A visual tool for rapid integration of enterprise software applications

Abstract

Integrating software applications is a challenging, but often very necessary, activity for businesses to perform. Even when applications are designed to fit together, creating an integrated solution often requires a significant effort in terms of configuration, fine tuning or resolving deployment conflicts. This is often the case when the original applications have been designed in isolation. This paper presents a visual method allowing an application designer to quickly integrate two products, taking the output of a sequence of steps on the first product and using that as input of a sequence of steps on the second product. The tool achieves this by: (1) copying UI components from the underlying applications user interface; (2) capturing user interaction using recording technology, rather than by relying on the underlying data sources; and (3) exposing the important business transactions that the existing application enables as macros which can then be used to integrate products together. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.