Condition editor for business process management and business activity monitoring

• US 8,732,595 B2
• Filed: 01/18/2007
• Issued: 05/20/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Patrick, Ploesser, Karsten, Gautam, Prashant
• Primary Examiner(s): Shiau, Shen (Connie)
• Application Number:
  US11/655,307
• Publication Number:
  US 20080178092A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,679 Days
• Field of Search: 715/968, 715/967, 715/762, 715/769, 717/102, 717/110, 717/112, 717/127, 717/143
• US Class Current: 715/763
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/33 Intelligent editors
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A system for monitoring processes of a distributed business application an integration builder tool. The integration builder tool includes a condition editor having a user interface providing an editing area on a display in which to receive a text-based expression of one or more conditions of a business application process. The editing area further includes an operator palette providing a plurality of operators for use in the text based expression of each of the one or more conditions, and a toolbar providing one or more editing tools for editing the text-based expressions.

Claims

1. A system for monitoring processes of a distributed business application, the system comprising:

at least one processor;

at least one display screen connected with a computer that hosts an integration builder tool comprising

a condition editor, the condition editor having a user interface,

the user interface comprising an operator palette, an editor view, a condition variable view, a binding view, and a message log view, the editor view providing an editing area on a display in which to receive a text-based expression of one or more conditions related to a workflow of an executing business application process,

the text-based expression including at least one variable, the one or more conditions being associated with respective one or more monitored events in the executing business application process and configured to provide corresponding alerts in the message log view when the respective one or more events are detected, the editing area further including the operator palette providing a plurality of operators for use in the text based expression of each of the one or more conditions, the condition editor displays a pop-up window including a list of all possible values, operators, parenthesis, or operands for insertion at a current cursor position while building the one or more conditions,

a toolbar providing one or more editing tools for editing the text-based expressions to build complex conditions for monitoring the workflow of the business application process,

the at least one variable being defined in the binding view and declared in the condition variable view, the one or more conditions depend on existence of at least one corresponding object within the distributed business application and upon deletion of the at least one object, the one or more conditions corresponding to the at least one object are deleted,

wherein the condition editor highlights the at least one variable as a valid variable if the at least one variable is valid and the condition editor highlights the at least one variable as an invalid variable if the at least one variable is invalid,

the binding view providing binding of values to the at least one variable, wherein a deletion or a modification of at least one variable is not allowed in the binding view,

the condition editor having a functionality to provide at least one comment while writing one or more conditions, wherein the at least one comment is visible at a design time and has no impact at a runtime.

2. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the condition editor further includes a context help function for providing possible context objects for a selected condition, each possible context object being at least one of one or more operators of the one or more conditions, one or more operands of the one or more conditions, and one or more parentheses of the one or more conditions.

3. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the text-based expression of at least one condition includes nested parentheses.

4. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the condition editor further provides a container view in the user interface, the container view displaying one or more container elements, each container element declaring and defining the at least one variable of the text-based expression, the container view including the condition variable view and the binding view.

5. A system in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a condition editor application programming interface providing the condition variable view for defining and configuring the plurality of operators provided in the operator palette.

6. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the condition editor further includes a message log in the user interface to display syntactic and semantic error messages that are generated while a condition is being created in the editing area.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a parser configured to organize the one or more conditions into respective one or more tree-based hierarchical structures defining how the one or more conditions are to be interpreted.

8. A condition editor for creating and deploying conditions for a business process activity monitoring system, the condition editor comprising:

at least one processor;

a computer having a display; and

a user interface generated by the computer, the user interface comprising an operator palette, an editor view, a condition variable view, a binding view, and a message log view, the editor view providing an editing area on the display in which to receive a text-based expression of one or more conditions related to a workflow of an executing business application process,

the one or more conditions being associated with respective one or more monitored events in the executing business application process and configured to provide corresponding alerts in the message log view when the respective one or more events are detected,

at least one text-based expression including at least one operator and at least one variable,

the editing area providing drag-and-drop editing of the text-based expression of the one or more conditions to build complex conditions for monitoring the workflow of the business application process, the user interface displays a pop-up window including a list of all possible values, operators, parenthesis, or operands for insertion at a current cursor position while building the one or more conditions,

the at least one variable being defined in the binding view and declared in the condition variable view, one or more conditions depend on existence of at least one corresponding object within the distributed business application and upon deletion of the at least one object, the one or more conditions corresponding to the at least one object are deleted,

wherein the user interface highlights the at least one variable as a valid variable if the at least one variable is valid and the user interface highlights the at least one variable as an invalid variable if the at least one variable is invalid,

the binding view providing binding of values to the at least one variable, wherein a deletion or a modification of at least one variable is not allowed in the binding view,

wherein the user interface having a functionality to provide at least one comment while writing one or more conditions, wherein the at least one comment is visible at a design time and has no impact at a runtime.

9. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, wherein the operator palette provides a plurality of operators for use in the text based expression of each of the one or more conditions.

10. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, wherein the editing area further includes a toolbar providing one or more editing tools for editing the text-based expressions.

11. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, further comprising a container view in the user interface, the container view displaying one or more container elements, each container element declaring and defining the at least one variable of the text-based expression, the container view including the condition variable view and the binding view.

12. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, further comprising a condition editor application programming interface defining and configuring the plurality of operators provided in the operator palette.

13. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, further comprising a message log in the user interface to display syntactic and semantic error messages that are generated while a condition is being created in the editing area.

14. A condition editor in accordance with claim 8, wherein at least one text-based expression includes nested parentheses.

15. A condition editor for creating and deploying conditions for a business process activity monitoring system, the condition editor comprising:

at least one processor;

a computer having a display;

a user interface generated by the computer, the user interface comprising an editor view, a condition variable view, a binding view, and a message log view,

the editor view providing an editing area on the display in which to receive a text-based expression of one or more conditions related to a workflow of an executing business application process,

the one or more conditions being associated with respective one or more monitored events in the executing business application process and configured to provide corresponding alerts in the message log view when the respective one or more events are detected,

at least one text-based expression including at least one operator and at least one variable, the user interface displays a pop-up window including a list of all possible values, operators, parenthesis, or operands for insertion at a current cursor position while building the one or more conditions,

the at least one variable being defined in the binding view and declared in the condition variable view, the one or more conditions depend on existence of at least one corresponding object within the distributed business application and upon deletion of the at least one object, the one or more conditions corresponding to the at least one object are deleted,

wherein the user interface highlights the at least one variable as a valid variable if the at least one variable is valid and the user interface highlights the at least one variable as an invalid variable if the at least one variable is invalid,

the binding view providing binding of values to the at least one variable, wherein a deletion or a modification of at least one variable is not allowed in the binding view;

wherein the user interface having a functionality to provide at least one comment while writing one or more conditions, wherein the at least one comment is visible at a design time and has no impact at a runtime; and

a parser module adapted to check the semantic correctness of a condition object associated with each condition.

16. A condition editor in accordance with claim 15, wherein the parser module is further adapted to check the syntax, compile the file extension, and check the type of each condition object.

17. A condition editor in accordance with claim 16, further comprising a persistence mechanism to store each condition object on a relational database.

18. A condition editor in accordance with claim 17, further comprising an integration builder tool adapted to use selected condition objects from the persistence mechanism to display the associated condition as the text-based expression in the editing area.