Monitoring and control of business processes and scenarios

A system comprising:

• at least one programmable processor;
• and
• a machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one programmable processor to perform operations comprising:
• identifying a business process or business scenario relating to a reference business object within a business software system used by an organization and a specific instance of the business process or business scenario to which a specific instance of the reference business object belongs, the specific instance of the reference business object underlying a workspace user interface element currently displayed to a user via a user interface, the identity of the specific instance of the reference business object comprising a unique key value assigned to the specific instance of the business object and a business object type, the business process or business scenario comprising a plurality of business process features required for completion of the business process or business scenario, each of the business process features having one or more business objects associated with that business process feature;
• retrieving instances of other business objects that are related to the identified specific instance of the business process, the retrieving comprising determining the business process or scenario to which the business object type is linked by a modeling framework, identifying the plurality of business process features of the business process or scenario to which the business object type is linked based on a definition of the business process or scenario, identifying one or more business object instances associated with each of the plurality of business process features for a specific instance of the business process or scenario to which the specific instance of the reference business object belongs;
• calculating a status of the business process features in the specific instance of the business process or business scenario, the calculating comprising applying a set of rules to at least one of a) data extracted from the identified one or more business object instances associated with each business process feature for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario and b) header information directly queried via header information of the identified one or more business object instances associated with each business process feature for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario;
• and
• displaying, in a navigation pane of a user interface, a plurality of first user interface elements illustrating a sequence of the plurality of business process features required for completion of the specific instance of business process or business scenario and the calculated status of one or more of the plurality of business process features for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario.

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• identifying a business process or business scenario relating to a reference business object within a business software system used by an organization and a specific instance of the business process or business scenario to which a specific instance of the reference business object belongs, the specific instance of the reference business object underlying a workspace user interface element currently displayed to a user via a user interface, the identity of the specific instance of the reference business object comprising a unique key value assigned to the specific instance of the business object and a business object type, the business process or business scenario comprising a plurality of business process features required for completion of the business process or business scenario, each of the business process features having one or more business objects associated with that business process feature;
• retrieving instances of other business objects that are related to the identified specific instance of the business process, the retrieving comprising determining the business process or scenario to which the business object type is linked by a modeling framework, identifying the plurality of business process features of the business process or scenario to which the business object type is linked based on a definition of the business process or scenario, identifying one or more business object instances associated with each of the plurality of business process features for a specific instance of the business process or scenario to which the specific instance of the reference business object belongs;
• calculating a status of the business process features in the specific instance of the business process or business scenario, the calculating comprising applying a set of rules to at least one of a) data extracted from the identified one or more business object instances associated with each business process feature for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario and b) header information directly queried via header information of the identified one or more business object instances associated with each business process feature for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario;
• and
• displaying, in a navigation pane of a user interface, a plurality of first user interface elements illustrating a sequence of the plurality of business process features required for completion of the specific instance of business process or business scenario and the calculated status of one or more of the plurality of business process features for the specific instance of the business process or business scenario;
• wherein the identifying, the retrieving, the calculating, and the displaying are performed by at least one programmable processor.