APPLICATION AGNOSTIC UI INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK FOR WEB BASED APPLICATIONS

• US 20110107266A1
• Filed: 11/03/2009
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Hora, Thomas, Goel, Ankit, Alli, Sunitha, Hegde, Arjun, Mukka, Sunitha
• Granted Patent: US 8,788,946 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/841
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

This disclosure describes, generally, methods and systems for implementing application agnostic UI integration. Aspects of the invention relates to a generic architecture and a framework, which leverage the capabilities of a middleware server and application integration concepts, to support launching a User Interface (UI) of any target application from any source application. The source application can invoke, for example, a HTTP get request or fires a HTTP post to the target application, and the same interaction can take place while returning control back from target application to source application. Additionally, the target application can invoke a service hosted on the source application to return the control back to source application.

Claims

1. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, the method comprising:

a source computer system running a source application configure for, calling a UI servlet to instantiate a target application UI running on a target computer system;

the source computer system configure for passing a set of parameters to the UI servlet;

an application computer system configured for determining an application specific class to be initialized for the target application UI;

the application computer system configured for looking up a configuration XML for the UI servlet to get a class name for the application specific class;

the application computer system configured for using a pre-built factory class to create an object of the application class;

the application computer system configured for getting a URL and parameters for the object; and

the application computer system configured for redirecting the URL and parameters to the target application UI, whereby integrating the target application UI into the source application UI.

2. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 1, wherein a set of parameters comprise a source system name, a target system name, and a module name.

3. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 2, wherein the determining of the application class to be initialized is based, at least in part, on the source system name, the target system name, and the module name.

4. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 1, further comprising returning an invalid input message in response to the URL being invalid.

5. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 1, further comprising looking up cross-reference information to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

6. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 1, further comprising looking up a domain value map to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

7. A method of implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 1, wherein the pre-built class is configure to be reused for subsequent UI integrations.

8. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration, the system comprising:

a source computer system running a source application configure to call a UI servlet to instantiate a target application UI and pass a set of parameters to the UI servlet; and

an application computer system is in communication with the source computer system, the application computer system is configured to determine an application class to be initialized for the target application UI, look up a configuration XML for the UI servlet to get a class name for the application class, use a pre-built class to create an object of the application class, get a URL and parameters of the object, and redirect the URL and parameters to the target application UI, whereby integrating the target application UI into the source application UI.

9. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration as in claim 8, wherein the application computer system comprises a lookup module configured to look up cross-reference information to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

10. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration as in claim 8, wherein the application computer system comprises a lookup module configured to look up a domain value map to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

11. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration as in claim 8, wherein the application computer system is further configured to implement a return servlet to display the target UI within the source UI.

12. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration as in claim 8, further comprising a target computer system configured to implement the target UI.

13. A system for implementing application agnostic UI integration as in claim 12, wherein the target computer system comprises an E-Business system and the source computer system comprises a retail system.

14. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, having sets of instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:

call a UI servlet to instantiate a target application UI running on a target computer system;

pass a set of parameters to the UI servlet;

determine an application class to be initialized for the target application UI;

look up a configuration XML for the UI servlet to get a class name for the application class;

use a pre-built class to create an object of the application class;

get a URL and parameters of the object; and

redirect the URL and parameters to the target application UI, whereby integrating the target application UI into the source application UI.

15. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 14, wherein a set of parameters comprise a source system name, a target system name, and a module name.

16. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 15, wherein the determining of the application class to be initialized is based on, at least in part, on the source system name, the target system name, and the module name.

17. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 14, wherein the sets of instruction when further execute by the machine, cause the machine to return an invalid input message in response to the URL being invalid.

18. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 14, wherein the sets of instruction when further execute by the machine, cause the machine to look up cross-reference information to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

19. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 14, wherein the sets of instruction when further execute by the machine, cause the machine to look up a domain value map to determine request parameters to be initialized for the target application UI.

20. A machine-readable medium for implementing application agnostic UI integration, as in claim 14, wherein the pre-built class is configure to be reused for subsequent UI integration requests.