Patent ID: 7665093

Claim:
A method for managing state in a workflow, said method comprising: defining one or more work items to be executed; defining an execution sequence fro the one or more defined work items; assigning said one or more defined work items to one or more service provider components for execution without requiring the one or more service provider components to immediately execute the assigned work items upon the work items being assigned to the one or more service provider components; batching said one or more assigned work items to said one or more service components in a batch for delayed execution by the one or more service provider components at as later time, said batch including an execution state of each of the one or more assigned work items yet to be executed by the one or more service provider components; persisting the execution state of said one or more batched work items, said persisting further comprising: monitoring the execution state of batched work items in the batch as the work items are executed according to the defined execution sequence, and saving the state of said one or more batched work items in a computer storage medium, wherein the state of said one or more assigned work items includes at least one of the following: completed, executing, and abandoned; and committing the one or more service provider components to execute the one or more batched work items according to the defined execution sequence, wherein said one or more service provider components execute the one or more committed work items.