Data structures for context information related to business events

• US 7,954,111 B2
• Filed: 12/28/2006
• Issued: 05/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Waguet, Cyrille
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho; Andy
• Application Number:
  US11/648,430
• Publication Number:
  US 20080162565A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,615 Days
• Field of Search: 719/318, 719/330
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/544 Remote
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, related to data structures for context information related to business events. Data characterizing an event of one or more business processes (e.g., an event corresponding to a business activity in one or more computer-implemented business processes) is received, and a data structure is generated to enable event resolution. The data structure is generated in response to receiving the data and the data structure includes information about the event derived from the data and information to assist retrieving further information related to the event. The data structure may be defined in accordance with a declarative programming language. A business process to include events that are resolved with the use of a data structure including context information and a data structure (e.g., a designtime data structure) may be modeled in a visual modeling tool.

Claims

1. A computer-program product embodied on tangible media, the computer program product operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

receiving, by a first software component, data characterizing an event, the event comprising at least part of one or more business processes, resolving of the event requiring at least one resolution action to be performed by a second software component external to the first software component;

deriving, from the received data, context information about the event, the context information comprising a location of additional data required for resolving the event;

generating, at run time in response to the receiving of the data characterizing the event, a data structure to serve as a central source for resolving the event, the data structure comprising;

the derived context information and performance indicators for receiving performance data relating to resolution of the event; and

sending, to the second software component, a link to the data structure for use in resolving the event.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

generating the event in response to user interaction with a user interface from which a user is enabled to gain services of a business process.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the event relates to an orchestration of a web service in accordance with a business process, the business process being described in a messaging protocol for business processes and implemented in accordance with the messaging protocol.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

modeling a business process and the data structure in a visual modeling tool; and

generating a runtime implementation of the business process that is one of the business processes.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

receiving a relationship defined in accordance with an ontology; and

modifying the data structure to include the relationship.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

selectively generating an alert if rules of any of the business processes specify the alert is to be generated in response to the event.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein:

the data structure further comprises an event resolution procedure, and

the computer program product is operable to perform further operations comprising;

determining whether the event resolution procedure prescribes event resolution for the event, and

initiating the event resolution procedure if the event resolution procedure prescribes event resolution for the event.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

selecting a designtime data structure from a plurality of designtime data structures, the designtime data structure to be used to generate the data structure and the selecting depending on the data characterizing the event.

9. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the information to assist retrieving further information related to the event comprises at least one of a reference to the further information at an information source or a procedure describing how to gather the further information.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product is operable to perform further operations comprising collecting the performance data relating to resolution of the event to populate the performance indicator parameters.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 operable to perform further operations comprising:

computing a average performance indicator parameter value based on the performance data collected and used to populate the performance indicator parameters of the data structure and other performance data relating to at least one other event and stored in at least one other data structure.

12. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

initiating event resolution, the event resolution to reference the data structure for information about the event.

13. The computer program product of claim 1 operable to perform further operations comprising:

computing a relevance of the event, the computing comprising determining an association between the event and the one or more business processes, the association being defined by at least one of a business process language, a business rule, and a guided procedure.

14. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the performance indicator parameters comprises a time required to resolve the event.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a first software component at a processing system comprising at least one programmable processor, data characterizing an event, the event corresponding to a business activity in one or more computer-implemented business processes, resolving of the event requiring at least one resolution action to be performed by a second software component external to the first software component;

deriving, from the received data, context information about the event, the context information comprising a location of additional data required for resolving the event;

generating, at run time in response to the receiving of the data characterizing the event, a data structure to serve as a central source for resolving the event, the data structure being defined in accordance with a declarative programming language and the data structure comprising;

the derived context information and performance indicators for receiving performance data relating to resolution of the event; and

sending, to the second software component, a link to the data structure for use in resolving the event.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

modeling a business process and the data structure in a visual modeling tool; and

generating a runtime instance of the business process being one of the computer-implemented business processes.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

receiving a relationship defined in accordance with an ontology; and

modifying the data structure to include the relationship.