Abstract:
An extensible architecture that allows the users to extend, change or replace the existing business logic of the business application is disclosed.

Description:
[0001]     This is a non-provisional of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/696,171, filed Jul. 1, 2005, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.  
       BACKGROUND  
       [0002]     One of the core features and highly desired functionalities of any value-add business application such as a customer relationship management (“CRM”) system is the ease and cost of adapting to many existing business requirements. Ideally, an application should expose, manage and execute business logic in a flexible and extensible way. Business logic enables commercial enterprises to model and execute their processes in order to simplify and consolidate their functions. It empowers users to work more effectively and provides the best value out of their business application. Nevertheless, as every business has different and specific requirements, a desired business application should provide out-of-the-box business logic as well as a rich extensibility model that allows new business logic and data to be seamlessly integrated with the application. A typical business application provides application programming interfaces (“APIs”) to enable the users to access the application data and logic. Most of these application APIs have the business logic hard coded in their architecture and execution path and offer little ability to adopt and incorporate new/modified business logic/data to the users of the application. These APIs locate and execute the logic in a non extensible and rigid way and will not allow any dynamical change to the APIs to allow custom data and processes exposure and management. As the business logic is not extensible, the only way to include new logic or modify existing logic is to change the application source code and recompile the application which is not desirable and is inefficient.  
       SUMMARY  
       [0003]     An extensible architecture that allows users to extend, change or replace existing business logic of a business application which allows comprehensive customization of the business logic and significantly improves the usability of the application is disclosed. The design may: 1) allow the business data and process customization to be added to the system and be accessed programmatically by dynamically generating the service descriptions that include any newly added customization and providing an extended execution path for the logic/data to be accesses/executed without the need for recompiling the application source code; and 2) allow the users to integrate their own business logic and code into the API calls that are made to the application in order to extend or modify the out-of-the box business logic and the system behavior. 
     
    
     DRAWINGS  
       [0004]      FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a computing system that may operate in accordance with the claims;  
         [0005]      FIG. 2  is flowchart of a method that may be in accordance with the claims;  
         [0006]      FIG. 3  is an illustration of a CRM platform that may implement the method; and  
         [0007]      FIG. 4  is an illustration of a flow diagram of a pre-callout and post-callout routine that may be in accordance with the claims. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION  
       [0008]     Although the following text sets forth a detailed description of numerous different embodiments, it should be understood that the legal scope of the description is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. The detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possible embodiment since describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. Numerous alternative embodiments could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims.  
         [0009]     It should also be understood that, unless a term is expressly defined in this patent using the sentence “As used herein, the term ‘______’ is hereby defined to mean . . . ” or a similar sentence, there is no intent to limit the meaning of that term, either expressly or by implication, beyond its plain or ordinary meaning, and such term should not be interpreted to be limited in scope based on any statement made in any section of this patent (other than the language of the claims). To the extent that any term recited in the claims at the end of this patent is referred to in this patent in a manner consistent with a single meaning, that is done for sake of clarity only so as to not confuse the reader, and it is not intended that such claim term by limited, by implication or otherwise, to that single meaning. Finally, unless a claim element is defined by reciting the word “means” and a function without the recital of any structure, it is not intended that the scope of any claim element be interpreted based on the application of 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph.  
         [0010]      FIG. 1  illustrates an example of a suitable computing system environment  100  on which a system for the steps of the claimed method and apparatus may be implemented. The computing system environment  100  is only one example of a suitable computing environment and is not intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the method of apparatus of the claims. Neither should the computing environment  100  be interpreted as having any dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination of components illustrated in the exemplary operating environment  100 .  
         [0011]     The steps of the claimed method and apparatus are operational with numerous other general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the methods or apparatus of the claims include, but are not limited to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.  
         [0012]     The steps of the claimed method and apparatus may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The methods and apparatus may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory storage devices.  
         [0013]     With reference to  FIG. 1 , an exemplary system for implementing the steps of the claimed method and apparatus includes a general purpose computing device in the form of a computer  110 . Components of computer  110  may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit  120 , a system memory  130 , and a system bus  121  that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit  120 . The system bus  121  may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.  
         [0014]     Computer  110  typically includes a variety of computer readable media. Computer readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by computer  110  and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media includes both volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by computer  110 . Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer readable media.  
         [0015]     The system memory  130  includes computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM)  131  and random access memory (RAM)  132 . A basic input/output system  133  (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within computer  110 , such as during start-up, is typically stored in ROM  131 . RAM  132  typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on by processing unit  120 . By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 1  illustrates operating system  134 , application programs  135 , other program modules  136 , and program data  137 .  
         [0016]     The computer  110  may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,  FIG. 1  illustrates a hard disk drive  140  that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a magnetic disk drive  151  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk  152 , and an optical disk drive  155  that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk  156  such as a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The hard disk drive  141  is typically connected to the system bus  121  through a non-removable memory interface such as interface  140 , and magnetic disk drive  151  and optical disk drive  155  are typically connected to the system bus  121  by a removable memory interface, such as interface  150 .  
         [0017]     The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated in  FIG. 1 , provide storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer  110 . In  FIG. 1 , for example, hard disk drive  141  is illustrated as storing operating system  144 , application programs  145 , other program modules  146 , and program data  147 . Note that these components can either be the same as or different from operating system  134 , application programs  135 , other program modules  136 , and program data  137 . Operating system  144 , application programs  145 , other program modules  146 , and program data  147  are given different numbers here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies. A user may enter commands and information into the computer  20  through input devices such as a keyboard  162  and pointing device  161 , commonly referred to as a mouse, trackball or touch pad. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit  120  through a user input interface  160  that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor  191  or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus  121  via an interface, such as a video interface  190 . In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such as speakers  197  and printer  196 , which may be connected through an output peripheral interface  190 .  
         [0018]     The computer  110  may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer  180 . The remote computer  180  may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer  110 , although only a memory storage device  181  has been illustrated in  FIG. 1 . The logical connections depicted in  FIG. 1  include a local area network (LAN)  171  and a wide area network (WAN)  173 , but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.  
         [0019]     When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer  110  is connected to the LAN  171  through a network interface or adapter  170 . When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer  110  typically includes a modem  172  or other means for establishing communications over the WAN  173 , such as the Internet. The modem  172 , which may be internal or external, may be connected to the system bus  121  via the user input interface  160 , or other appropriate mechanism. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer  110 , or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. By way of example, and not limitation,  FIG. 1  illustrates remote application programs  185  as residing on memory device  181 . It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.  
         [0020]      FIG. 2  may illustrate a method of modifying business logic in a business application such as a customer relationship management (“CRM”) system in accordance with the claims. A pluggable architecture may allow users to define new service providers and messages. At block  200 , the method may allow a system customizer  380  ( FIG. 3 ) to perform several tasks including defining new customer entities, modifying existing customer entities, defining new messages, adding new service providers and plugging in new code to be executed as part of a web service call. At block  210 , the method may receive a request for a service description. A user of a application may need further information to modify the application.  
         [0021]     At block  220 , the method may create a service description on demand by referencing metadata about the service description wherein the metadata includes full type descriptions for as-shipped and custom business entities. Referring to  FIG. 3 , a user of an application, such as a customer relationship management (“CRM”) application  310 , that plans to make modifications may need type definition and class information for the new customization so he/she can effectively program against the new types. A Web Service Description Language (WSDL) may provide a globally acceptable format to define the service capabilities and types. A user may make a request to the application, possibly through a web service and ask for the latest WSDL file. When a request is received by the application platform, the Dynamic Web Service (WS) generator  330  may use the metadata  340  information to generate all the types that are required by a user to effectively program against CRM Server in strongly typed format. The generator may use the metadata to generate schemas that are then included in the generated WSDL that is returned to the requester. It should be noted  FIG. 3  references a CRM application, but the method may be applied to any business application.  
         [0022]     As an example, if a user adds a new custom entity called BankAccount, a new schema for this is entity may be generated that defines the BankAccount type and all members (Attributes) and their types. This schema may be included in the requested WSDL which allows the clients to generate classes on the client side and enables effective coding. As the generated schema is fully typed, the clients may be able to define strongly typed classes for the programmer to use.  
         [0023]     Referring again to  FIG. 2 , at block  230 , the method may return the definitions wherein the definitions are used to request functionality. When a web method call is made by the user of API, a message may be sent by the API user to the application platform. Such a message may need to be handled by different service providers  350 ,  360  based on the type of the target business entity that the web method is called on. This may allow polymorphic interfaces on the web service interface which may significantly improve the productivity of the user when working with multiple data types (Business Entities, for example) that exist in a business application. A service provider router  370  gets the web method call and based on the type information and description of available service providers that are registered in the metadata, may route the execution of the method to the appropriate service provider  350 ,  360 .  
         [0024]     A service provider may include specialized operations as well as commonly shared operations across all the service providers. In order for a service provider to expose a common operation that is also shared by other service providers, the provider may simply uses multiple interface inheritance to include the name of the supported interfaces in a class declaration. In the below example, the BankAccountServiceProvider uses the default definition of ICreatable, IUpdatable, IDeletable, IRetrievable, IMergable, IOwned and IStateful interfaces which means the provider supports these corresponding operations. The service provider may also support specialize operations. In this example, the CustomServiceProvider is an abstract interface which is implemented in the BankAccountServiceProvider to provide specialized operation and business logic. The following may be a code example:  
         [0025]     public class BankAccountServiceProvider: CustomServiceProvider, ICreatable, IUpdatable, IDeletable, IRetrievable, IMergable, IOwned, IStateful { } 
         [0026]     A user may need to register the service provider with the metadata  340  and modify the service description to map specific messages to the service provider  350 ,  360 . Then new messages may be defined that are inherited from the base message classes allowing the same interfaces to be used for the new messages. As all the routing and service description are driven and generate dynamically from the metadata  340 , extending this model is simplified and does not need a recompile of the whole application.  
         [0027]     One way to allow a user to modify an existing operation of the application to add or modify existing business logic and processes may be through a callout mechanism that is included in the application web service. The callout model may expose a number of events to which a user code can subscribe. After a user is subscribed to an event, when the event is invoked, the plug-in code that is provided by the user may be executed as part of the web service call. This architecture may add yet another very powerful extensibility point to the application. The events may be categorized into Pre and Post events. Referring to  FIG. 4 , pre-callout events  410  may allow execution of custom code before an application platform operation is executed  420  and the post-callout events  430  may allow execution of the code after the application platform operation is executed  420 . Again,  FIG. 4  uses a CRM application as an example, but this method may be applied to any business application.  
         [0028]     Each application operation that supports the pre and/or post callout may provide an interface that can be overridden by user code. The application platform  440  may call into these methods at the operation execution time. Contextual information that may be provided inside the callout function  410 ,  430  may be used for additional business logic processing or simply to modify the data that is passed into the application platform. Of course, there may be other ways to modify an existing operation of the application to add or modify existing business logic and processes. The following code may illustrate some methods that may be overridden by user for pre-callout (PreCRMOperationEvent (e.g. PreCreateEvent)) or post-callout (PostCRMOperationEvent (e.g. PostCreateEvent)).  
                                                                                                             public virtual PreOperationReturnValue PreCRMOperationEvent(                CalloutUserContext   userContext,           CalloutEntityContext   businessEntityContext,           ref string   businessEntityXml,           ref string   errorMessage           )                {                return PreCRMOperationReturnValue.Continue;                }            public virtual void PostCRMOperationEvent(                CalloutUserContext   userContext,           CalloutEntityContext   entityContext,           string   preImageEntityXml,           string   postImageEntityXml           )                {           }                      
 
         [0029]     While in the PreCRMOperationEvent process, a user may invoke different actions in respect to the CRM Server and continuation of method execution.  
         [0030]     Continue action: The callout has completed successfully and the CRM Server should continue with the execution of the method.  
         [0031]     Stop action: The pre callout has completed successfully and no further processing for the method should be done.  
         [0032]     Abort action: The callout component encountered an error and the platform should abort the method call returning an error to the method caller.  
         [0033]     Rich messages may be sent to the callout process including method execution context, the business entity context and calling user context. A user may modify and intervene with this data before it is sent to the CRM Server. This is an approach that allows data and processes to be modified on the fly through the callout extension to provide a much richer and closer extensibility with the CRM application. An error message may also be returned to the caller in order to enable building business logic based on returned error messages.  
         [0034]     After modifications have been made, the metadata may store the modifications so every time a system customizer adds any of these customizations, the metadata may be updated with the description of such customization.  
         [0035]     Although the forgoing text sets forth a detailed description of numerous different embodiments, it should be understood that the scope of the patent is defined by the words of the claims set forth at the end of this patent. The detailed description is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possible embodiment because describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. Numerous alternative embodiments could be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims.  
         [0036]     Thus, many modifications and variations may be made in the techniques and structures described and illustrated herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the present claims. Accordingly, it should be understood that the methods and apparatus described herein are illustrative only and are not limiting upon the scope of the claims.