Interactive composition of workflow activities

Abstract

Visual composition of an activity for re-use in a composite activity or in a workflow. A user declaratively and/or programmatically generates reusable composite activities from existing activities interactively using a visual designer. The activity has one or more configuration properties associated therewith that define the behavior of an aspect of the activity. Depending on the value of the configuration properties, the activity may be, for example, partially configured, fully configured, or minimally configured. A user or developer completes the configuration of the activity during re-use of the activity in a composite activity or in a workflow.

1 . A computerized system for interactive composition of a workflow activity for use in a workflow, said computerized system comprising: 
 means for presenting a plurality of workflow activities to a user at design time, each of the plurality of activities having one or more properties associated therewith, each of said properties defining a behavior of the associated activity;    means for receiving a selection from the user of at least one of the plurality of activities to define a composite activity;    means for presenting to the user a plurality of properties associated with the received selection of activities;    means for receiving from the user a property value for at least one of the properties, said received property value defining a behavior of the activity in the composite activity in a workflow; and    means for configuring, as a function of the received property value, the received selection of activities as the composite activity for use in the workflow.    
     
     
         2 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , further comprising means for enabling the user to create the workflow with the composite activity.  
     
     
         3 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , further comprising a display area having: 
 an activity portion for displaying the plurality of workflow activities;    a property portion for displaying a list of the properties and values associated therewith; and    a designer portion for displaying the composite activity.    
     
     
         4 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , wherein the property value comprises a value defining visibility of the properties in the composite activity in the workflow.  
     
     
         5 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , wherein the property value comprises a value specifying whether a particular property of the composite activity is editable in the workflow.  
     
     
         6 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , wherein each of the properties defines one or more of the following associated with the received selection of activities: a design time behavior, a runtime behavior, a semantic behavior, and a visualization behavior.  
     
     
         7 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , further comprising a compiler for enforcing the defined behavior of the activity during workflow creation,  
     
     
         8 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , wherein the properties define whether the activities are one or more of the following: visible, editable, and lockable.  
     
     
         9 . The computerized system of  claim 1 , further comprising means for authoring the composite activity declaratively or programmatically.  
     
     
         10 . In a computing system having a display and a user interface selection device, a method of enabling a user to create a composite workflow activity for use in a workflow, said method comprising: 
 displaying predefined workflow activities to a user on the display at design time;    receiving, via the user interface selection device, a selection of at least one of the displayed activities to define a composite activity;    displaying, on the display, the selected activity;    receiving, via the user interface selection device, a value for a configuration property associated with the selected activity, said value configuring other properties associated with the selected activity;    configuring, based on the received value for the configuration property, the selected activity as the composite activity;    providing the composite activity to the user for use in the workflow.    
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising generating software code implementing the composite activity.  
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising: 
 receiving, via the user interface selection device, a selection of at least two of the displayed activities and flow information defining a relationship between the selected activities; and    displaying, on the display, the selected activities arranged via the flow information.    
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the received value for the configuration property corresponds to one or more of the following: a fully-configured activity, a partially-configured activity, and a minimally-configured activity.  
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 10 , further comprising enabling the user to extend the functionality of the composite activity in the workflow as a function of the configuration property.  
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein the configuration property is associated with a particular property of the selected activity.  
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 10 , wherein one or more computer-readable media have computer-executable instructions for implementing the method of  claim 10 .  
     
     
         17 . One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable components for interactive visual composition of activities, said components comprising: 
 a designer component for providing a set of predefined workflow activities to a user and receiving a selection of one or more of the predefined workflow activities;    a display component for displaying the selected activities to the user as a composite activity;    a property component for receiving a value for a configuration property associated with one of the selected activities displayed by the display component; and    a preview component for displaying the selected activities as the composite activity in a workflow as a function of the value received by the property component for the configuration property.    
     
     
         18 . The computer-readable media of  claim 17 , wherein one or more of the predefined activities inherits a property value from another one of the predefined activities.  
     
     
         19 . The computer-readable media of  claim 17 , wherein the value for the configuration property specifies access in the workflow to one of the selected activities.  
     
     
         20 . The computer-readable media of  claim 17 , wherein the value for the configuration property specifies that one or more of the selected activities or properties associated therewith be partially hidden within the composite activity in the workflow.