METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR COMBINING PROPERTIES AND METHODS FROM A PLURALITY OF DIFFERENT DATA SOURCES

• US 20070130162A1
• Filed: 11/02/2006
• Published: 06/07/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nintex USA LLC (The Nintex Group Pty Limited)
• Original Assignee: SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. (Nintex Global Ltd.)
• Inventors: du Toit, Wynand, de Jager, Schalk, Raath, Natachya, Janson, Pieter, Fourie, Ben, le Roux, Lenz, Wagner, Olaf, van Wyk, Adriaan
• Granted Patent: US 8,239,226 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

The disclosed system empowers technical and non technical users to author logical business objects, author intelligent business forms, and create automated workflows. The logical business objects include data definitions and methods from existing and new data sources. An object broker interprets the business object definition and brokers data/information and method calls to the data sources. The intelligent business forms are created by an information worker in a rich web-based tooling environment. Each form is intelligent enough to recognize other forms that it might co-exist with on a single page, as well as how to react based on events that occur on these related forms. The automated workflow tools include process discovery features that assist users during the process identification phase. The tools assist both technical and non technical users to identify processes within the organization, including supporting solution artifacts such as forms, rules, actions, outcomes and business objects involved. Process modeling features include the ability to combine defined artifacts into a process model that can be published into a runtime environment where it can be executed and used by business users in the organization.

Claims

1. A method of combining properties and methods from a plurality of different database systems, the method comprising:

executing a first broker service to interact with a first data source using a first protocol to generate a first business object, the first business object including a first property and a first method, the first business object being in a declarative format;

executing a second broker service to interact with a second data source using a second protocol to generate a second business object, the first protocol being different than the second protocol, the second business object including a second property and a second method, the second business object being in the declarative format; and

storing a combined business object including the first property, the first method, the second property, and the second method, the combined business object being in the declarative format.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first data source and the first protocol are associated with a first legacy system, and the second data source and the second protocol are associated with a second legacy system, the first legacy system being different than the second legacy system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the declarative format includes an Extensible Markup Language (XML).

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first broker service and the second broker service include a first software program executing on at least a first server, the first data source includes a second different software program executing on at least a second different server, and the second data source includes a third different software program executing on at least a third different server.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the first broker service and the second broker service communicate with the first data source and the second data source via the Internet.

6. The method of claim 1, including:

retrieving a first data field from the first data source using the first protocol;

retrieving a second data field from the second data source using the second protocol;

providing a graphical user interface where the first data field and the second data field are to be combined in an electronic form;

allowing a third data field to be added to the form through the graphical user interface; and

storing data indicative of the third field in a third data source, the third data source having a third protocol, the third protocol being different than the first protocol, the third protocol being different than the second protocol.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein storing the data indicative of the third field in the third data source includes storing the data indicative of the third field in the declarative format.

8. The method of claim 1, including storing a function associated with the combined business object, the method comprising:

receiving a definition of the function via a graphical user interface, wherein at least one parameter in the function is defined by selecting a graphical representation of the parameter, the graphical representation of the parameter being associated with a graphical representation of the combined business object;

generating a structure portion based on the received definition of the function, the structure portion defining the function;

generating a user interface portion associated with the structure portion, the user interface portion defining a user interface to be used to test the function;

combining the structure portion and the user interface portion to form a function snippet; and

storing the function snippet in a computer readable medium.

9. The method of claim 1, including modifying the combined business object based on a role associated with a user.

10. The method of claim 9, including:

retrieving the role associated with the user;

retrieving data indicative of a plurality of authorized properties associated with the role and a plurality of authorized methods associated with the role; and

generating a reduced object definition based on a full object definition and the data indicative of the plurality of authorized properties and authorized methods.

11. The method of claim 1, including updating a plurality of data fields in an electronic form associated with the combined business object by:

detecting an event associated with an update at a client device;

sending a method call from the client device to the first broker service in response to detecting the event, the method call using a third protocol; and

receiving data from the first broker service using the third protocol, the third protocol being different than the first protocol, the third protocol being different than the second protocol.

12. The method of claim 1, including designing a workflow process to use the combined business object by:

placing a first object and a second object on a first computer based design canvas to create a resource map, the first object being indicative of a first business resource, the second object being indicative of a second different business resource;

connecting the first object to the second object with an arrow, the arrow being indicative of the workflow process;

associating a second computer based design canvas with the arrow; and

placing a plurality of objects on the second computer based design canvas to create a process map, each object in the plurality of objects being indicative of a step in the workflow process.

13. The method of claim 1, including designing a workflow process to use the combined business object by:

placing a first object and a second object on a first computer based design canvas to create a process map, the first object being indicative of a first process step, the second object being indicative of a second process step;

connecting the first object to the second object with an arrow, the arrow being indicative of a progression from the first process step to the second process step; and

creating a third object and a fourth object, the third object and the fourth object each being indicative of the first process step, the first object representing a parent object, the third object representing a first child object to the parent object, the fourth object representing a second different child object to the parent object, wherein the parent object includes a plurality of global properties and the first child object inherits a subset of the global properties.

14. The method of claim 1, including designing a workflow process to use the combined business object by:

placing a plurality of objects on a computer based design canvas at a first client device to create a workflow representation;

sharing at least a portion of the workflow representation with a second different client device via a network;

exchanging messages associated with the portion of the workflow representation between the first client device and the second client device; and

storing data indicative of the messages in association with storing data indicative of the workflow representation.

15. The method of claim 1, including displaying a setup sequence associated with the combined business object by:

displaying a plurality of thumbnail images in a first area of a display, each of the thumbnail images representing a step in the setup sequence;

displaying a full image in a second area of the display, the full image representing one of the steps in the setup sequence;

detecting a first event associated with a thumbnail image in the plurality of thumbnail images; and

displaying a popup image in response to detecting the first event, the popup image being a larger version of the thumbnail image associated with the first event.

16. The method of claim 1, including displaying a setup sequence associated with the combined business object by:

displaying a graphical object indicative of a step in a workflow process that uses the combined business object;

detecting an event associated with the graphical object;

displaying an animation of the graphical object rotating in three dimensions in response to detecting the event associated with the graphical object;

displaying a setup sequence associated with the step in the workflow process; and

receiving configuration parameters associated with the step in the workflow process.

17. A computer readable medium storing instructions for combining properties and methods from a plurality of different database systems, the instructions to cause a computing device to:

execute a first broker service to interact with a first data source using a first protocol to generate a first business object, the first business object including a first property and a first method, the first business object being in a declarative format;

execute a second broker service to interact with a second data source using a second protocol to generate a second business object, the first protocol being different than the second protocol, the second business object including a second property and a second method, the second business object being in the declarative format; and

store a combined business object including the first property, the first method, the second property, and the second method, the combined business object being in the declarative format.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the declarative format includes an Extensible Markup Language (XML).

19. A computing device for combining properties and methods from a plurality of different database systems, the computing device:

executing a first broker service to interact with a first data source using a first protocol to generate a first business object, the first business object including a first property and a first method, the first business object being in a declarative format;

executing a second broker service to interact with a second data source using a second protocol to generate a second business object, the first protocol being different than the second protocol, the second business object including a second property and a second method, the second business object being in the declarative format; and

storing a combined business object including the first property, the first method, the second property, and the second method, the combined business object being in the declarative format.

20. The computing device of claim 19, wherein the declarative format includes an Extensible Markup Language (XML).