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US 8,015,051 B2Granted
System and method for business process integration
AssigneeSap SE
InventorsShuyuan Chen, Kaj Van De Loo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an automated way for a non-technical person to create or modify software functionality in support of a business process without needing expertise in software. According to the invention, an automated matching tool may apply user input expressed semantically to a database of semantic information associated with syntactic information, to match the user input with a service (e.g., an application program) capable of performing a business process step corresponding to the input.
Claims24
An automated method comprising:
- storing, using a computer processor, semantic information in a database, the semantic information being related to steps of business processes and describing the steps of the business processes in natural language expressions, the semantic information including functionality metadata, service metadata and instance descriptor metadata, wherein the functionality metadata provides a semantic context containing various levels of specificity and arranged in a hierarchical structure, the service metadata includes technical aspects relating to services implemented in software applications, and the instance descriptor metadata contains data transformation information relating to a transform of data between software applications and cross-references between the functionality metadata and runtime instances of the services;
- storing, using the computer processor, syntactic information for the services in the database, the syntactic information being cross-referenced to semantic information and related to the software applications each implementing a step of the business processes;
- comparing, by the computer processor, user input relating to business process with the semantic information and syntactic information, and associations therebetween
- on a match between the input and the semantic information, identifying, by the computer processor, corresponding syntactic information based on the associations;
- and
- from the corresponding syntactic information, identifying, by the computer processor, a software application that implements the step of the business process specified in the user input;
- identifying, by the computer processor, the data transformation information corresponding to the identified software application;
- and
- generating, by the computer processor, an integrated sequence of runtime instances of identified software applications to implement the business process by repeating the above comparing, identifying corresponding syntactic information and identifying a software application steps, wherein each runtime instance in the sequence implements a respective step of the business process and communicates with adjacent runtime instances via adapters created based on the identified data transformation information.
6 more elements
A machine-readable medium storing program instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform steps comprising:
- storing, using a computer processor, semantic information in a database, the semantic information being related to steps of business processes and describing the steps of the business processes in natural language expressions, the semantic information including functionality metadata, service metadata and instance descriptor metadata, wherein the functionality metadata provides a semantic context containing various levels of specificity and arranged in a hierarchical structure, the service metadata includes technical aspects relating to services implemented in software, and the instance descriptor metadata contains data transformation information relating to a transform of data between software applications and cross-references between the functionality metadata and runtime instances of the services;
- storing in the database, using the computer processor, syntactic information for the services, the syntactic information being cross-referenced to semantic information and related to the services software applications each implementing a step of the business processes;
- comparing user input relating to a business process with the semantic information and syntactic information, and associations therebetween;
- on a match between the input and the semantic information, identifying corresponding syntactic information based on the associations;
- from the corresponding syntactic information, identifying a software application that implements the step of the business process specified in the user input;
- identifying the data transformation information corresponding to the identified software application;
- and
- generating an integrated sequence of runtime instances of identified software applications to implement the business process by repeating the above comparing, identifying corresponding syntactic information and identifying a software application steps, wherein each runtime instance in the sequence implements to a respective step of the business process and communicates with adjacent runtime instances via adapters created based on the identified data transformation information.
5 more elements
A business process integration system comprising:
- a semantic persistent store including semantic information relating to business processes, the semantic information describing business processes and steps of the business processes in natural language expressions, the semantic information including functionality metadata, service metadata and instance descriptor metadata, wherein the functionality metadata provides a semantic context containing various levels of specificity and arranged in a hierarchical structure, the service metadata includes technical aspects relating to services implemented in software, and the instance descriptor metadata contains data transformation information relating to a transform of data between software applications and cross-references between the functionality metadata and runtime instances of the services;
- a syntactic persistent store including syntactic information, the syntactic information being cross-referenced to semantic information and relating to software applications each implementing a step of the business processes;
- a modeling tool to receive user inputs related to creating or modifying steps for a business process;
- a matching tool to search the semantic persistent store and the syntactic persistent store for software applications to match the user inputs, the matching tool to identify the data transformation information corresponding to matched software applications and to generate an integrated sequence of runtime instances of matched software applications to implement the business process specified by semantic terms of the user inputs, wherein each runtime instance in the sequence implements a respective step of the business process and communicates with adjacent runtime instances via adapters created based on the identified data transformation information;
- and
- a memory and a processor to respectively store and execute instructions to implement the modeling tool and the matching tool.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.