Patent ID: 8094334

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, including a printing unit and a scanning unit, for managing an application, the image forming apparatus comprising: a storage unit configured to store definition files describing information on a type of job acceptable to a first application and information on a second application capable of sequentially executing jobs executed by the first application, for each managed application; a generation detecting unit configured to detect that either a copy job or a scan job is generated in the image forming apparatus; a search unit configured to search for a definition file to accept a detected job among the stored definition files based on information on a type of the detected job; a display unit configured to display a list of first applications corresponding to respective searched-for definition files on a presenting screen, to specify a second application capable of sequentially executing jobs executed by a first application selected on the presenting screen based on a definition file corresponding to the selected first application, and to display the specified second application on the presenting screen, wherein, after a first application is selected on the presenting screen displaying a list of first applications corresponding to respective searched-for definition files, the display unit displays a second application executable in connection with the selected first application; a completion detecting unit configured to detect completion of processing performed by the first application; a notification information obtaining unit configured to obtain notification information of a job generated in the image forming apparatus by the first application in response to the completion detecting unit detecting the completion of the processing performed by the first application; and a notification unit configured to send the notification information of the job generated by the first application, which is obtained by the notification information obtaining unit, to the second application, wherein the second application that receives the notification information is started to perform processing.