Representing user interactions as a synchronous action in a business process flow
View Patent ↗Method and system for generating user interactions in a flow-based engine during the execution of a synchronous flow which potentially represent the logic for handling another user interaction. The method encapsulates and hides the asynchronous nature of the user interaction, thus enabling the author of the business flow to use the user interaction as a single synchronous action oblivious to the underlying asynchronous implementation, said method comprising of the steps: defining user interactions action in a business flow diagram as an atomic action; translating said flow into executable form; executing said flow, presenting said UI to end-user as a replacement to the original UI response for which the flow was invoked; receiving end-user response; resuming said flow and using said response in subsequent flow commands and continuing the original user interaction session.
1. A method of managing sessions between multiple computerized devices and multiple web contents through a communication network, the method is comprising the steps of:
running or initiating multiple business flows related to a user;
receiving one or more asynchronous requests for content from a computerized device by one or more users by a proxy, wherein the content is stored on a web content;
checking whether the request is one of two flow types: (i) User Interaction (UI) for a previous suspended flow; and (ii) content request, by sending the request to a flow engine;
if the request is a user interaction, resume previous suspend flow;
if the request is a content request:
suspending each business flow after a request for content is received; storing a runtime state of each suspended business flow;
receiving requirements for providing the request to each one of the users;
interacting with each user by sending a UI page via a dispatcher including identification (ID) of the suspended flow, to the computerized device of each user, wherein another business flow is opened from the UI flow and another UI flow from the another business flow is opened, thus multiple business flows and multiple UI flows which are related to the same user are running concurrently at multiple web pages, each flow interacting with different server;
receiving a response from each one of the users by the proxy to each one of the multiple UI flows;
forwarding the response from each of the users related to the multiple UI flows to the flow engine;
recognizing each response as a UI response utilizing parameters in each response;
identifying the relevant suspended business flow from the multiple business flows which are running concurrently according to the ID appearing in the UI page;
resuming each suspended business flow of actions, of the multiple business flows, by the stored runtime state in the ID of the suspended flow; and
sending each user the requested content from the web content.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the flow engine provides means to an interception layer for resuming each suspended business flow of actions.
3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said means for resuming each suspended business flow of actions are capable of storing any event type handled by an interception layer through raw storage of the event information, and sharing of memory between the interception layer and a flow context layer.
4. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said means are capable of efficient transfer and storage of the event information through sharing of event information between the interception layer and a flow context layer.
5. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said means are capable of storing any event type handled by the interception layer through raw storage of the event information, and sharing of memory between the interception layer and flow context layer.
6. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said means are capable of efficient transfer and storage of the event information through sharing of event information between the interception layer and a flow context layer.
7. The method according to claim 2 , wherein said means are capable of storing any event type handled by the interception layer through raw storage of the event information, and sharing of memory between the interception layer and flow context layer.