Abstract: A metadata driven system for supporting business application software required in the middle tier for a line of business applications includes a process metadata module adapted to store a process in metadata format, wherein the process object contains logic related to an entity of the application software. The system allows for persistence of various entities like accounts, incidents, etc., and allows an end user of the business application software to create new types of entities. The system also allows the end user to perform critical business logic operations even on the new entities defined by the end user after the deployment of the business application without requiring recompilation of the business application software. The metadata driven approach allows to easily make changes to business applications and to automate quality assurance of objects built on top of the business applications.

Abstract: A metadata driven software development system provides various functionalities related to an entity of an application in the metadata format. Specifically, the system provides a set of base classes related to the entity and a set of methods and application programming interfaces for various operations to be performed on the entities in the metadata format. Defining such functionalities in the metadata format allows the system to dynamically generate XML messages matching any customized schema for that entity. Because such functionality is metadata driven, this system can be used with customized versions of the application without requiring any additional code or recompilation.