Method, system and program product for preserving a user state in an application

• US 7,472,190 B2
• Filed: 10/17/2003
• Issued: 12/30/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Robinson, Gerald R.
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, VIET DUY
• Application Number:
  US10/688,038
• Publication Number:
  US 20050086323A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,901 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217, 709/219, 709/223, 709/224, 709/225, 709/227, 707/10
• US Class Current: 709/225
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms

Abstract

Under the present invention, milestones or points of closure are provided at predetermined locations within a workflow of an application. Typically, the milestones are provided at completion points of tasks in the workflow. To this extent, as the user proceeds through the workflow, he/she is associated with the milestones corresponding thereto. The associations are stored (optionally with any corresponding data) in a persistent storage. In the event of a failure, the milestone associations are used to transport the user back to the last milestone with which he/she was associated.

Claims

1. A method for preserving a user state in a single application used to process transactions to a plurality of users in a stateless online environment, comprising:

providing milestones at predetermined locations in the application within a workflow of the application, the application having a series of executable workflow processes and being loaded on a server, each milestone comprising a checkpoint in the runtime execution of the application;

associating a user with a particular milestone; and

automatically transporting the user to the particular milestone when the user logs into the application following an interruption in execution of the application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the associating step comprises associating the user with a particular milestone based on a user identification.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording the association of the user with the particular milestone in a persistent storage on the server to preserve the user state.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising recording data corresponding to the particular milestone in the persistent storage.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined locations correspond to tasks in the workflow.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the associating step is performed in response to completion by the user of a task in the workflow corresponding to the particular workflow.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising deleting all associations upon completion of the workflow by the user, wherein the application is a web application.