Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Prabir Krishna Shrestha

Stephen Christopher Siciliano

Charles Lamanna

Balasubramanian Shyamsundar

Sunay Vaishnav

Anjli Chaudhry

Himanshu Agrawal

Ilya Grebnov

Merwan Vishnu Hade

Kevin Kaiwon Lam

Jonjo Twist

Prashant Kumar

Ashwin Sathya Raghunathan

Kartik Rao Polepalli

Brad Olenick

Leon Welicki

Alvaro Rahul Dias

Mo Wang

Mark David Overholt

Fnu Anubhav

Syed Nadir Ahmed

Alaa Shaker

Khetthai Laksanakorn

Ryan A Jansen

Amin Bagheri

Joon Y Chung

Priti Sambandam

Zhao Yu

Julio O Casal Terreros

Dasaradha Ramu Yalamanchili

Leon Ezequiel Welicki

Julio 0 Casal Terreros

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 that provides a developer with a search utility for finding steps for inclusion in a workflow. The system also automatically generates a meaningful name and/or graphical representation for a workflow. The system also provides a graphical user interface that represents output parameters of a first workflow step as user-interactive objects. These objects can be interacted with to cause the objects to be inserted into a data entry element that is used to specify a value for an input parameter of a second workflow step. When executable logic representing the first and second workflow steps is generated, the insertion of the objects into the data entry element has the effect of causing the value of the input parameter of the second workflow step to be defined to include the values of the output parameters that correspond to the inserted objects.

Workflow development system with ease-of-use features

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

Embodiments of facilitating creation of cloud computing applications are disclosed therein. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving user input of a plurality of workflow items as a sequence of graphical objects on a graphical user interface. The workflow items individually are related to one or more cloud computing services. The method also includes determining an execution sequence of the plurality of workflow items based on data dependencies individually between pairs of the workflow items, the determined execution sequence being different than the sequence of the graphical objects. The determined execution sequence includes executing pairs of the workflow items without data dependencies therebetween generally in parallel and sequentially executing other pairs of the workflow items with data dependencies therebetween in accordance with the data dependencies.

Designer tool for managing cloud computing services

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided for remedying design time and runtime workflow errors. During design time of a workflow, an input parameter provided via the user interface may be validated to determine if the parameter is invalid. Based on the determination, a replacement parameter may be obtained and provided to the user interface control of the workflow user interface to replace the invalid workflow parameter during development of the workflow. During runtime of a workflow, a workflow engine may generate failure information where workflow logic fails to execute successfully. The failure information generated in response to a runtime failure is received by a remediation system and may be analyzed to identify a probable cause of the runtime failure. Remediation instructions to remediate the runtime failure may be determined and transmitted to a contact address associated with the workflow, enabling the workflow to be repaired.

Remediation of design time and runtime workflow errors

A workflow development system is described herein that includes a graphical user interface (GUI) that is configured to selectively and dynamically allocate relatively more of a display area to a particular one of a plurality of different, simultaneously-displayed workflow step representations than is allocated to the other workflow step representation(s) to facilitate user interaction the particular workflow step representation. Such allocation may be carried out in response to user interaction with the particular workflow step representation or in response to a determination that a user is otherwise focused on the particular workflow step representation. In embodiments, the workflow step representations represent different workflow steps in a series of workflow steps. In further embodiments, the workflow step representations represent different workflow steps that may be performed depending upon the evaluation of a condition.

Methods, systems, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided for developing workflows. An input control may be rendered in association with the rendered representation of a workflow step corresponding to an input parameter. A developer is enabled to interact with the input control to select a parameter value for the input parameter. A workflow is enabled to be developed that includes a push notification workflow step configured to issue a push notification when encountered in the work flow and to wait for a response before enabling the workflow to continue. A workflow saved in a user folder is enabled to be selected for insertion into further workflows. A subscription workflow step may be selected for inclusion in a second workflow that is configured to wait for output information from a subscribed-to workflow before enabling the second workflow to continue.

Intelligent flow designer

A user interface control that has different logic components for processing different role logic depending on a role that is played by the user interface control. The user interface control may also have a general function component that performs general functions that may be common across multiple user interface controls. Also, a protocol for use in communicating between two user interface controls to establish a communications link. A first user interface control requests information from a second user interface control, which then obtains the requested information. The second user interface control then provides the requested information to the first user interface control, and then awaits the validation of the requested information.

User interface control and communication

Growing community of inventors

Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Prabir Krishna Shrestha