Patent ID: 8589813

Claim:
A method of processing data with a provided business application, the method comprising: providing, at a computer system, a population selection engine for selecting data to be processed with the business application; maintaining, at the computer system, a set of selection tool metadata for each of one or more selection tools, the set of selection tool metadata defining a relationship between each of the one or more selection tools and the population selection engine, wherein each of the one or more selection tools is configured for a specific data type such that each of the one or more data type specific selection tools appropriately processes the specific type of data to be received by the business application; receiving a set of data from a data source, wherein the set of data includes a specific data type; determining, based on the specific data type of the set of data, a first selection tool from the one or more selection tools which is configured for the specific data type of the set of data; selecting the first selection tool, wherein the first selection tool is to be used to select the set of data to be processed with the business application; based on the provided business application, receiving, from the computer system, a set of context metadata, wherein the set of context metadata is associated with the first selection tool and comprises information specifying: formatting constraints for the set of data selected by the first selection tool, fields required by the first selection tool, and optional fields used by the first selection tool; providing, from the computer system, a user interface for a user to interact with the population selection engine, wherein the user interface comprises: a set of data fields configured to receive one or more input, wherein the set of data fields is defined by the set of selection tool metadata and specific to the first selection tool; and a set of display components defined by the set of context metadata and specific to the business application, wherein the set of display components allow process-specific parameters to be specified; invoking, based on at least a portion of the set of selection tool metadata and in accordance with the context metadata, the first selection tool from the population selection engine to select data to be processed with the business application; receiving, from the first selection tool, a selection of one or more subsets of the set of data to be processed with the business application; processing each of the one or more subsets of the set of data with the business application in accordance with the process-specific parameters specified using the set of display components; and displaying an indication of a result of the processing.