Patent ID: 8645843

Claim:
A method of supporting role-based access control in a collaborative environment, wherein a plurality of users work together in a collaborative process including a multitude of activities using a software system, the method comprising: componentizing the software system into a multitude of software components; assigning an associated set of the multitude of software components to each of a plurality of roles in the collaborative process; assigning to each of the users one of said plurality of roles as a current role of the user, as defined by a run-time state of the collaborative process; activating a set of the multitude of software components to perform one of said activities as a current activity in the collaborative process; limiting access of the users to the software components by providing each of the users with access to only the software components that are common in both the set of the software components assigned to the current role assigned to said each user, and the set of the software components activated to perform the current activity.