Stepback mechanism to develop and diagnose process applications
View Patent ↗One or more inputs associated with a selected step of a process flow are modified. The process flow is executed from the selected step based on the modified one or more inputs. A data record associated with selected step is updated to reflect the modified one or more inputs. A process application that includes the process flow is compiled into an executable and deployed to a device.
1. A system for diagnosing and updating process applications instantiated on a plurality of devices, comprising:
a processor communicatively coupled to a storage resource, wherein the processor is configured to execute application code instructions stored in the storage resource to:
store, locally at a device, state transition information associated with an executed step of an instantiated process application instantiated by an instantiated process engine wherein the instantiated process application produced an erroneous result;
transmit a flow definition to a remote diagnosing platform;
receive, at the diagnosing platform, the flow definition that describes a process flow and the state transition information that describes a state of the process flow at each step of the process flow associated with the instantiated process application;
recreate a process engine associated with the instantiated process engine of the device with the state transition information;
modify one or more input data values associated with a selected step of the process flow;
execute the process flow from the selected step using the modified one or more inputs;
update at least one data record associated with the selected step of a process application to reflect the modified one or more inputs and state information associated with steps of the process flow;
recompile the process application; and
redeploy the process application to the device using a device identifier.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the flow definition is a flow.json file.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to reconstruct a process application based on the flow definition and the state information, wherein the process application includes the process flow.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured to compile the process application into an executable.
5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the processor is further configured to deploy the compiled executable to a device that produced the state information.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the state information is stored in a database separate from a device that produced the state information and the system.
7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the flow definition is stored in a database separate from the device that produced the state information, a database that stores the state information, and the system.
8. The system of claim 1 , wherein a device that produced the state information uploads state values to a database that stores the state service.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the state values are uploaded upon the occurrence of a state transition.
10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the state values are periodically uploaded from the device that produced the state information to the database that stores the state information.
11. The system of claim 8 , wherein in the event of a network connection failure between the device that produced the state information and the database that stores the state information, upon reconnection, the state values are uploaded to the database that stores the state information.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine a minimal set of process engine components needed to perform a process application that includes the process flow.
13. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:
pre-compile the process application to determine a minimal set of necessary and unnecessary steps to execute the process application.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein a process step can be selected from any of the necessary steps and executed from the selected step of the necessary step.
15. The system of claim 1 , wherein the process applications is deployed to a plurality of devices using a plurality of device identifiers.
16. A computer-implemented method of diagnosing and updating process applications instantiated on a plurality of devices, comprising:
storing, locally at a device, state transition information associated with an executed step of an instantiated process application instantiated by an instantiated process engine wherein the instantiated process application produced an erroneous result;
transmitting a flow definition to a remote diagnosing platform;
receiving, at the diagnosing platform, the flow definition that describes a process flow and the state transition information that describes a state of the process flow at each step of the process flow associated with the instantiated process application
recreating a process engine associated with the instantiated process engine of the device with the state transition information;
modifying one or more input data values associated with a selected step of the process flow;
executing the process flow from the selected step using the modified one or more inputs;
updating at least one data record associated with the selected step of a process application to reflect the modified one or more inputs and state information associated with steps of the process flow;
recompiling the process application; and
redeploying the process application to the device using a device identifier.
17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising reconstructing a process application based on the flow definition and the state information, wherein the process application includes the process flow.
18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising compiling the process application into an executable.
19. The method of claim 18 , further comprising deploying the compiled executable to a device that produced the state information.
20. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing computer readable instructions for instructing a computing machine to diagnose and update process applications instantiated on a plurality of devices, the computer-readable instructions comprising instructions for causing the computing machine to:
store, locally at a device, state transition information associated with an executed step of an instantiated process application instantiated by an instantiated process engine wherein the instantiated process application produced an erroneous result;
transmit a flow definition to a remote diagnosing platform;
receive, at the diagnosing platform, the flow definition that describes a process flow and the state transition information that describes a state of the process flow at each step of the process flow associated with the instantiated process application;
recreate a process engine associated with the instantiated process engine of the device with the state transition information;
modify one or more inputs associated with a selected step of the process flow;
execute the process flow from the selected step based on the modified one or more inputs;
update at least one data record associated with the selected step of a process application to reflect the modified one or more inputs and state information associated with steps of the process flow;
recompile the process application; and
redeploy the process application to the device using a device identifier.