Abstract: A system facilitates the search engine to search for pieces of information in various databases and application documents without the need to know the specific protocols to communicate with the various databases and application documents, such as Microsoft Excel documents. Despite the multitude of possible protocols which a crawler would have to use to connect to the databases, the system includes a unifying application programming interface to unify the way to access pieces of information in the databases and application documents.

Abstract: An adaptive picker for selecting data in disparate information systems is provided. The adaptive picker may be implemented by an application to pick items from one or more data stores, which are associated with other applications. The adaptive picker determines items provided by the data store that are available for picking and the types of data associated with the items. The adaptive picker receives key information provided by a user through the first application and searches for the available items based on the key information. The adaptive picker also filters the items to identify a desired item. The adaptive picker can determine the filtering capabilities associated with the data stores and automatically adapt to these filtering capabilities. The adaptive picker can retrieve a desired item with a key information search that matches the key information with a unique identifier associated with desired item. The key information search enables a user to pick an item without browsing.

Abstract: Systems and methods for annotating documents in provided in a collaborative application with data from disparate information systems are provided. The collaborative application enables the annotation of a document with data provided by another application. Particularly, the collaborative application enables a user to pick an item from a data store associated with another application. An association is established between the document and the picked item and retrieves data associated with the picked item from the data store. The document is annotated with the retrieved data. Because of the association, the collaborative application can determine that the picked item in the data store has been modified by the other application. The collaborative application may retrieve modified data associated with the picked item from the data store and update the annotation data associated with the document with the modified data.

Abstract: An enterprise system may separate the executable functionality existing in backend applications, and the separation may be at differing levels of granularity. The separated functions of the application may be registered in a catalog in the form of metadata objects. Once the executable functionality has been registered, the authorization information for each granular functional object may be associated with authorization information. In this manner, the authorization of a service of an application may be made on a feature by feature (or object by object) basis in a unified manner.

Abstract: A data store catalogue service model is disclosed for exposing disparate data store services to clients without requiring explicit knowledge on how to interact with each disparate service. The data store catalogue service model may maintain interaction details for each data store service that clients may access for interacting with those services. The model may also maintain metadata that may describe the different types of services available for access by clients, the data types used by those services, how to access the data provided by the services, and how to communicate semantically with the services for accessing the service's data. Additionally, the data store may include metadata that enables clients to interact with one or more registered data stores in a number of ways, such as for discovering registered data store services, entities, classes, and/or any associations between related entities within the same or among disparate services.

Abstract: An enterprise system may separate the executable functionality existing in backend applications, and the separation may be at differing levels of granularity. The separated functions of the application may be registered in a catalog in the form of metadata objects. Once the executable functionality has been registered, the authorization information for each granular functional object may be associated with authorization information. In this manner, the authorization of a service of an application may be made on a feature by feature (or object by object) basis in a unified manner.

Abstract: A system facilitates the search engine to search for pieces of information in various databases and application documents without the need to know the specific protocols to communicate with the various databases and application documents, such as Microsoft Excel documents. Despite the multitude of possible protocols which a crawler would have to use to connect to the databases, the system includes a unifying application programming interface to unify the way to access pieces of information in the databases and application documents.

Abstract: A computing system for the publication of actions associated with the current context of an entity, such as a business object is provided. The computing system has a component that stores entities, a component that stores the actions associated with the entities, and a software component that provides information about the current context or contexts of an entity and actions associated with the current contexts of the entity. The computing system may further include a client system that requests and displays the actions associated with the current contexts of an entity. A method for contextual publication of actions associated with an entity is also provided. The method provides the current contexts of the entity. The method further provides the actions associated with the current contexts of the entity. Multiple user interfaces are provided for the management of and access to actions associated an entity.