Session table framework

• US 8,650,202 B2
• Filed: 08/11/2011
• Issued: 02/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Uzzaman, Ashik, Duff, John, Gurudatha, Manu
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin, Jean B
• Application Number:
  US13/208,206
• Publication Number:
  US 20120191735A1
• Time in Patent Office: 915 Days
• Field of Search: 707/756, 707/769, 707/770, 707/791, 707/792, 707/793, 707/802, 709/227, 717/168, 717/169, 717/170
• US Class Current: 707/756
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/211 Schema design and management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/215 Improving data quality; Data cleansing, e.g. de-duplication, removing invalid entries or correcting typographical errors
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70

Abstract

In accordance with embodiments disclosed herein, there are provided methods, systems, and apparatuses for implementing a session table framework including, for example, receiving a request at a host organization from a client device, in which such a request specifies an application available via the host organization; generating a user session unique to the client device in a memory of the host organization; creating a user session data table within the user session; processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device; updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request; and transmitting a response to the client device responsive to the request.

Claims

1. A method in a host organization, the method comprising:

receiving a request at the host organization from a client device, the request specifying an application available via the host organization;

generating, via an application extender, a user session unique to the client device in a memory of the host organization;

creating, via the application extender, a user session data table within the user session of the memory;

processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device;

updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request;

transmitting a response to the client device responsive to the request;

wherein creating the user session data table comprises creating the user session data table based on metadata associated with the application specified by the request;

wherein the metadata defines a structure for the user session data table based upon which the user session data table is created;

wherein the metadata further defines a plurality of controls, each control specifying display logic for one or more of the plurality of data elements; and

wherein transmitting the response to the client device responsive to the request comprises generating a renderable User Interface (UI), via a UI rendering program extension, based on the update user session data table by;

(a) incorporating each of the plurality of controls defined by the metadata into the renderable UI, (b) incorporating, for each of the plurality of controls, the display logic specified by each control into the renderable UI, and (c) incorporating each of the plurality of data elements into the renderable UI based on the display logic specified by each control, wherein each if the plurality if data elements are retrieved from the updated user session data table.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

populating data into the user session data table based on metadata associated with the application specified by the request, wherein the metadata specifies a generic set of columns or data fields for use with the application specified by the request and further wherein the metadata specifies a subset of the generic set of columns or data fields to be used for handling the request.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein populating the data into the user session data table based on the metadata associated with the application comprises one of:

retrieving the metadata from a repository separate from the application specified by the request, the repository having previously stored the metadata for later retrieval;

soliciting the metadata from the application by referencing an Application Programming Interface (API) of the application to request the metadata;

deriving the metadata from the received request by systematically parsing a plurality of quantifiable data elements, data fields, columns, and/or name=value pairs from the received request; and

probing the application specified by the request to yield application information to parse for quantifiable data elements, data fields, columns, and/or name=value pairs from output from the application responsive to the probe.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the response to the client device responsive to the request comprises:

generating a renderable User Interface (UI) based on the updated user session data table; and

transmitting the renderable UI to the client device for display, responsive to receiving the request.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the application specified by the request comprises a legacy application executing within the host organization, the legacy application having source code which is unavailable for modification or unsupported for modification.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the application specified by the request comprises a third party application for which source code is proprietary and unavailable for modification or for which the source code is restricted from modification due to licensing terms for the application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the application specified by the request comprises a stateless application which maintains no state specific information regarding the client device between a plurality of interactions between the application and the client device;

and

wherein the user session data table within the user session of the memory stores data uniquely associated with the client device between the plurality of interactions with the client device on behalf of the stateless application.

8. The method of claim 1:

wherein the application supports a first data set on behalf of the client device, and wherein the application extender implements support for a second data set on behalf of the client device, different than and complementary to the first data set; and

wherein the application lacks support for the second data set.

9. The method of claim 1:

wherein the application comprises a proprietary black box application supporting an enumerated set of inputs and yielding an enumerated set of outputs responsive to the enumerated set of inputs;

wherein the implementing logic of the proprietary black box application to yield the enumerated set of outputs is not available for modification; and

wherein the method further comprises the application extender applying further processing to the enumerated set of outputs yielded from the proprietary black box application.

10. The method of claim 1:

wherein the metadata defines a mapping between a plurality of data elements and a plurality of corresponding target locations within the structure defined by the metadata; and

wherein the method further comprises populating data into the user session data table by storing each of the plurality of data elements into one or more rows of the user session data table based on the mapping defined by the metadata.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein a table population program extension operates to populate the user session data table by storing each of the plurality of data elements into the one or more rows of the user session data table based on a mapping defined by the metadata.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the client device displaying the renderable UI via a display device communicatively interfaced with the client device, wherein displaying the renderable UI comprises rendering display elements at the client device corresponding to the plurality of controls incorporated into the renderable UI transmitted to the client device by the host organization and each of the plurality of data elements incorporated into the renderable UI in accordance with the plurality of controls.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of controls incorporated into the renderable UI define at least one event selected from the group of events comprising:

a read event specifying a source location from which to read data to be displayed via the renderable UI;

a display only event specifying that data displayed is not updateable by the client device via the renderable UI; and

an input text event designating input received from a rendered field at the client device as update data for a UI entry field and further designating a target location in the user session data table in which to store the update data.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a second request from the client device responsive to the response transmitted to the client device, wherein the second request includes update data from the client device;

validating the update data against one or more cells within the user session data table which are updateable by the client device;

updating the one or more cells within the user session data table with the update data from the client device based on the validation; and

processing the second request via the application on behalf of the client device using the update data in the user session data table

15. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device comprises the application extender to perform one of the following operations:

a) submitting the received request in an unmodified form to the application on behalf of the client device and receiving output from the application responsive to the submitted request;

b) generating an intermediate request based on the received request, submitting the intermediate request to the application on behalf of the client device, and capturing output from the application responsive to the submitted intermediate request;

c) submitting a plurality of Application Programming Interface (API) requests to the application on behalf of the client device to fulfill operations solicited by the request received from the client device, and capturing output from the application responsive to the plurality of API requests; and

wherein the client device and the application operate agnostic to existence of the application extender.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the response to the client device responsive to the request comprises generating a renderable UI designating one or more cells within the renderable UI as UI entry fields, each UI entry field corresponding to a cell within the user session data table which is updatable based on input from the client device;

and

wherein the method further comprises;

receiving a second request from the client device having update data therein;

updating one or more cells within the user session data table based on the update data from the client device when the one or more cells are designated as UI entry fields; and

invalidating any update data within the second request from the client device which is outside the one or more designated UI entry fields.

17. The method of claim 1:

wherein receiving the request comprises receiving the request at the host organization having a multi-tenant database system operating therein; and

wherein the request is one of a plurality of requests received from a plurality of customer organizations, wherein each customer organization is an entity selected from the group consisting of;

a separate and distinct remote organization, an organizational group within the host organization, a business partner of the host organization, or a customer organization that subscribes to cloud computing services provided by the host organization.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the multi-tenant database system comprises elements of hardware and software that are shared by a plurality of separate and distinct customer organizations, each of the separate and distinct customer organizations being remotely located from the host organization having the multi-tenant database system operating therein.

19. A method in a host organization, the method comprising:

receiving a request at the host organization from a client device, the request specifying an application available via the host organization;

generating, via an application extender, a user session unique to the device in a memory of the host organization;

creating, via the application extender, a user session data table within the user session of the memory;

processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device;

updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request;

transmitting a response to the client device responsive to the request;

wherein creating the user session data table comprises the user session data table based on metadata associated with the application specified by the request;

wherein the metadata defines a structure for the user session data table based upon which the user session data table is created;

wherein a mapping of the metadata defines data persistence between one or more cells in the user session data table and a corresponding one or more data persistence locations in a database of the host organization; and

wherein the method further comprises a data persistence program extension synchronizing data within the one or more cells in the user session data table with the corresponding one or more data persistence locations in the database system of the host organization based on the mapping to persist the data in the one or more cells beyond the existence of the generated user session unique to the client device in the memory of the host organization on behalf of the client device.

20. A method in a host organization, the method comprising:

receiving a request at the host organization from a client device, the request specifying an application available via the host organization;

generating, via an application extender, a user session unique to the client device in a memory of the host organization;

creating, via the application extender, a user session data table within the user session of the memory;

processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device;

updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request;

transmitting a respond to the client device responsive to the request;

wherein updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request comprises one or more of the following operations;

modifying one or more cells in the user session data table based on output received from the application, the one or more cells being modified based on a portion of the output representing a change to existing data cells of the user session data table;

adding one or more columns to the user session data table based on the output received from the application, the one or more columns being added based on a portion of the output corresponding to one or more fields previously unrepresented by the user session data table; and

adding one or more rows to the user session data table based on the output received from the application, the one or more rows being added based on a portion of the output corresponding to one or more elements previously unrepresented by data in one or more existing columns within the user session data table.

21. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor in a host organization, the instructions caused the host organization to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request at the host organization from a client device, the request specifying an application available via the host organization;

generating, via an application extender, a user session unique to the client device in a memory of the host organization;

creating, via the application extender, a user session data table within the user session of the memory;

processing the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device;

updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request;

transmitting a response to the client device responsive to the request;

wherein updating the user session data table based on the processing of the request comprises one or more of the following operations;

modifying one or more cells in the user session data table based on output received from the application, the one or more cells being modified based on a portion of the output representing a change to existing data cells of the user session data table;

adding one or more columns to the user session data table based on the output received from the application, the one or more columns being added based on apportion of the output corresponding to one or more fields previously unrepresented by the user session data table; and

adding one or more rows to the user session data table based on the output received from the application, the one or more rows being added based on apportion of the output corresponding to one or more elements previously unrepresented by a data in one or more existing columns within the user session data table.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage media of claim 21:

wherein one or more cells within the user session data table are updateable by the client device; and

wherein the instructions cause the processor to perform further operations comprise;

receiving, from the client device, a second request specifying the same application as specified by the first request, the second request having update data therein;

validating the update data against the one or more cells within the user session data table which are updateable by the client device; and

updating the one or more cells within the user session data table with the update data from the client device based on the validation.

23. A system comprising:

a processor to execute instructions;

a request interface to receive a request from a client device, the request specifying an application communicably interfaced to the system;

a memory to store a user session unique to the client device on behalf of the client device;

a table creation program extension of an application extender to generate a user session data table within the user session of the memory based on metadata associated with the application specified by the request, wherein the metadata specifies a generic set of columns or data fields for use with the application specified by the request;

a table population program extension of the application extender to populate data into the user session data table based on the metadata associated with the application specified by the request;

a User Interface (UI) rendering program extension of the application extender to generate a renderable User Interface (UI) based on the metadata associated with the application specified by the request and based further on the data in the user session data table;

wherein the application extender to process the request via the application specified by the request on behalf of the client device and to further cause the table population program extension to update the user session data table based on output received from the application; and

wherein the application extender comprises a data persistence program extension to;

(a) synchronize data within one or more cell of the user session data table with a corresponding one or more data persistence location in a database and (b) synchronize update data within the one or more cell in the user session data table with the corresponding one or more data persistence location when the one or more cells in the user session data table are updated responsive to update data received within a second request received from the client device.

24. The system of claim 23, further comprising a web-server;

wherein the web-server is to implement the request interface to receive the request from the client device; and

wherein the web-server to further transmit the renderable UI to the client device for display,

responsive to the request having been received at the request interface of the web-server.