Patent ID: 8903913

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a job request for a message from a requestor, the message originating from a first user of a social networking system and to be directly delivered to a second user of the social networking system; determining, at a message tracking engine, a workflow for processing the message, the workflow specifying one or more synchronous processing steps to be performed on the message prior to delivering the message to the second user and one or more asynchronous processing steps to be performed on the message; routing the message to a first set of one or more services configured to perform the one or more synchronous processing steps on the message; responsive to a determination that the synchronous processing steps have completed, serializing the job request and information for the one or more asynchronous processing steps to a storage device; and following the serializing of the job request and information for the asynchronous processing steps of the workflow, routing the message to a second set of one or more services configured to perform the one or more asynchronous processing steps on the message.