Patent ID: 7698427

Claim:
A method for enabling access to workflow resource objects in a plurality of workflow engines, comprising: receiving a request, from a calling entity, for workflow resource objects of a specified type in a specified workflow engine, wherein the specified type of the requested resource objects comprises at least one of workflow objects, workflow templates and work lists defined in the specified workflow engine, wherein the workflow engine is one of a plurality of workflow engines enabling access to workflow resource objects, and wherein each workflow engine provides one collection object class implementation of methods from a same abstract collection object class used to instantiate and manipulate a collection object including metadata on workflow resource objects available at the workflow engine; generating a request to the workflow engine for information on available workflow resource objects of the specified type; in response to receiving the information from the workflow engine, generating a collection object using methods from the collection object class for the workflow engine from which the information was returned including one metadata element for each workflow resource object of the specified type in the workflow engine, and returning the generated collection object to the calling entity.