Generic lifecycle management of entity in hierarchy according to status

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium embodying a computer program for performing a method, said method comprising:

• causing an engine to receive from a first entity belonging to a hierarchy, information regarding a lifecycle change of the first entity from a first status to a second status associated with an event, wherein the first entity comprises a step of a process;
• in response to the information, causing the engine to reference a rule of a predefined ruleset stored in a hardware server as a database table comprising rows and columns, the rule comprising a row and a status identifier comprising a first column;
• and
• based upon the rule, causing the engine to propagate the second status to change a status of a second entity belonging to the hierarchy, wherein the second entity comprises the process and wherein:
• a second column of the table comprises a new status identifier used to handle the event with specific programming comprising propagating a generic error status identifier to indicate an error for the step and another error for a different step of the process.

A system comprising:

• one or more processors in a first computer comprising a remote hardware database server;
• a second computer in communication with the first computer through a network to communicate an occurrence of an event affecting a first database entity in the remote hardware database server;
• a software program, executable on said first computer, the software program configured to:
• cause an engine of the remote hardware database server to receive from the first database entity belonging to a hierarchy, information regarding a lifecycle change of the first database entity from a first status to a second status associated with the event, wherein the first database entity comprises a step of a process;
• in response to the information, cause the engine to reference a rule of a predefined ruleset stored in the remote hardware database server as a database table comprising rows and columns, the rule comprising a row and a status identifier comprising a first column;
• and
• based upon the rule, cause the engine to propagate the second status to change a status of a second database entity belonging to the hierarchy, wherein the second database entity comprises the process and wherein:
• a second column of the table comprises a new status identifier used to handle the event with specific programming comprising propagating a generic error status identifier to indicate an error for the step and another error for a different step of the process.