Automated creation and maintenance of programs to process internet form related submissions
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving, through a network, a form authored by a form authoring tool and containing one or more input fields;
parsing, independently of the form authoring tool, the received form to identify the input fields contained in the received form;
providing, independently of the form authoring tool, a graphical user interface to enable selection and configuration of one or more actions to be carried out in response to a subsequent specific submission of the form to a server by a third party, wherein the graphical user interface includes the identified input fields, wherein the selection of the one or more actions is from a group of two or more types of actions, and wherein the configuration of the one or more actions allows for the customization of the behavior of the selected one or more actions and allows for the behavior of the configured actions to be dependent upon the identified input fields or the data input during the specific submission of the form to the server;
automatically generating, independently of the form authoring tool, program code to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions, wherein the program code is external to the form and independent of the form authoring tool;
receiving the specific submission of the form from the third party at the server;
automatically determining whether the generated program code is consistent with the specific submission of the form; and
executing the program code on the server in response to receipt of the specific submission of the form from the third party to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions.
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Abstract
According to one aspect of the present invention, a method is provided in which a form is received from an author. A parsing function is performed to extract attribute information with respect to various form elements contained in the form. A user interface is presented to the author to allow the author to configure a set of actions that are to be performed in processing the submissions of the form.
60 Citations
27 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
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receiving, through a network, a form authored by a form authoring tool and containing one or more input fields; parsing, independently of the form authoring tool, the received form to identify the input fields contained in the received form; providing, independently of the form authoring tool, a graphical user interface to enable selection and configuration of one or more actions to be carried out in response to a subsequent specific submission of the form to a server by a third party, wherein the graphical user interface includes the identified input fields, wherein the selection of the one or more actions is from a group of two or more types of actions, and wherein the configuration of the one or more actions allows for the customization of the behavior of the selected one or more actions and allows for the behavior of the configured actions to be dependent upon the identified input fields or the data input during the specific submission of the form to the server; automatically generating, independently of the form authoring tool, program code to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions, wherein the program code is external to the form and independent of the form authoring tool; receiving the specific submission of the form from the third party at the server; automatically determining whether the generated program code is consistent with the specific submission of the form; and executing the program code on the server in response to receipt of the specific submission of the form from the third party to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A server comprising:
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a communications device connected to a network to receive a form from a client coupled to the network, the form authored by a form authoring tool and containing one or more input fields; a memory coupled to the communications device to store the received form; and a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, provide, independently of the form authoring tool, the functionality of a parser to parse the received form to identify the input fields contained in the received form; a graphical user interface generator to create a graphical user interface including the input fields identified by the parser, and to provide the graphical user interface using the communications device to enable the selection and configuration of one or more actions from a group of two or more types of actions, the one or more actions to be carried out upon subsequent submission of a specific instance of the form to the server by a third party, wherein the specific submission of the form to the server from the third party includes data added by the third party into the input fields, wherein the configuration of the one or more actions allows for the customization of the behavior of the selected one or more actions, and wherein the configured actions are dependent upon the identified input fields or the data input during the specific submission of the form to the server; a code generator to automatically generate program code to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions, wherein the program code is external to the form; a consistency module to automatically determine whether the generated program code is consistent with the specific submission of the form; and a controller to execute the program code on received data from the specific submission of the form. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium containing data representing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
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receiving, through a network, a form authored by a form authoring tool and containing one or more input fields; parsing, independently of the form authoring tool, the received form to identify the input fields contained in the received form; providing, independently of the form authoring tool, a graphical user interface to enable selection and configuration of one or more actions to be carried out in response to a subsequent specific submission of the form to a server by a third party, wherein the graphical user interface includes the identified input fields, wherein the selection of the one or more actions is from a group of two or more types of actions, wherein the configuration of the one or more actions allows for the customization of the behavior of the selected one or more actions and allows for the behavior of the configured actions to be dependent upon the identified input fields or the data input during the specific submission of the form to the server; automatically generating, independently of the form authoring tool, program code to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions, wherein the program code is external to the form and independent of the form authoring tool; receiving the specific submission of the form at the server from the third party; automatically determining whether the generated program code is consistent with the specific submission of the form; and executing the program code on the server in response to receipt of the specific submission of the form from the third party to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. A computer-implemented method comprising:
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receiving, through a network, a form authored by a form authoring tool and containing one or more input fields; parsing, independently of the form authoring tool, the received form to identify the input fields contained in the received form; providing, independently of the form authoring tool, a graphical user interface to enable selection and configuration of one or more actions to be carried out in response to a subsequent specific submission of the form to a server by a third party, wherein the graphical user interface includes the identified input fields, wherein the selection of the one or more actions is from a group of two or more types of actions, wherein the configuration of the one or more actions allows for the customization of the behavior of the selected one or more actions and allows for the behavior of the configured actions to be dependent upon the identified input fields or the data input during the specific submission of the form to the server; automatically generating, independently of the form authoring tool, program code to carry out the one or more selected and configured actions, wherein the program code is external to the form and independent of the form authoring tool; receiving the specific submission of the form from the third party at the server; and automatically determining whether the generated program code is consistent with the specific submission of the form.
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Specification