WO2017109791A1

WO2017109791A1 - A system and method for building enterprise applications

Info

Publication number: WO2017109791A1
Application number: PCT/IN2016/000292
Authority: WO
Inventors: Srinivas TANGIRALA; Mario CLARENCE; T. Karunakaran; Y. Veer Raju
Original assignee: Tangirala Srinivas; Clarence Mario; Karunakaran T; Veer Raju Y
Priority date: 2015-12-22
Filing date: 2016-12-19
Publication date: 2017-06-29

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and method for building enterprise grade applications even by non-programmers through easy drag and drop and configurations. More particularly the present invention provides a platform orchestrated through service-based architecture that allows for future-proof way of building new applications and scaling / extending the same as per any dynamically changing business or system requirements.

Description

A SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BUILDING ENTERPRISE APPLICATIONS

Field of Invention

[0001] The present invention pertains to a system and method for building enterprise grade applications even by non-programmers through easy drag and drop and configurations. More particularly the present invention provides a platform orchestrated through service-based architecture that allows for future- proof way of building new applications and scaling / extending the same as per any dynamically changing business or system requirements. Background Art

[0002] Traditionally, any application development involves coding after the high and low-level design conceptualization after the business requirements are clear. Coding work typically involves using a toolkit or Development kit (such as JDK, SDK) or APIs (such as class libraries) by developers with various levels of expertise. Then the developer(s) would use these kits as building blocks and put them together as an application including the backend database model that would meet the requirements or specifications of the application. This approach not only involves developers with multi-skill sets ranging from Ul designers, programmers, database designers and even architects coming together. But they also need to closely work with Business Analysts and other stakeholders for months and years to develop and build a product as per pre-set requirements or specifications. Though the current day Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Eclipse, Microsoft Visual Studio, Net Beans etc., and SDK packages have grown exponentially and many user-friendly features have been added for programmers, it still is a difficult task for programmers to build an application that meets or exceeds expectations. This is because, no matter how well-conceived the approach using Object Oriented design, UML, or even agile development principles to build an application is, a majority of application logic would need to be embedded in the classes and functions of the code which hides the core logic or functionality of the application. Then these modules again need to be built, compiled and tested in an integrated environment after which the software is released to the end-users after deployment. Once the software is in usage, any business process or data change or new requirements that come up would entail changing the code to accommodate and adapt the software to the changing requirements. Nowadays, in an enterprise, business requirements keep changing dynamically as they are in continuous pursuit of reducing costs, increasing revenue, and improving business process efficiencies to scale and get ahead of competition. These business dynamics are now compelling enterprises to look for platforms and solutions that have the capability to easily adapt to change without any coding effort and development cycle. It is in response to this perceived demand that this invention is conceived.

[0003] The concept of building an application from pre-existing modules and components and putting them together in system designed workflows allows almost limitless possible solutions to be created by even non-programmers, such as Business Analysts, Consultants, and even domain experts. This would have a major impact on businesses as the logic of generating a report or changing a dashboard element or capturing new set of data through forms or pages can now be designed within minutes and hours rather than weeks and months. The analogy is akin to the fast food way of making a variety of Pizzas or Subs or Burgers as per the customer's choice by simply putting together the readily available ingredients. The analogy is also akin to building shapes and things using Lego blocks. The analogy is also akin to a human being or humanoid where face is the z-Form, the brain is the workflow and its algorithms, the spine is the framework, he nervous system is the API services and organs as specialised services as shown in fig. 1(a). The interlocking pieces can be assembled and put together to create various shapes, dismantled and can be reassembled to create a new shape. Similarly, the components of disclosed platform can be put together to create any enterprise-grade application just by drag and drop mechanism as the components are highly reusable and interoperable.

Summary of Invention

[0004] Therefore such as herein described, is a method and system for creating any number and types of enterprise-grade applications by drag and drop tools through a Workflow process. Any development activities such as Ul design through web pages, Integrations with other applications through APIs, Machine to Machine integrations for data lookups and fetching of data, human intervention to inspect, approve, validate and visualize data, documents, events and such others can be attached to a node of the workflow.

[0005] The system as disclosed herein comprises of 4 sets of bundles as a) Core Bundles that comprises of Z-Forms, Workflow, API and Solution Services; b) Tripartite Bundles that comprises Process Data Server, File / Resource and Search engine Services; c) Framework Bundles that comprises Authentication, Resource / environment services, Services Container and Services (Mobile devices and other) and d) Applications Bundle that contain pre-built application specific core functionality plug-ins that are highly inter-operable. [0006] Herein disclosed is a system for building an enterprise application on a network-based computer system using drag and drop oriented technology and frameworks, comprising: an interface core engine for connecting a plurality of servers accessible via client computers to a plurality of users wherein the server computer is configured for hosting a business application management system platform; wherein the business application management system platform further comprising a Web interface server (REST, SOAP and/or any open standard envelopes) for receiving a user selected command and for processing an application or document that is a custom service information; an API server electronically coupled with web interface server configured for providing mechanism for any user to integrate any source and target system by using the graphical user interface of the API services layer without any coding or scripting and further configured for storing and retrieving data from a database containing persistent data related to the enterprise application; a source system database of information related to the enterprise application, the said database is electronically coupled to the source system, the first database also containing common enterprise objects; and a target system database of metadata related to enterprise application, the said target system database electronically coupled to the Web interface server; wherein the enterprise application is made available via the network to assist a user in performing a specific enterprise operation which requires location of and use of enterprise objects and display of results of the specific operation to the user in a dynamically selectable format;.

[0007] Also herein disclosed is a computer implemented method for building an enterprise application on a network-based computer system using drag and drop oriented technology and frameworks, the method comprising: providing an interface core engine for connecting a plurality of servers accessible via client computers to a plurality of users wherein the server computer is configured for hosting a business application management system platform; wherein the business application management system platform further comprising a Web interface server (REST, SOAP) for receiving a user selected command and for processing an application or document that is a custom service information; providing an API server electronically coupled with web interface server configured for providing mechanism for any user to integrate any source and target system by using the graphical user interface of the API services layer without any coding or scripting and further configured for storing and retrieving data from a database containing persistent data related to the enterprise application; providing a source system database of information related to the enterprise application, the said database is electronically coupled to the source system, the first database also containing common enterprise objects; and providing a target system database of metadata related to enterprise application, the said target system database electronically coupled to the Web interface server; wherein the enterprise application is available via the network to assist a user in performing a specific enterprise operation which requires location of and use of enterprise objects and display of results of the specific operation to the user in a dynamically selectable format.

[0008] As per an embodiment, the said Web interface server is configured for generating metadata for an enterprise object, for storing the metadata in a metadata database, for querying the metadata database when asked to do so by a user, and for providing the results of a match to a query to the user.

[0009] As per an embodiment, the method employs a use case driven approach of building an application through drag and drop functionality with workflow nodes at each step that correspond to the steps in the use case.

[0010] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for assembling an application through a generic framework using pre-built components, and algorithms that are highly reusable and interoperable modules.

[0011] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for seamlessly deploying an assembled enterprise-grade application on a variety of environments such as on-premise, Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud from a sandboxed test environment.

[0012] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for integrating APIs without writing any code but using a generic integration user interface that allows for a number of communication protocols, and data formats through an API layer.

[0013] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for importing any user-defined Ul themes and layouts from a pre-built set of Ul library to create a user interface of an application through pages, linkages and themes. [0014] As per another embodiment, the method provides flexible and robust Authentication of users through RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control).

[0015] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for creating enterprise applications using pre-built application themes and samples for faster and easier way of building applications that are robust and reliable, as all ingredients are tried and tested as independent components.

[0016] As per yet another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for creating an enterprise-grade application, wherein each web page of the application can be used either to capture data or present the data for view only purposes through Z-Forms.

[0017] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for administering an enterprise-grade application through versioning of all its components such as Ul pages, modules, rules, configurations etc. as a bundle.

[0018] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for modifying through a check-out using the Administration module which allows modification of any of the assembled components of the application through a user interface without the need for changing any code in any of its modules

[0019] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for hosting any number of pre-built components in a Services Container such that these components can be used in any node in the application workflow design process flow. [0020] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between source and target systems, with a layer of APIs without any coding or scripting.

[0021] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a plurality of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations between source and target systems.

[0022] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a pluralities of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations through pre-built or custom- built plug-in based adapters for specific input data types.

[0023] As per another embodiment, the method and the system is configured for a Drag-and-drop interface of API layer for systems and applications integration to transform a collection of individual services into higher-level business services. [0024] As per yet another embodiment, the method is configured for building highly interoperable modular architecture based applications using Service Oriented Architecture.

Brief description of the accompanying drawings

[0025] Fig. 1(a) illustrates the analogy of a human being or humanoid; [0026] Fig. 1(b) illustrates the High-Level Platform Architecture in accordance with the present invention;

[0027] Fig. 2 illustrates the Services Library Low-Level components in accordance with the present invention;

[0028] Fig. 3 illustrates the Ul driven API Services Layer for Integrations between source and target systems;

[0029] Fig. 4 illustrates the Application Creation Process Flow in accordance with the present invention;

[0030] Fig. 5 illustrates the Application Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) in accordance with the present invention; [0031] Fig. 6 illustrates the Data Capture use case scenario from Z-Forms to Data Mapping to Back-end Data Model creation in accordance with the present invention;

[0032] Fig. 7 illustrates the Data Fetch Model from disparate sources and mapping to front-end using Z-Forms as a report in accordance with the present invention.

Detailed Description

[0033] As per an exemplary embodiment, the system architecture includes a processing unit, typically a computer for use as a user and/ or server according to one embodiment. Illustrated are at least one processor coupled to a bus. Also coupled to the bus are a memory, a storage device, a key board, a graphics adapter, a pointing device, and a network adapter. A display and / or print accessory / interface is coupled to the graphics adapter.

[0034] The processor may be any general-purpose processor. The results may be stored in the memory, and the method comprises storing the real result. The results may be stored in any memory, and may be stored in a volatile or preferably non-volatile memory. They may be stored using any suitable data storage medium or media. In particularly preferred embodiments the results are stored using a set of one or more memory drives. Any suitable drive may be used, but preferably each drive is a solid state drive (SSD). Such drives have been found to be particularly useful for storing result tables, as SSDs may provide fast access to store. The pointing device may be a mouse, track ball, or other type of pointing device, and is used in combination with the keyboard to input data into the computer system. The graphics adapter displays images and other information on the display. The network adapter couples the computer to a network.

[0035] As is known in the art, the computer is adapted to execute computer program modules stored in memory. As used herein, the term "module" refers to logic and/or data for providing the specified functionality. A module can be implemented in hardware, firmware, and/or software. In one embodiment, the modules are stored on the storage device, loaded into the memory, and executed by the processor. [0036] Systems and methods in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention can overcome the aforementioned and other deficiencies in existing building enterprise application approaches by providing a different approach to build enterprise applications, based on the following key insights. [0037] A high-level view of the architecture of the disclosed platform is as depicted in Fig. 1(b). The base layer of the architecture comprises Application Management Services that provide various services which are very common and essential modules of any web-based enterprise application in a 3-Tier architecture model comprising the traditional Model, View and Controller (MVC). The Model comprises of modules from the Services Library; the Controller is the Workflow and the View is the Z-Forms designer that not only caters to the visual interface of the application, but also as a presentation layer. By default, these services become part of any newly created application. These services are:

• Application administration module as system management console for managing, monitoring and ensuring proper health-check of all modules of the platform;

• A placeholder for a personalized dashboard for each of the specific user roles defined in the application;

• A device administration module that manages the various devices that are registered with the platform;

• An alerts manager to send out alerts and notifications from various events across the modules;

• General system logs;

• General system Audits with subscription options across any one or more modules;

^• A generic user manager that manages users in any hierarchical manner within and across an enterprise as Internal and External users (such as customers, partners, suppliers etc.). By default, the platform users are authenticated using Role Based Access Control (RBAC) mechanism. Any number of roles can be configured in the system and mapped to an individual user or a group of users. A user can also have multiple roles in the application and a superset of these privileges will be accessible to the user upon authentication;

• A centralized Business Rules engine that can be used to create events and triggers across any of the specific plug-in modules within the platform. · Robotic automated testing suite creates test cases on the fly, based on the configured solution in the platform.

Functioning:

[0038] There will be robotic bots that would run as services where testing needs to be performed; Once registration of such agents is available on the command server the solution can be automatically tested. The building blocks for each test case would be derived from the components and the events configured. The engine would automatically understand the configuration and different levels of test cases would be built. Once the agent is available in the system, then complete automated testing would be performed and reports generated. The entire package is available throughout the life cycle of the solution.

[0039] The application services library comprises 8 optional services that together provide the building blocks to assemble any enterprise-grade application from an Application Integrated Development Environment (AIDE). These are:

• API Services - provide generic Ul based API services for system and application integration

• Z-Form Services - provide a set of designers and control palettes that can be used to create web pages either to present data through graphical widgets or capture data through web page controls

• Authentication services - provide user and application security control access mechanism

• Core Services - provide components to manage application environment and configuration

• Workflow Services - provide a set of tools, designer and configurations to create modify and edit application-level workflows that control the data, users and functionalities of the application ^• Cloud Services - provide a set of components for enabling multi-tenancy with super administration, Billing and metering functionalities.

• Deployment Services - provide components to easily deploy the created application onto Public / Private / Hybrid Cloud platforms. · Premium Services - provide specialized components for specific capabilities, such as Data De-duplication, Order Management, Service Management, Corporate users' portal etc.

[0040] The inbound and outbound communications is carried out through e-mail, Print, and external Web Services / applications are controlled by Distribution components of the platform. Two-way integration components between the application and social media such as Facebook and Twitter are also provided as placeholders for use in the application by the distribution component. Device specific services are also provided for Mobile, loT (Internet of Things) and M2M (Machine to Machine) through Device Services component. Each of these devices need to be registered by the Platform, which then manages all these devices through OTA / web Services mechanism. The Device Services support multiple protocols through several Connectors in a secured manner. The server- side Device Administration services manage these devices through authorization, activation / deactivation, add/delete/modify functionalities. Several device specific fine-grained control features, such as Geo-fencing, partitioning of the device memory into personal and official categories, device wiping, restricting of mobile apps usage on the device etc., can also be provided by the Device Administration module.

[0041] Application Data Management is handled through a very powerful Data Management Services (DMS) module that is capable of handling big data (volume, variety and velocity) and also allows a myriad of data transformation functions such as sorting, merging, aggregating, filtering, segregation, mapping, conversion, encoding and decoding of input data. A client component within DMS called PDM (Process Data Manager) can be spawned into multiple threads within and across systems and ensure that data processing performance is optimized to the limit on the available hardware. So both horizontal and vertical scalability and performance are inbuilt within DMS for optimized throughput. The loading services including bulk loading are part of output generation of DMS and complete support is provided for process and data integrity via process reconciliation features, in addition to logs. Very complex data transformations and data mapping services are handled by plug-in components called adapters. Transformation services also extend to outputting data as files in a format suitable for consumption by destination systems in XML, CSV, databases and updates through APIs.

[0042] Multiple input data sources such as Databases, File Systems, Applications through APIs and lookups are supported. These input data sources are handled by a centralized DMS module that consists of adapters, connectors, and having various other transformation capabilities. These adapters are plug-in based and highly scalable modules that can be mapped to corresponding data type. Various types of connectors are also supported to handle multiple protocols and systems. The DMS framework orchestrates the data requirements right from extraction to loading, including any complex transformations such as sorting, merging, grouping, filtering, validation, cleansing, parsing, computation, distribution, indexing etc.

[0043] Service architecture in system consists of the following interfaces:

• An Interface Core engine,

• An environment Configuration (Server), · A Job Packet or Process Configuration,

• A Process Core Manager (PCM) that comprises Plug-in Life-Cycle Management and Plug-in API Management, and

• (Optional) Viewer Component. Wherein the said job packet consists of: · A Job Template along with Environment template and

• Job Information with Meta-Data

[0044] Each of the services in the Services Library is implemented using the above architecture. Each service processes a job which is defined as a job template encapsulating the specifics of the job that needs to be processed. This template based architecture can be applied for any service and any job packet. A detailed view of the Services Library is as illustrated in Fig. 2.

[0045] As shown in Fig. 2, the referred services are as mentioned below:

1. API Services: The API (Application Programming Interface) services provide a very easy mechanism for any user to integrate any source and target system simply by using the graphical user interface of the API services layer without any coding or scripting. A schematic diagram of the API services layer is as depicted in Fig. 3. The user-friendly Ul captures the required details of the source system concerning the protocol for connection, authentication details (if any), data format, and its types etc. The source system could be an RDBMS, a mainframe system or application or even a file-based input source in several formats such as an XML, PDF, ASCII or CSV files. At the back-end, the API services layer automatically stores these configurations and an execution engine executes the instructions captured. REST (Representational State Transfer), SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) Web services mechanisms are supported by the application for security and performance. The API layer has inbuilt Rules Engine, a plug-in based Adaptors container and a Process Data Manager (PDM) for executing any data transformations that are required to be done between the source and target systems. The transformations supported are on the Data, Text, Numeric data types in rows and columns, sorting, merging, grouping, cleansing, filtering, validating and aggregating source data.

2. Workflow Services: Unlike a traditional workflow system, in this invention an application starts and ends with a workflow. Any part of the application has to be built using workflows and assigning specific functionalities, events, tasks, attachments, rules, roles, Ul layouts and navigation flows are all controlled through system provided workflow. Any business process workflow can be built either directly from use cases or from a page navigation application flow. In that sense, the platform workflow is more than a traditional workflow process, wherein it encompasses not only the business process and user (role and rule-based) workflows, but also the application design and navigation flow through its user interface pages.

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[0046] The workflow module comprises a designer that complies with BPMN (Business Process Modelling Notation) using which, various application and business process workflows can be designed with functions and capabilities attached to any node. The workflow models can be created using drag and drop methods from a palette of BPMN elements. The models can be saved, exported into other formats, (such as PDF and images) and imported from other systems /

i

archives. The XPDL (Extensible Process Definition Language) is used to execute the workflows. The following activities can be done at each workflow node:

• Attach any artefact, such as a document, an e-form or note or a file at each node.

• Configure Machine interaction step to lookup / extract or load from and into other application systems through the API services component.

• Configure branching of the node either through a user role or a rule-based action.

• Configure human intervention node with artefacts that require manual intervention.

• Attach internally designed (using AIDE) web page arranged in a hierarchical manner in a workflow node for configuring the page navigation as per the use case.

• Any pre-built services components can be attached to any node in the workflow to invoke any special functionality that is required by the application to perform.

• KPI services and SLA services to measure and improve the system

• Smart experimentation system wherein changes can be made in live production system without downtime, switch over is done by configuration or toggle of a button. It basically diverts the live flow so that new experimentation could be executed.

[0047] The Workflow server allows creation of complex system and business processes using which, the user can control the flow of a process containing data (documents and forms), roles, and rules, including resources at each node of the workflow. Both machine and human activity based nodes are supported for creating an automated system that needs to integrate with other external applications to fetch or update any relevant data. Any number of processes and

I sub-processes can be created to control the flow of any complex application. An application thus comprises of a set of workflows that orchestrates the user activity and brings together the application data, various users, external applications, business processes.

3. Z-Forms Service: The Z-Forms service provides a designer to create a web page using a palette that consists of a variety of controls, such as line edit, Text Area, Combo boxes, multi-select boxes, Radio buttons, check-boxes etc. Additional controls tools are also provided to configure data validations on each such control, align the controls on the page and style the page according to the required style guidelines through CSS3 (Cascading Style Sheet 3) compliance. The created pages can be configured for presentation in either report mode using data visualization widgets, such as Pie, Bar, line Scatter, Doughnut, Cone and other charts or in data capture mode using data controls. All such designed web pages are automatically highly responsive (as internally they are stored as HTML5 pages) and hence support devices of all form factors. Additionally, themes and styles can be imported into the application system from the pre-built component library. Each page of the application can thus be custom designed and organized in a hierarchical manner and attached to nodes in an application process workflow for configuring the navigation. Rules and role-based actions can be performed at each node for branching off the pages to handle exceptions and other special scenarios.

[0048] Standards based user interface architecture allows users to easily create and import rich intelligent Uls (even 3rdparty tools) through Z-Forms. Each page of the application can be created using Z-Forms that behaves both as report and data capturing interface. Ul themes can be imported and used to design as per branding guidelines and requirements; just by selecting from a palette of available themes and packages. The application can then be built page by page through an easy to use wizard. All controls and Ul elements for either data capture or data presentation, including data validations and formats wherever necessary, are provided in a palette to choose from. Pages thus designed can be assembled and linked together through a workflow process. A wizard-driven approach for easy creation of application pages is provided in the Application Integrated Development Environment (AIDE). 4 4. Authentication Services: These services provide the capability to securely authenticate any or all users of the application through Role Based Access Control (RBAC) or ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control). Role definitions and Attributes definition are invoked from the Application Base Services module. In addition, Single Sign-On and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) are also supported for streamlining user access across applications and systems.

5. Cloud Services: The cloud services comprise a set of modules to provide multi-tenancy capability with super administrator concepts, and Module template access control. In addition, metering and billing facilities are also provided for end-to-end cloud launch of an application for production use.

6. Solution services: The solution service comprises a set of modules to provide solution boot up. This is the first service that is processed when a solution journey begins. The journey is handed over to the relevant module based on the defied business rule for further processing. The platform may contain more than one solution and the complete ownership is taken care by this service.

7. Premium Services: The premium services comprise specialized pre-built components such as a basic Document Management System (DMS), Scanning component, Biometrics, Data De-duplication engine, Document composer and Order assure to provide unique functionalities to the application. Any of these components can be attached to a process node in the Business Process node, and the functionality along with the Ul and Backend data models can be invoked just by the click of a button.

8. Core Services: The core services comprise a set of modules for the application administrator that provide administration services, a runtime platform, monitoring and troubleshooting module, application configuration, Environment and distributed memory management. The system monitoring and troubleshooting can be done by an administrator using an application management console with graphical runtime displays of resources and component usage across the environment of the application. Since each component is self-healing and self-configuring, manual administration and downtime for upgrades can be drastically minimized.

1 9. Deployment Services: The deployment services enable an application to be easily and correctly hosted on a variety of production environments from a Test bed or a sandbox instance of the newly-built application. Production environments supported are Public, Private and Hybrid cloud on an laaS platform with the required Windows or LAMP stack or any such similar environment in future. Since all the components are OSGi compliant, version management and dependency errors are also drastically reduced.

[0049] The Services Container comprises a container shell that hosts model- based plug-in components. The resource and environment server manages the deployment environment of any solution on a variety of infrastructure and platforms including Public / Private / Hybrid cloud.

[0050] All components of the platform are orchestrated through service-based architecture that allows for a future-proof way of building new applications and scaling / extending the same as per any dynamically changing business or system requirements. Each of the service deployments is grouped from micro to macro, each of the server groups would be further grouped to form a huge farm of clusters and such clusters can be configured at infinity scale.

10. Test Suite Services: When a solution is created to resolve a business problem, the bots in the service automatically detect the use cases and build test cases which are ready to be executed. These test cases will be integral part of the solution and would co-exist through the life cycle. Hence the test suite can be executed to check the sanity and integrity of the solution along with integration as well. An automated report along with defects and artifacts would also be produced for audit and reference. 11. Robot Bot Services: These are engines with cognitive intelligence, which learns patterns, based on simple commands designs form all the services would be automatically created based on the request.

Application Design Process Flow

[0051] The application development process design is as illustrated in Fig. 4. [0052] The disclosed process can easily be followed by a non-programmer (could be a Business Analyst, System Integrator, Consultant, or a Delivery person) once he/she is familiar with the requirements of the application that needs to be built. The first step in the process is to first identify the business use cases which a typical BA would do as a regular job. These can then be translated into a workflow starting from either an existing pre-designed template or by creating a new one. Then the user interface pages for a particular user role are conceptualized and designed using the Z-Forms designer in the AIDE. Multiple such pages, as required, can be built and organized in a hierarchical manner. Then the data mapping with data validations are performed as per the data control item in the page. Data control of each page is mapped to back-end data model through a Process Data Manager (PDM) component. This process is illustrated in detail below under the section "sample application creation use case".

[0053] Individual or a set of pages are then associated with respective nodes in the main application workflow process for setting up the navigation of the pages. Then the functional modules such as an e-mail distribution or SMS or a scanning module are attached to respective nodes as per the requirements. If no required functional modules are found in the component repository, the same needs to be built one time as a generic reusable component by the developer and can be used / reused later.

[0054] Now that the Ul, back-end data model and the business logic functional components are mapped, the application is moved to a test bed sandbox for testing all its functionalities. Once the testing phase is completed the same can be moved to production server through deployment services just by the click of a button. This is possible because all the components of the newly created application are Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) compliant that supports versioning, interoperability, dependency packaging through bundles etc. Bundles are a composite composition of packages of functions grouped into different classes to offer services. These services store the configured instructions into a template.

Application Integrated Development Environment (AIDE)

[0055] A schematic of the application Integrated Development Environment (AIDE) is as illustrated in Fig. 5. The AIDE interface has 5 tabs for presenting the user with all the tools and designers of the services library. These tabs are: 1. Workflow

2. Z-Forms

3. Data Model (PDM)

4. Administration Configuration 5. Health-Check monitoring console

6. Robotic testing suite

7. Bots command based design

[0056] In this sample illustration, a sample workflow tabs view is depicted. The left pane toolbox provides menu access to all the tools of the Workflow rules, Human API, and Machine API configurations at the node.

[0057] The bottom half of the pane displays the top-level functionalities of workflow execution like Importing, Exporting and saving all newly-created workflow. The Viewer pane has the designer components of the workflow and presents the user with all the tools and utilities to create a workflow. The rightmost pane displays the specific properties of each selected node. For instance, the properties of Human API node are illustrated in Fig. 5. The workflow designer BPMN components, such as Start, Stop, Save, Task, Flow, and Rules are provided in the interface for easy designing of the process flow using drag and drop tools. As mentioned above, each of the components are bundled by the defined platform core specification. Hence, these bundles can register on the platform identifying, based on the taxonomy of the bundle. Configurations of all the components are stored into a template for persistent storage and consumption.

[0058] The minimum hardware required for the system is as follows: Name: Requirement

Processor Architecture: 32 or 64

RAM: 4gb

Storage: 500mb

Network: 100kbps or more Simple use case illustration of a Z- Form as Data Store page

[0059] A simple use case of page creation with sample data of Name, Address and Age is illustrated in Fig. 6. In this case, the page is designed using the Z- Forms page creation tool with line edit data control for data capture. These controls are mapped by name to the corresponding named Data Variables in the PDM. This activity can be easily carried-out by a non-programmer. All such mapped data variables from PDM are then mapped to actual data store at the back-end using the process orchestration engine in the workflow to persist the data in multiple target systems and applications such as databases, CSV, Message Queues and Web Service. In this manner, the entire process of capturing the data and persisting the same can be done without any scripting or coding.

[0060] The reverse mapping of the same use case as a data fetch and presenting the same as a report or presentation layer is illustrated in Fig. 7. Here the existing Name, Address and Age data fields in the back-end system are mapped to a user-defined variable in the PDM. Then, these mapped variables are associated with the front-end data placeholders for the same three variables. In this manner, the association of the page data variables with the back-end data variables is accomplished. The Process data manager is the core entity which holds the atomic unit of the data element. A combination of such elements can be used for data to the stored, represented, processed and transformed. Basic element is termed as a simple object and composite combination is called as a complex object. The process data manager can represent its data elements in a conceptual/business model, and is virtualized using the data work flow. The data from different sources are federated to look like that they are one. However, it acts like a nervous system; each of the data is connected to different systems and based on the context of requirements, the data element is prepared for consumption for various services within the servers of the platform.

Benefits of each component of the platform Workflow server

[0061] Any application functionality can be configured as a workflow process which is a part of the application lifecycle management. Any dynamic change in the business process can easily be adopted by the system through a corresponding change in the workflow design. This has immense business benefits as enterprises can now launch new business lines quickly, easily and reliably or even optimize their existing processes any time through a quick change in the corresponding application workflow. The system has KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and SLA (Service Level Agreements/rules) by which each node can produce matrix by which the system can be measured for performance. Smart experimentation is embedded within the workflow server which automatically knows if there is an experimentation configured and jobs would be processed based on configured rules.

• Conforms to BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) standards and allows for easy and standards based workflow design

• Supports machine and human activity based nodes to design machine to machine, machine to human interactions in a workflow. · Pre-built services components can be assembled through workflow to design any application process flow with any specialized services.

• Enterprises can transform their existing businesses through quick and easy integration between application and LOBs within days or weeks instead of months and years. Functioning:

[0062] The graphical representation is converted to a platform understandable template. Each of the building blocks are compiled by the process engine. This process engine has clear defined building blocks similar to a DNA. Each unit of representation is converted to an executable logic within the platform and multiple such solution mix gives birth to a business need represented in the design. When there arises a need to extend the components can be defined by the DNA definition and attach it to the main process engine to extent to perform unlimited operations. The entire micros service blocks are orchestrated internally to a workflow. Hence each has a start, computation/processing/transformation/output and finally the unit ends. The components combine and work together in a very organized fashion. This collaborative working of components gives life to business logics and solutions. The drag and drop of pictorial representation is converted into algorithmic logic. Each of such representations is stored in templates. These templates are either precompiled for runtime execution or consumed as is, based on the context of execution of the template. Each of the nodes that the workflow is designed will have a defined measurable key performance indicator defined for process monitoring either by human or by agent bots.

API Server

• Ul based application integration that is easy to use and configure integration with data transformation capabilities. This will allow for faster integration between any source and target systems thus enabling quick integration between any number of enterprise applications whenever mergers and acquisitions occur.

• Data integration between disparate applications allows for a 360° view of data and processes, thus enabling single screen application that hides the behind the scene the complexities of multitude of application. This results in better customer service and enhanced end-customer experience through self-service portals

• Multiple protocols support allows API server to enable Machine-to-Machine and loT devices, appliances or gadgets. This results in end-to-end real-time automation of business processes enabling enterprises to cater to futuristic needs of businesses in an automated manner. Functioning:

[0063] The API server is an outbound gateway for the platform for any integration point communicates in and out of the platform. The server is built from basic building blocks to communicate envelop of standards through the underlying technology. Each of new requirements would be adapted to the system by building packages that will comply with the execution, that is on the fly the bundles would be hooked into the system and new standards would be complied. The API server forms a gateway where different services can be collaborated in an ecosystem of enterprise applications. The API server exposes communication with varied services like REST, TCP (Transport control protocol), and MQ (Message Queue). Z-Forms Server

• Business Analysts / Consultants can design applications easily as each Page creation of the application requires no coding or scripting but only drag and drop of Z-Form components through wizard based plug-ins. This will not only facilitate faster building of applications but will also ensure that the application is automatically complying with all stakeholders requirements and can easily be adapted to dynamic business change requirements.

• All layouts available in Z-Form by default are cross browser compatible and by default are responsive in nature that also support multiple devices of any form factor. This will allow easy access of the application anywhere, anytime and by any authorized user which in turn will improve productivity and reduce Turnaround time.

• It has the option to import any layout and pages which is as per the standards mentioned by Z-Form and use in the application. Functioning:

[0064] This also complies with the basic building block of the platform. Each of the Ul elements would be packaged with defined specifications to standardize, reuse and become a reusable asset. Each from layout to specific estate of white space would be controlled by the designer and would be dragged and dropped on the canvas to from a business solution. The skeleton of the framework is built for components to hook to the designer for representing GUI based on the targeted device. They are extendible for future display devices also. The basic DNA or the shell of the system is defined from basic generic interfaces, by which combined together to form a server. [0065] Although the foregoing description of the present invention has been shown and described with reference to particular embodiments and applications thereof, it has been presented for purposes of illustration and description and is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the particular embodiments and applications disclosed. It will be apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art that a number of changes, modifications, variations, or alterations to the invention as described herein may be made, none of which depart from the spirit or scope of the present invention. The particular embodiments and applications were chosen and described to provide the best illustration of the principles of the invention and its practical application to thereby enable one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. All such changes, modifications, variations, and alterations should therefore be seen as being within the scope ..of the present invention as determined by the appended claims when interpreted in accordance with the breadth to which they are fairly, legally, and equitably entitled.

Claims

Claims:

1. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system using drag and drop oriented technology and frameworks, comprising: an interface core engine for connecting a plurality of servers accessible via client computers to a plurality of users wherein the server computer is configured for hosting a business application management system platform; wherein the business application management system platform further comprising a Web interface server (REST, SOAP) for receiving a user selected command and for processing an application or document that is a custom service information; an API server electronically coupled with web interface server configured for providing mechanism for any user to integrate any source and target system by using the graphical user interface of the API services layer without any coding or scripting and further configured for storing and retrieving data from a database containing persistent data related to the enterprise application; a source system database of information related to the enterprise application, the said database is electronically coupled to the source system, the first database also containing common enterprise objects; and a target system database of metadata related to enterprise application, the said target system database electronically coupled to the Web interface server; wherein the enterprise application is made available via the network to assist a user in performing a specific enterprise operation which requires location of and use of enterprise objects and display of results of the specific operation to the user in a dynamically selectable format.

2. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the Web interface server is configured for generating metadata for an enterprise object, for storing the metadata in a metadata database, for querying the metadata database when asked to do so by a user, and for providing the results of a match to a query to the user.

3. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system further comprises of 4 sets of bundles namely: a) core bundles comprising of Z-Forms, Workflow, API and Solution Services; b) tripartite bundles comprising of Process Data Server, File / Resource and Search engine Services; c) framework bundles comprising of Authentication, Resource / environment services, Services Container and Services (Mobile devices and other) and d) applications bundle that contains pre-built application specific core functionality plug-ins that is highly inter-operable.

4. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the building an enterprise application employs a use case driven approach of building an application through drag and drop functionality with workflow nodes at each step that correspond to the steps in the use case

5. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for assembling an application through a generic framework using pre-built components, and algorithms that are highly reusable and inter operable modules.

6. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system is configured for seamlessly deploying an assembled enterprise-grade application on a variety of environments such as on-premise, Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud from a sandboxed test environment.

7. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system is configured for integrating APIs without writing any code but using a generic integration user interface that allows for a number of communication protocols, and data formats through an API layer.

8. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for importing any user-defined Ul themes and layouts from a pre-built set of Ul library to create a user interface of an application through pages, linkages and themes.

9. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system provides flexible and robust Authentication of users through RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control).

10. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the system is configured for creating enterprise applications using pre-built application themes and samples for faster and easier way of building applications that are robust and reliable, as all ingredients are tried and tested as independent components.

11. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for creating an enterprise-grade application, wherein each web page of the application can be used either to capture data or present the data for view only purposes through Z- Forms.

12. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for administering an enterprise-grade application through versioning of all its components such as Ul pages, modules, rules, configurations etc. as a bundle 3. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for modifying through a check-out using the Administration module which allows modification of any of the assembled components of the application through a user interface without the need for changing any code in any of its modules.

14. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system configured for hosting any number of pre-built components in a Services Container such that these components can be used in any node in the application workflow design process flow.

15. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between source and target systems, with a layer of APIs without any coding or scripting.

16. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a plurality of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations between source and target systems.

17. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a pluralities of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations through pre-built or custom-built plug-in based adapters for specific input data types.

18. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for a Drag-and- drop interface of API layer for systems and applications integration to transform a collection of individual services into higher-level business services.

19. A system for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system is configured for building highly interoperable modular architecture based applications using Service Oriented Architecture.

20. A computer implemented method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system using drag and drop oriented technology and frameworks, the method comprising: providing an interface core engine for connecting a plurality of servers accessible via client computers to a plurality of users wherein the server computer is configured for hosting a business application management system platform; wherein the business application management system platform further comprising a Web interface server (REST, SOAP)for receiving a user selected command and for processing an application or document that is a custom service information; providing a API server electronically coupled with web interface server configured for providing mechanism for any user to integrate any source and target system by using the graphical user interface of the API services layer without any coding or scripting and further configured for storing and retrieving data from a database containing persistent data related to the enterprise application; providing a source system database of information related to the enterprise application, the said database is electronically coupled to the source system, the first database also containing common enterprise objects; and providing a target system database of metadata related to enterprise application, the said target system database electronically coupled to the Web interface server; wherein the enterprise application is available via the network to assist a user in performing a specific enterprise operation which requires location of and use of enterprise objects and display of results of the specific operation to the user in a dynamically selectable format.

21. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the Web interface server is configured for generating metadata for an enterprise object, for storing the metadata in a metadata database, for querying the metadata database when asked to do so by a user, and for providing the results of a match to a query to the user.

22. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the said method further comprises of 4 sets of workable bundles namely: a) core bundles comprising of Z-Forms, Workflow, API and Solution Services; b) tripartite bundles comprising of Process Data Server, File / Resource and Search engine Services; c) framework bundles comprising of Authentication, Resource / environment services, Services Container and Services (Mobile devices and other) and d) applications Bundle that contain pre-built application specific core functionality plug-ins that are highly inter-operable.

23. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the building of an enterprise application employs a use case driven approach of building an application through drag and drop functionality with workflow nodes at each step that correspond to the steps in the use case.

24. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for assembling an application through a generic framework using pre-built components, and algorithms that are highly reusable and inter operable modules.

25. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for seamlessly deploying an assembled enterprise-grade application on a variety of environments such as on-premise, Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud from a sandboxed test environment.

26. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for integrating APIs without writing any code but using a generic integration user interface that allows for a number of communication protocols, and data formats through an API layer.

27. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for importing any user-defined Ul themes and layouts from a pre-built set of Ul library to create a user interface of an application through pages, linkages and themes.

28. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method provides flexible and robust Authentication of users through RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and ABAC (Attribute Based Access Control). 29. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for creating enterprise applications using pre-built application themes and samples for faster and easier way of building applications that are robust and reliable, as all ingredients are tried and tested as independent components. 30. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for creating an enterprise-grade application, wherein each web page of the application can be used either to capture data or present the data for view only purposes through Z- Forms.

31. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for administering an enterprise-grade application through versioning of all its components such as Ul pages, modules, rules, configurations etc. as a bundle.

32. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method configured for modifying through a check-out using the Administration module which allows modification of any of the assembled components of the application through a user interface without the need for changing any code in any of its modules.

33. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method configured for hosting any number of pre-built components in a Services Container such that these components can be used in any node in the application workflow design process flow.

34. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between source and target systems, with a layer of APIs without any coding or scripting.

35. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a plurality of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations between source and target systems.

36. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for a generic Ul driven integration between a pluralities of source systems, with API layer as mentioned above, with data transformations through pre-built or custom-built plug-in based adapters for specific input data types.

37. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for a Drag-and- drop interface of API layer for systems and applications integration to transform a collection of individual services into higher-level business services. 38. A method for building an enterprise application on a network based computer system as claimed in claim 20, wherein the method is configured for building highly interoperable modular architecture based applications using Service Oriented Architecture.