Schematization of establishing relationships between applications

• US 7,693,861 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2005
• Issued: 04/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hilpert, Wolfgang Werner, Mital, Vijay
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong; Cam Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chau; Dung K
• Application Number:
  US11/167,969
• Publication Number:
  US 20060294197A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,743 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/726
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis

Abstract

Establishing relationships between one or more entities of a first application and one or more entities of a second application using metadata. At least one entity of the second application is identified for establishing a relationship with at least one entity of the first application. Metadata from the second application is received at the first application. The metadata includes information associated with the identified entity of the second application. An expression is generated, based on the metadata, specifying a relationship between the entity of the first application with the identified entity of the second application.

Claims

1. A computerized method of establishing relationships between one or more entities of a workflow application and one or more entities of a customer relationship management (CRM) application, said computerized method comprising:

receiving a request from a user input for designing a workflow process to perform an action on an entity of the workflow application, said workflow process defining a hierarchical structure for processing the entity, said workflow application being executable by a processor, said CRM application being executable by another processor, said workflow application lacking prior knowledge for interacting with the one or more entities of the CRM application;

identifying at least one entity of the CRM application for establishing a relationship with the entity of the workflow application in response to the workflow process in the received request;

generating, at the CRM application, metadata from non-hierarchical CRM application information associated with the at least one identified entity of the CRM application, wherein the generated metadata defines an interaction structure that fits the at least one identified entity of the CRM application to the defined hierarchical structure of the workflow application for processing the entity in the workflow process based on the metadata without specifying a specific workflow expression for processing the workflow process, said interaction structure including at least the following information;

role access permission, role access privileges, role type, role limitations, role-to-role relationships, business role information, business entity information, information pertaining to a business entity hierarchy, and information pertaining to a relationship graph;

receiving, at the workflow application, the generated metadata from the CRM application; and

dynamically generating, based on the generated metadata, a workflow expression for the user to be processed in the workflow process between the entity of the workflow application and the identified entity of the CRM application to perform the action, said generating comprising identifying the business role information and the business entity information of the identified entity of the CRM application and associating the identified information with the entity of the workflow application.

2. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes information relating to relationships among the one or more entities of the CRM application.

3. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein the generated workflow expression includes one or more limitations imposed on at least one of the relationships among the one or more entities of the CRM application.

4. The computerized method of claim 3 further comprising applying the one or more limitations associated with specified relationship in the generated workflow expression such that the one or more entities of the CRM application are correlated to the one or more entities of the workflow application.

5. The computerized method of claim 1 further comprising receiving a user input for defining new relationships between the one or more entities of the workflow application and one or more entities of the CRM application based on the obtained metadata.

6. The computerized method of claim 1 wherein one or more computer-readable media include computer-executable instructions for performing the computerized method recited in claim 1.

7. A system of establishing relationships between one or more entities of a first application and one or more entities of a second application, said system comprising:

a memory;

the first application, said first application being a workflow application;

the second application, said second application being a customer relationship management (CRM) application;

an interface for receiving a request from a user input for designing a workflow process to perform an action on an entity of the first application, said workflow process defining a hierarchical structure for processing the entity, said first application lacking prior knowledge for interacting with the one or more entities of the second application;

a processor for executing computer-executable instructions for;

identifying the one or more entities of the second application for establishing a relationship with the one or more entities of the first application in response to the workflow process in the received request;

generating, at the second application, metadata from non-hierarchical second application information associated with the one or more identified entities of the second application, wherein the generated metadata defines an interaction structure that fits the at least one identified entity of the second application to the defined hierarchical structure of the first application for processing the entity of the workflow process based on the metadata without specifying a specific workflow expression for processing the workflow process, said metadata including information relating to at least one of the following associated with one or more entities of the second application;

business role information and business entity information;

wherein the interface receives the generated metadata for the first application from the second application; and

wherein the processor dynamically generates, based on the generated metadata, a workflow expression for the user to be processed in the workflow process between the one or more entity of the first application and the one or more identified entities of the second application to perform the action, wherein the processor identifies the business role information and the business entity information of the identified entity of the CRM application and associating the identified information with the entity of the workflow application.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the processor is configured to identify the business role information and business entity information of the one of the entities of the second application and associating the identified information with the entity in the first application for generating the workflow expression.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the generated workflow expression includes one or more limitations imposed on at least one of the relationships among the one or more entities of the second application.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the processor is configured to apply the one or more limitations associated with specified relationship in the generated expression such that the one or more entities of the second application are correlated to the one or more entities of the first application.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein the metadata includes information specifying relationships among the one or more entities of the second application.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein the interface further receives a user input for defining new relationships between the one or more entities of the first application and the one or more entities of the second application based on the obtained metadata.

13. The system of claim 7 wherein the first application is a workflow management application specifying one or more tasks and wherein the second application includes one or more entities indicating performance of the one or more specified tasks.

14. A computer storage medium having stored thereon a data structure for establishing relationships between one or more entities of a first application and one or more entities of a second application, said first application being a workflow application, said second application being a customer relationship management (CRM) application, said computer storage medium comprising:

a first data field including metadata, said metadata being generated, by the second application, from non-hierarchical CRM application information associated with the one or more entities of the second application, wherein the generated metadata defines an interaction structure that fits the one or more entities of the second application into a hierarchical structure of the one or more entities of the first application for processing the one or more entities of the first application in a workflow process based on the metadata without specifying a specific workflow expression for processing the workflow process, said first application lacking prior knowledge for interacting with the one or more entities of the second application, said metadata in the first data field includes information relating to at least one of the following associated with the one or more entities of the second application;

business role information, and business entity information; and

a second data field including metadata representing an expression, based on the generated metadata by the second application, to be processed in the workflow process specifying a relationship associating one or more entities of the first application with the one or more entities of the second application based on the metadata of said first data field, said specified relationship in the expression defining a proper role to perform an action on an entity of the first application such that a user can use the generated expression to interact with the second application, said represented expression identifying the business role information and the business entity information of the identified entity of the CRM application and associating the identified information with the entity of the workflow application.

15. The computer storage medium of claim 14 wherein the metadata in the first data field includes information relating to relationships among the one or more entities of the second application, and wherein the expression in the second data field includes one or more limitations imposed on at least one relationships among the one or more entities of the first application.