Dispatching application steps in a client/server environment

A method for dispatching steps (109a/b/c) of at least one application (202a) running on an application server (102c) of a service portal (102b) in a client/server system of a distributed computing environment which can be accessed from client terminals (102a) connected to said service portal (102b), wherein

• users interact with applications (202a/b/c) running on a remote application server (102c) by selecting user interaction elements on their client terminals (102a) with the aid of a client program,
• interactions are then transmitted over a telecommunication network to the application server (102c) executing the main part of an application (202a), and
• the application (202a) creates output that contains the next set of possible user interactions,
• characterized by the step of
• passing binary parameter data when indirectly calling application steps (109a/b/c) from any client terminal (102a) which returns a user-interaction-specific identity number to the system.

A method for dispatching steps (109a/b/c) of at least one application (202a) running on an application server (102c) of a service portal (102b) in a client/server system of a distributed computing environment which can be accessed from client terminals (102a) connected to said service portal (102b), wherein

• users interact with applications (202a/b/c) running on a remote application server (102c) by selecting user interaction elements on their client terminals (102a) with the aid of a client program,
• interactions are then transmitted over a telecommunication network to the application server (102c) where the main part of an application (202a) is executed, and
• the application (202a) creates output that contains the next set of possible user interactions,
• characterized in that
• said method allows step programmers to specify expected subsequent application steps (109b/c) in a symbolic manner.

A service portal for a client/server architecture in a distributed computing environment, in which client terminals (102a) sending user requests (101) to said service portal (102b) are connected to said application server (102c) over a telecommunication network,

• characterized by
• at least one rendering and transcoding component (406) used for applying predefined transformations to the output of steps (109a-i) to allow their presentation on the client terminal (102a) according to the data format requirements of the client terminal (102a),
• at least one session management unit (408) to find out if an application step (109a-i) is still interacting with a certain user and if this interaction is associated with another, already past interaction, and
• at least one request dispatcher (106) used for translating the client-specific format of received user requests (101) into a client-independent format.

Service portal according to claim 9,

• characterized in that
• the request dispatcher (106) is designed to execute the following steps:
• choosing subsequent application steps (109b/c) depending on information about the state of the current session towards the client or user and the request itself, which is stored on a database within the service portal (102b), to determine which next step (109b/c) to invoke,
• calling the appropriate application step (109b), and
• passing the response back to the client terminal (102a).