Abstract: A system and method is disclosed for improving the efficiency of a service department when maintaining equipment. The equipment performs self-diagnosis and periodically reports a problem or other event by automatically generating an event code indicating that an event has occurred that requires maintenance of the equipment. The system then automatically posts initial information about the event on a secure message board, such as within the company's website, for access by one or more authorized personnel via a network. The event code is applied to a look-up table pre-programmed with rules identifying authorizations of certain personnel to receive posted information about the event and to contribute to a posting thread. A communications controller then applies the rules to the thread as the event is being resolved by the authorized personnel. Authorized personnel are allowed to dynamically modify the rules after the posting of the initial information.

Abstract: A business application development environment and a corresponding business application execution environment is disclosed. A graphical user interface based Workflow Designer allows a user to easily create business applications graphically. The business applications are converted into the Business Process Modeling Language (BPML). Existing BPML applications may also be edited with the graphical user interface BMPL designer of the present invention. Created business applications (that are represented in BPML) can then be hosted on any XML based web services server system. Business applications generally operate on business objects. The objects allow for fields to include functions that combine other fields. Once an application has been designed, the BPML code may be executed using a BPML execution engine. The BPML execution engine executes the BPML based applications. One embodiment interprets BPML applications with an interpreter in the execution engine.