessible via the desktop widget.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein generating and rendering the task detail toolbar further comprises:

generating and rendering a transient auxiliary pane to enable the task detail toolbar, the transient auxiliary pane including zero or more resources, including zero or more business objects, documents, forms, or reports.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein generating and rendering the task detail toolbar further comprises:

generating and rendering a transient auxiliary pane to enable the task detail toolbar, the transient auxiliary pane including zero or more activities related to the actionable context data.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein generating and rendering the task detail toolbar further comprises:

generating and rendering a transient auxiliary pane to enable the task detail toolbar, the transient auxiliary pane including zero or more related persons, including zero or more contacts for specific individuals.

10. An article of manufacture comprising a machine readable medium having content stored thereon to provide instructions to cause a machine to perform operations including:

receiving, at a client device from a server, business context data that describes a resource, a view, and actionable context data related to a business scenario, the business context data not specific to a particular user interface (UI) type;

processing the business context data to determine a UI component to generate to represent the business context data;

generating the component based on the business scenario, the component being specific to a type of UI available on the client device; and

rendering the UI component in a desktop widget to provide access to the actionable context data on the client device.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the content to provide instructions for receiving the business context data comprises content to provide instructions for

receiving a meta object that includes business objects from multiple different backend systems;

and

wherein the content to provide instructions for rendering the UI component in the desktop widget comprises content to provide instructions for

rendering multiple business objects in the desktop widget to provide access to data and functionality of the multiple business objects.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 10, wherein the content to provide instructions for

generating the UI specific component and rendering the UI component in the desktop widget further comprises content to provide instructions for generating and rendering a task detail toolbar customized to provide access to details of the actionable context data in the desktop widget.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 12, wherein the content to provide instructions for generating and rendering the task detail toolbar further comprises content to provide instructions for

generating and rendering a transient auxiliary pane to enable the task detail toolbar, the transient auxiliary pane switchable between displaying items related to the actionable context data, including resources, activities, or related persons.

14. A mobile client device comprising:

a display that supports an interactive graphical user interface (GUI); and

an active business client coupled to the display, to provide a desktop widget operating platform on which to execute a desktop widget, the active business client to receive business context data that describes a resource, a view, and actionable context data related to a business scenario, the active business client having

a controller layer to process the business context data to determine a GUI component to generate to represent the business context data; and

a view layer to generate the GUI component based on the business scenario, the GUI component being formatted to the specific GUI, and render the GUI component in a desktop widget provided on the display to provide access to the actionable context data on the client device.

15. The client device of claim 14, the active business client to receive a meta object that includes business objects from multiple different backend systems;

and

the view layer to render multiple business objects in the desktop widget to provide access to data and functionality of the multiple business objects.

16. The client device of claim 14, the view layer to generate and render a task detail toolbar customized to provide access to details of the actionable context data in the desktop widget.

17. The client device of claim 16, the view layer to further generate and render a transient auxiliary pane to enable the task detail toolbar, the transient auxiliary pane switchable between displaying items related to the actionable context data, including resources, activities, or related persons.

18. A method comprising:

providing an active business client to operate as an operating platform for desktop widgets, the active business client to receive a meta object having data object components from multiple backend enterprise systems, the meta object being business context data that describes a resource, a view, and actionable context data related to a business scenario;

receiving a command to initialize a desktop widget on the active business client operating platform;

launching the desktop widget in response to the command; and

rendering the data object components in the desktop widget to provide access to the business context data from the desktop widget, and provide functionality in the desktop widget to enable execution of the actionable context data.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein providing the active business client to receive the meta object that describes the actionable context data comprises:

providing the active business client to receive the meta object describing multiple actionable context data components.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein rendering the data object components in the desktop widget comprises:

rendering a task detail toolbar customized to display details of actionable context data related to the business scenario in the widget.