Extensibility of business logic shared across a business process orchestration engine, a rule engine, and a user interface

A system comprising:

• a server platform including one or more processors for codeless development of an application executing on a server platform in one or more of a business process orchestration (BPO) engine, a rule engine, or a user interface engine;
• one or more actions, each action coded in a reusable block of code, each action having an action definition including an action type name, an input parameters map, and an output parameters map, each action being registered in a registry by an application service registrar, each action registered in the registry being dynamically discoverable;
• and
• a process service coupled to the registry, the process service providing an interface between the application in development and an action service, the process service decoupling the application in development from the one or more actions and allowing the application in development and the one or more actions to be updated and/or changed independent of one another,
• wherein the process service is configured to receive a process ID and an activity ID specified by the application in development to invoke an action registered in the registry, look up the definition of the invoked action based on the process ID and activity ID specified by the application in development, create an execution context, and call an execute method in the action service,
• wherein the action service is configured to discover the invoked action using the application service registrar to perform an action type name look up in the registry, the action service ensuring that a number of arguments included in the action definition matches a number of arguments specified by the action type, and
• wherein the action service is further configured to pass an input to and receive a return value from the invoked action, update the output parameters map included in the definition of the invoked action and return the updated output parameters map to the application in development for updating processing variables in the application in development.

A non-transitory, machine-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to:

• create one or more actions, each action coded in a reusable block of code, each action having an action definition including an action type name, an input parameters map, and an output parameters map;
• use an application service registrar to register each action in a registry on a server platform, each action registered in the registry being dynamically discoverable;
• couple a process service to the registry, the process service providing an interface between an application in development and an action service, the application in development executing on a server platform in one or more of a business process orchestration (BPO) engine, a rule engine, or a user interface engine, the process service decoupling the application in development from the one or more actions and allowing the application in development and the one or more actions to be updated and/or changed independent of one another;
• and
• invoke, by the application in development, one of the actions in the registry,
• the invoking occurring by:
• delegating the invoking of the action to the process service, the process service looking up the definition of the invoked action based on a process identification (ID) and an activity ID specified by the application in development, the process service creating an execution context and calling an execute method in the action service,
• wherein the action service discovers the invoked action using the application service registrar to perform an action type name look up in the registry, the action service ensuring that a number of arguments included in the action definition matches a number of arguments specified by the action type, and
• wherein the action service passes an input to and receives a return value from the action, updates the output parameters map included in the definition of the invoked action, and returns the updated output parameters map to the application in development for updating processing variables in the application in development.