Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Merwan Vishnu Hade

Stephen Christopher Siciliano

Sunay Vaishnav

Charles Lamanna

Prabir Krishna Shrestha

Anjli Chaudhry

Ashwin Sathya Raghunathan

Kartik Rao Polepalli

David Nissimoff

Fnu Anubhav

Jesse Francisco

Balasubramanian Shyamsundar

Paul Yuknewicz

Samuel Lenz Banina

Himanshu Agrawal

Alexandru Dan Burst

David Alexander Blyth

Daniel Joseph Kappes

Dennis Angeline

Kerem Yuceturk

Nitish Kumar Meena

Mark David Sisley

Joon Y Chung

Huan Guo

Mine Tanrinian Demir

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for identifying and consenting to permissions for workflow and code execution. Aspects of the invention can be used to automatically scan a workflow or code definition to identify (potentially all) the actions/triggers a workflow or program intends to perform on behalf of a user. The user is shown the actions/triggers the workflow or program intends to perform (e.g., at a user interface) before consent to perform the actions/triggers is granted. As such, a user is aware of intended actions/triggers of a workflow or program before granting consent. Further, since actions/triggers are identified from the workflow or code definition (and not formulated by an author), permission requests better align with permissions that workflow or program functionality actually uses during execution.

Identifying and consenting to permissions for workflow and code execution

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products are described herein that generate and assist in managing templates (pre-generated user-customizable automated workflows) that can be used to easily and efficiently develop automated workflows in an automated workflow development system. A plurality of workflows steps in a library of workflow steps is determined. One or more workflow templates are automatically generated. Each automatically generated workflow template includes a combination of at least two of the workflow steps in the library. The one or more workflow templates are stored in a library of templates. Furthermore, one or more workflow steps compatible with a workflow step may be determined. The determined one or more workflow steps may be displayed in association with the first workflow step for selection.

Lazy generation of templates

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products are described herein that generate and assist in managing templates (pre-generated user-customizable automated workflows) that can be used to easily and efficiently develop automated workflows in an automated workflow development system. An automated workflow template for publication that includes parameters is received. At least a portion of the parameters included in the automated workflow template are automatically anonymized to generate an anonymized automated workflow template. The anonymized automated workflow template is published.

Automatic anonymization of workflow templates

A workflow development system is described herein that embeds a workflow designer user interface of a workflow development application into a user interface of another software application, so that the workflow designer user interface can be used to generate workflows that reference and/or interact with the other software application. In some aspects, the workflow development application obtains information indicative of a context of a user within the other software application and recommends workflow templates or workflow steps for selection by a user based on the obtained information. The workflow development application may also pre-populate certain parameters of certain workflow steps based on the obtained information.

Application with embedded workflow designer

Methods for externally-delegated access control and authorization of applications and resources are performed by systems and devices. A request for access by a user to a resource of a first application is received from a client device. A memory data structure that associates the resource of the first application with an application identifier and permission information is accessed to obtain the application identifier and the permission information. A query is provided to a second application, identified by the application identifier, which has a different authorization model than the first application. The query includes a user identifier and the permission information. The second application performs a permission check and authorization for the user based on the query. A query response that includes an access indication is the received from the second application. The request is granted or denied based on the access indication.

System and method for externally-delegated access control and authorization

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided for developing, debugging, and growing workflows. Embodiments enable the developer to test the workflow in place in a workflow designer that displays input/output parameter values for each workflow step during the test run. The developer is enabled to toggle the workflow step(s) between a development mode, where the developer may edit input parameter values, and a test mode, where the developer is displayed (but cannot edit) the input parameter values and is displayed the output parameter values at each workflow step. A record of workflow runs of a workflow is also maintained. The developer is also enabled to transition a workflow from being a business application to a robust software application having additional functionality. The workflow logic generated is transported between a visual workflow designer and a full-blown code editor.

Debugging a flow

Embodiments provide a viewer/editor for schema-less data, such as a NoSQL database. The data structures are displayed so that each entity type in the data uses a different color and variable column widths. This allows the user to identify relationships between entities. For a selected entity, only the properties applicable to that entity are displayed by the viewer/editor. The column width for each property is optimized to reduce confusion and to allow the user to focus on the selected data.

Detection and visualization of schema-less data

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Merwan Vishnu Hade