Declarative data binding and data type propagation in a remote workflow schedule authoring system

A computer-implemented method for binding a parameter in a workflow action rule to a data value, the method comprising:

• providing a user interface through which a data source to which the parameter in the workflow action rule should be bound may be selected;
• receiving a selection through the user interface of a selected data source to which the parameter in the workflow action rule should be bound;
• determining whether the selected data source has a data type that is identical to a data type for the parameter in the workflow action rule;
• in response to determining that the selected data source has a data type that is identical to a data type for the parameter in the workflow action rule, performing an internal lookup operation at a runtime of the workflow action rule to retrieve the data value from the data source for the parameter in the workflow action rule;
• determining whether the selected data source has a data type that is compatible with the data type for the parameter;
• in response to determining that the selected data source has a data type that is compatible with the data type for the parameter, converting the data type of the selected data source to the data type of the parameter;
• and
• in response to determining that the selected data source has a data type that is not identical to the data type for the parameter, converting the data type of the selected data source to the data type of the parameter at the runtime of the workflow action rule.

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

• generate and display a user interface for binding a workflow parameter to a data value in a workflow action rule, the user interface comprising a user interface control for selecting a data source to which the workflow parameter should be bound and a user interface control for selecting a data field of the data source to which the workflow parameter should be bound, wherein the user interface control for selecting a data source to which the workflow parameter should be bound is filtered to thereby display only data sources having a data type that is compatible with the data type of the workflow parameter and wherein the user interface control for selecting a data field of the data source to which the workflow parameter should be found is filtered to display only data sources having a data type that is compatible with the data type of the workflow parameter;
• bind the workflow parameter to the data source and data field based upon user input received via the user interface;
• determine whether a selected data field of a selected data source has a data type that is identical to a data type for the workflow parameter;
• perform an internal lookup operation at a runtime of the workflow action rule to retrieve the data value from the data source for the parameter in response to determining that the data field of the selected data source has a data type that is identical to the data type for the parameter;
• and to
• convert the data type of the data value to the data type of the parameter at the runtime of the workflow action rule in response to determining that the data field of the selected data source has a data type that is not identical to the data type for the parameter.