Patent ID: 8868600

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for implementing a value help search, comprising: receiving, at a server computer system in a service oriented architecture system, a value help search criteria from a client computing device, the value help search criteria being received at a generic value help search service configured to send value help requests originating from multiple client computing devices to multiple back end systems, at least some of the back end systems comprising legacy search help logic; sending the value help search criteria to the multiple back end systems; receiving, by the generic value help search service, search criteria metadata; prompting a user of the client computing device to enter a second search criteria using the search criteria metadata; selecting, at the server computer system, at least one back end system from the multiple back end systems based on the second search criteria received from the client computing device, the second search criteria indicating a name of particular search help logic associated with the at least one back end system; sending, by the value help search service, the second search criteria to the particular search help logic associated with the at least one back end system; receiving, by the value help search service, metadata and result data from the particular search help logic associated with the at least one back end system, the metadata describing a structure of the result data, the structure indicating a layout of the result data; and using the metadata to parse the result data and generate a search result table from the result data.