Patent ID: 7739695

Claim:
A computer implemented method comprising: instantiating an action to run a plurality of business services within an explicitly defined business context, wherein running the business services within the business context generates meaningful instances of work situations by altering data and processes within an enterprise system, the instantiating including: mapping as the business services one or more web services, composition of services, or a combination thereof to input/output parameters of the business context, the mapping performed with an input/output interface of the instantiated action that provides a wrapper layer for the business services to exchange data between the business context and the business services; enabling the input/output interface to handle long running, stateful actions, wherein for the instantiated action a predetermined number of action states is defined, which comprise a before execution action state, a during execution action state, an after execution action state and an undo execution action state, and implementing a user interaction behavior defined to be common to the long running, stateful actions executing under a business application to make a user interface of the long running, stateful actions executing under the business application reusable across a plurality of business contexts; wherein an exception handler is defined that couples the instantiated action to a further action for handling exceptions.