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US 8,510,264 B1Granted
Method and system for approving steps in a multi-tenant database service
Assigneesalesforce.com, inc.
InventorsSteven Tamm, Walter Macklem, Eric Wilson, Varadarajan Rajaram, Wendy Chang
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In accordance with embodiments, steps in a multi-tenant database service are approved to manually and/or automatically satisfy requests to approve various steps in the service. The ability of embodiments to provide such additional approval capabilities may lead to more flexible step approval during use of the on-demand database service.
Claims23
A method, comprising:
- receiving a request for approval of content;
- executing an approval process for approving the content, in response to the request, including:
- identifying a plurality of sequentially ordered steps of the approval process in an on-demand database service, wherein the sequentially ordered steps are steps ordered in a linear sequence;
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps, according to the ordering of the steps, such that the approval process only includes the sequentially ordered steps each of which are conditionally approvable according to the linear sequence thereof, including:
- identifying criteria for approval of each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service;
- and
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service, based, at least in part, on an evaluation of the criteria with respect to the content;
- wherein each of the sequentially ordered steps is associated with a transition, the transition for at least one of the sequentially ordered steps including at least one of skipping over a next step in the sequentially ordered steps to another step immediately succeeding the skipped over next step and reverting to a previous step in the sequentially ordered steps;
- wherein, if one of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service is approved, the approval process skips over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps to a target one of the sequentially ordered steps immediately succeeding the skipped over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps.
6 more elements
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the steps of:
- receiving a request for approval of content;
- executing an approval process for approving the content, in response to the request, including:
- identifying a plurality of sequentially ordered steps of the approval process in an on-demand database service, wherein the sequentially ordered steps are steps ordered in a linear sequence;
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps, according to the ordering of the steps, such that the approval process only includes the sequentially ordered steps each of which are conditionally approvable according to the linear sequence thereof, including:
- identifying criteria for approval of each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service;
- and
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service, based, at least in part, on an evaluation of the criteria with respect to the content;
- wherein each of the sequentially ordered steps is associated with a transition, the transition for at least one of the sequentially ordered steps including at least one of skipping over a next step in the sequentially ordered steps to another step immediately succeeding the skipped over next step and reverting to a previous step in the sequentially ordered steps;
- wherein, if one of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service is approved, the approval process skips over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps to a target one of the sequentially ordered steps immediately succeeding the skipped over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps.
6 more elements
An apparatus, comprising:
- a processor;
- and
- one or more stored sequences of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to carry out the steps of:
- receiving a request for approval of content;
- executing an approval process for approving the content, in response to the request, including:
- identifying a plurality of sequentially ordered steps of the approval process in an on-demand database service, wherein the sequentially ordered steps are steps ordered in a linear sequence;
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps, according to the ordering of the steps, such that the approval process only includes the sequentially ordered steps each of which are conditionally approvable according to the linear sequence thereof, including:
- identifying criteria for approval of each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service;
- and
- conditionally approving each of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service, based, at least in part, on an evaluation of the criteria with respect to the content;
- wherein each of the sequentially ordered steps is associated with a transition, the transition for at least one of the sequentially ordered steps including at least one of skipping over a next step in the sequentially ordered steps to another step immediately succeeding the skipped over next step and reverting to a previous step in the sequentially ordered steps;
- wherein, if one of the sequentially ordered steps in the on-demand database service is approved, the approval process skips over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps to a target one of the sequentially ordered steps immediately succeeding the skipped over at least one of the other sequentially ordered steps.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.