Patent ID: 8645828

Claim:
An automation process executed by a computer system having data processing logic so as to at least partly automate execution of an interactive computer system application, including: recording at a first time, using the data processing logic, a sequence of interactions between an initial execution of the computer system application and a user of the computer system application, the recorded sequence of interactions including outputs of the computer system application displayed to the user of the computer system application during the initial execution and application user inputs, provided by the user of the computer system application in response to the displayed outputs to initiate application functions during the initial execution of the computer system application, the application user inputs including at least one of: one or more keystrokes selecting one or more options provided by the computer system application, the keystrokes being additional to entering alpha-numeric or symbolic data; and selections of options using an input device other than a keyboard, the application user inputs further representing first values for input parameters of the computer system application; at a second time subsequent to the first time, displaying interaction data representing the recorded interactions, including (i) the recorded outputs of the computer system application displayed to the user of the computer system application during the initial execution of the computer system application, and (ii) the application user inputs provided by the user of the computer system application during the initial execution of the computer system application in response to the displayed outputs, the application user inputs being displayed at the second time interspersed within the recorded output of the computer system application at locations within the recorded interactions corresponding to the temporal sequence of the application user inputs relative to the corresponding computer system application outputs; receiving parameter field data representing the locations of the application user inputs within the recorded interactions, the parameter field data being generated from user selections of those locations within the displayed interaction data; accessing parameter label data representing respective labels for the input parameters of the computer system application; generating association data representing respective user selected associations between the labels for the input parameters and the respective locations within the recorded interactions to provide second values for the input parameters; storing the association data and at least the recorded application outputs on at least one computer-readable storage medium; and automatically generating an ordered sequence of inputs at a third time subsequent to the second time based on the association data and at least the recorded application outputs to provide the ordered sequence of inputs to the interactive computer system application without user interaction.