METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR XFORM GENERATION AND PROCESSING APPLICATION INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK

• US 20090100087A1
• Filed: 10/16/2007
• Published: 04/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Connell, Robert A., Gobeil, Charles M., Cummings, David, Singhal, Rachna Juneja, Mansell, Michael C.
• Granted Patent: US 9,304,983 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

The present invention is a method, system and framework for generating and processing XForms documents. Utilizing the method, system and framework of the present invention, developers need only write loosely coupled components that implement the minimal application-specific interface code, and the method, system and framework coordinates the generation and processing based on a description of the form'"'"'s lifecycle. It also allows developers to reuse components created for other integrations that implemented the framework. The advantage of the method, system and framework is to significantly reduce development effort to integrate XForms with a vast number of applications, while all known solutions are specific to a single integration case.

Claims

1. A system for generating and processing XForms documents having a form template generator for generating form templates, the form template generator receiving design assist from input data schema and output data schema provided by data providers and data processors, a form generator for receiving a form template from the form template generator, a client interface for receiving input to an XForm from a user, a processing servlet for processing the data input by the user, a form processor for processing a filled form, and a form repository for storing the filled form.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising an injection mapping component connected to the form generator for providing mapping data to the form generator.

3. The system of claim 2 further comprising a result provider connected to the form repository for encapsulating any errors or information messages in XML, for re-injection into an XForms instance at forms repository.

4. The system of claim 3 further comprising a signature extraction component for extracting the signature from the filled form.

5. A method for generating and processing XForms documents in a system, the system having a client interface, a form repository, a form generator, a manager, and a processing servlet for a user comprising the steps of:

a. logging a user into the system and establishing a session, the user utilizing the client interface;

b. setting up connection with the manager and storing it in its session;

c. generating a form by the form generator;

d. receiving, from the user, a filled out and submitted form; and

e. processing the form by the processing servlet.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the logging a user into the system step further comprises the steps of receiving a request from user and retrieving a blank form from the form repository of the system.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein the manager is the IBM Rational Portfolio Manager (RPM) Web Services and the data providers are named in metadata XML called to pull data from RPM.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of the data providers pulling information they need to make the calls to RPM from the client interface'"'"'s session through a generic context adapter.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein system further comprises an RPM'"'"'s web service interface, the method further comprising the steps of the data providers requesting the information they need via RPM'"'"'s web service interface, the data providers packaging the data as XML, and validating the data out of each data provider is validated against its schema, also defined in the metadata XML.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising the steps of the form generator merging all the data into the blank template form and the form generator returning the form to the client interface and the form generator returning the form to the user.

11. The method of claim 5 further comprising the steps of the user receiving a form and the method further comprising the step of the user saving it to his computer.

12. The method of claim 5 wherein the manager is the IBM Rational Portfolio Manager (RPM) Web Services and the method further comprises the steps of the processing servlet receiving the form, pulling the RPM login information from the form, setting up a connection with RPM, and storing it in its session.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising the steps of the data processors named in the metadata XML receiving their respective chunks of XML from the form and validating against it schema.

14. A computer program comprising program code stored on a computer-readable medium, which when executed, enables a computer system to implement the following steps of a method, for generating and processing XForms documents in the system, the system having a client interface, a form repository, a form generator, and a processing servlet for a user comprising the steps of:

a. the user logging into the system via the client interface;

b. the client interface setting up connection with a Rational Protocol Manager (RPM) and storing it in its session;

c. generating a form;

d. the user filling out, and submitting the form;

e. processing the form.

15. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein the user logging into the system step further comprises the steps of the user requesting and relieving a blank form from the form repository of the system.

16. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein data providers are named in metadata XML called to pull data from RPM.

17. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the data providers pull information they need to make the calls to RPM from the client interface'"'"'s session through a generic context adapter.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein system further comprises an RPM'"'"'s web service interface, the method further comprising the steps of the data providers requesting the information they need via RPM'"'"'s web service interface, the data providers packaging the data as XML, and validating the data out of each data provider is validated against its schema, also defined in the metadata XML.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 further comprising the steps of the form generator merging all the data into the blank template form and the form generator returning the form to the client interface and the form generator returning the form to the user.

20. The computer program product of claim 14 further comprising the steps of the user receiving a form and the method further comprising the step of the user saving it to his computer.

21. The computer program product of claim 14 further comprising the steps of the processing servlet receiving the form, pulling the RPM login information from the form, setting up a connection with RPM, and storing it in its session.

22. The computer program product of claim 21 further comprising the steps of the data processors named in the metadata XML receiving their respective chunks of XML from the form and validating against it schema.