Patent ID: 8706776

Claim:
A computer system for controlling actions in a computer-based process, the system comprising: one or more processors; and a computer-readable medium having stored therein: (i) a status management runtime component; (ii) a status schema model that is defined at design-time, stored in computer-readable medium, and includes a core status schema group, also includes first and second extended status schema groups that are added to the status schema model; wherein the status schema model includes a first precondition that identifies how a first status of a first status variable of the core status schema group affects whether a first action included in the first extended status schema group or in the second extended status schema group is to be allowed to be performed at runtime by a data object node instance having the first status, and a second precondition that identifies how a second status of a second status variable of the second extended status schema group affects whether a second action included in the first extended status schema group is to be allowed to be performed at runtime by a data object node instance having the second status; and (iii) instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, perform operations comprising: creating a status schema instance for a particular data object node instance being used in a computer-based process, the status schema instance corresponding to the status schema model, and the data object node instance including values for variables and methods capable of being performed by the data object node instance; based on the status schema instance, monitoring status of the data object node instance to determine whether one or more of the first action and the second action is allowed to be performed by the data object node instance; and in response to a determination that one or more of the first action and the second action is allowed, enabling the one or more of the first action and the second action to be executed.