Patent ID: 7051071

Claim:
A workflow integration system that allows for sharing of workflow information among a plurality of collaboration participants, comprising: a plurality of collaboration participants; a workflow server on each collaboration participant, and having stored thereon a participant workflow that specifies process information for a project that is local to that collaboration participant, wherein a project is a group of related tasks; and a collaboration server having stored thereon an enterprise workflow that defines combined process information for the participant workflows, and that includes tasks to be executed across the plurality of collaboration participants to achieve a combined result, said collaboration server further comprising a conversation initiation logic that initiates a conversation among the collaboration participants, wherein said conversation includes a collective set of messages exchanged accordinq to an extensible protocol, wherein said extensible protocol allows a collaboration participant to specify both a routing information and a business protocol, and wherein the routing information is specified by a collaboration participant in a header of the extensible protocol; and an integration logic that allows one of said participant workflows to interact with and affect another participant workflow by sending messages between collaboration participants via the conversation on the collaboration server and in accordance with the enterprise workflow, wherein each participant may choose to use any of a plurality of business protocols that are supported by the system for conversation.