Abstract: A method and apparatus to employ a service proxy to dynamically personalize Web service messages by automatically supplying the interface parameters used for communications between a Web service provider and its client businesses. The service proxy does this according to context parameters that the client businesses specifies during configuration set up at the Web service provider's Web site and in messages used to communicate with one or more Web services. For simpler administration, the context variables may be organized in multiple kinds of hierarchies by which communications parameters specified at a higher level are automatically applied to categories at a lower level, although parameters specified directly for a lower-level category will override parameters from a higher category.

Abstract: A method and apparatus to employ a service proxy to personalize service messages by automatically supplying the interface parameters used for communications between a Service provider and its client businesses. The service proxy does this according to context parameters that the client businesses specify during configuration of the messages used to communicate with one or more services. For simpler administration, the context variables may be organized in multiple kinds of hierarchies by which communications parameters specified at a higher level are automatically applied to categories at a lower level, although parameters specified directly for a lower-level category will override parameters from a higher category.

Abstract: A packaging utility is created that can in turn create a deployment archive (DAR) file containing the data required to install a Web service application, comprising, for example, portlets for creating Web pages for the Web service's user interface, UDDI entries, executable programs, and application-wide properties. The application-wide properties may comprise elements to be used in connection with one or more Web services, for example, encryption levels, service levels, timeouts, and number of retries. For administration efficiency the application-wide properties may be applied according to hierarchies, for example from groupings of Web services to individual Web services and from organizations of users to individual users. An unpackaging tool is created to unpackage and install the DAR file on a target environment. A configuration set is employed by the unpackaging tool to determine where the elements of the Web service application are to be installed on the target environment.

Abstract: A method and apparatus to employ a service proxy to dynamically personalize Web service messages by automatically supplying the interface parameters used for communications between a Web service provider and its client businesses. The service proxy does this according to context parameters that the client businesses specifies during configuration set up at the Web service provider's Web site and in messages used to communicate with one or more Web services. For simpler administration, the context variables may be organized in multiple kinds of hierarchies by which communications parameters specified at a higher level are automatically applied to categories at a lower level, although parameters specified directly for a lower-level category will override parameters from a higher category.

Abstract: A service proxy is used to automatically supply the message-format parameters required for incoming message communications to a web-service provider from client applications through a message-conversion system that the web-service provider previously sets up. For outgoing messages from the web service to client businesses, the service proxy automatically supplies the required message-format parameters according to service policies that client businesses set up previously through the web-service provider's web-site interface. The format of client application messages is predefined for a web service policy, and a configuration interface is established for context variables and message format variables. This service profile is recalled in order to apply the proper message format parameters for a web service request.

Abstract: The invention is directed to an automated workflow management system. The automated workflow management system may manage content records in a workflow process. For example, the automated workflow management system may prepare data records for storage in a database. Further, the automated workflow management system may prepare content for a catalog. The automated workflow management system may prompt users to act on documents that violate a business logic rule. The automated workflow management system may observe and record user actions. Further, the automated workflow management system may persist those recorded user actions as persisted activities. In addition, the automated workflow management system may replay or repeat the persisted activities. These persisted activities may be associated with specific content records. Further, the user actions may take the form of decisions, editing, classifying, and others. These decisions may be to discard the content record or bypass the business rule.