Patent ID: 7461042

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon elements of a system for the creation and/or execution of workorders, comprising: a plurality of functional software objects; tables of rule information, such rule information comprising: existential rules that declare the existence of each and every organizational entity known to said system, which rules contain only a declaration of each entity's identifier and metadata, said metadata comprising: a Pin Flag to specify whether the rule can safely be changed at will; a Research Flag to indicate whether the rule requires further research on the part of a rule-maker; and the date of the latest update to the rule; protocol rules defining certain conditions under which actions are to be carried out, as well as certain metadata; meta-protocol rules defining rules for creating masks, and mask sequences, for determining which of said protocol rules to follow, as well as certain metadata; attribute rules for defining the attributes, categories, and relationships of entities known to said system, as well as certain metadata; a mechanism and interface permitting existential rules, the protocol rules, the meta-protocol rules, or the attribute rules, or some combination of said rules, to be modified directly by an administrator without recourse to further software programming; and wherein said existential rules, said protocol rules, said meta-protocol rules, or said attribute rules, or some combination of said rules are used by said functional software objects to govern either the creation or execution of a workorder or both the creation and execution of a workorder.