Patent ID: 7962386

Claim:
A computer system, comprising: a processing system; a computer-readable storage medium; a plurality of business management applications to be executed by the processing system to manage performance of business processes of a firm; a platform application to be executed by the processing system having defined therein a plurality of process flows, each process flow comprising a plurality of process steps executable by the processing system; a process context to store data generated by a plurality of process steps of a single instance of an ongoing process flow, the process context being located within a runtime environment of the processing system, wherein the process context is centrally accessible by the plurality of business management applications and the platform application, wherein the data generated by the process steps is stored by the process context incrementally after each process step has been completed; an information context to cache data generated by respective business management applications when they are invoked by the ongoing process flow, the information context being located within the runtime environment of the processing system, wherein the information context is centrally accessible by the plurality of business management applications and the platform application during the execution of the ongoing process flow, wherein the data generated by the business management applications is cached by the information context incrementally after a respective process step invoking a respective business management application has been completed and said data is used by subsequent process steps within the ongoing process flow to complete the subsequent process steps; a monitoring agent to survey process contexts instantiated, collect performance data from process steps incrementally after each process step has been completed and generate reports regarding the collected performance data of the ongoing process flow, wherein the performance data includes delays of individual process steps, a number of successfully completed process steps and errors encountered during one or more process steps; and wherein the process steps include calls to specified business management applications and commands to store data generated from the process steps to the process context.