Patent ID: 7493402

Claim:
In a system comprising a plurality of external systems upon which a user module can create active sessions and an integration module that stores a time-out period and facilitates communication to a plurality of external systems, a method for coordinating maintenance of active sessions on the integration module and one or more of the plurality of external systems, the method comprising: upon a user module transmitting data to an integration module following the expiration of a time-out period associated with the integration module, identifying upon which of a plurality of external systems the user module has an active session; transmitting to each of the plurality of external systems upon which the user module has the active session a request to specify a last active time of the user module on the respective external systems of the plurality of external systems, the request having an associated request time; receiving from the plurality of external systems a response identifying the last active time of the user module on each of the plurality of external systems; and defining a last activity attribute for the integration module, the last activity attributed comprising a value equal to the last active time received from the plurality of external systems that is closest to the request time, wherein the active session is maintained upon the integration module and at least one of the plurality of external systems.