Embodiments of the subject matter described herein relate generally to computer systems and networks configured to support applications executing on behalf of multiple tenants, and more particularly, embodiments of the subject matter relate to methods and systems for configuring objects and applications in a multi-tenant system.
Modern software development is evolving away from the client-server model toward network-based processing systems that provide access to data and services via the Internet or other networks. In contrast to traditional systems that host networked applications on dedicated server hardware, a “cloud” computing model allows applications to be provided over the network “as a service” supplied by an infrastructure provider. The infrastructure provider typically abstracts the underlying hardware and other resources used to deliver a customer-developed application so that the customer no longer needs to operate and support dedicated server hardware. The cloud computing model can often provide substantial cost savings to the customer over the life of the application because the customer no longer needs to provide dedicated network infrastructure, electrical and temperature controls, physical security and other logistics in support of dedicated server hardware.
Multi-tenant cloud-based architectures have been developed to improve collaboration, integration, and community-based cooperation between customer tenants without sacrificing data security. Generally speaking, multi-tenancy refers to a system where a single hardware and software platform simultaneously supports multiple user groups (also referred to as “organizations” or “tenants”) from a common data storage element (also referred to as a “multi-tenant database”). The multi-tenant design provides a number of advantages over conventional server virtualization systems. First, the multi-tenant platform operator can often make improvements to the platform based upon collective information from the entire tenant community. Additionally, because all users in the multi-tenant environment execute applications within a common processing space, it is relatively easy to grant or deny access to specific sets of data for any user within the multi-tenant platform, thereby improving collaboration and integration between applications and the data managed by the various applications. The multi-tenant architecture therefore allows convenient and cost effective sharing of similar application features between multiple sets of users.
In practice, the different tenants often have different types of data and/or different relationships between data that they would like to maintain in the multi-tenant system, along with different types of operations they would like to be able to perform on their data. Accordingly, some multi-tenant systems include an application platform that may be utilized by users to create user-specific and/or tenant-specific objects in the multi-tenant database and accompanying user-specific and/or tenant-specific applications integrating those custom objects and supporting various features with respect to those custom objects (e.g., reports, tables, functions, etc.). From time to time, users may desire to modify the custom objects and/or custom applications, however, making the desired modifications can be difficult and time-consuming for users who are relatively inexperienced with computer programming or are otherwise unfamiliar with the multi-tenant system.
A more complete understanding of the subject matter may be derived by referring to the detailed description and claims when considered in conjunction with the following figures, wherein like reference numbers refer to similar elements throughout the figures.
Embodiments of the subject matter described herein generally relate to configuring objects and/or applications in a multi-tenant system. As described in greater detail below, in an exemplary embodiment, an application server generates an instance of a virtual application that utilizes objects and metadata maintained in a multi-tenant database and presents or otherwise provides a graphical user interface (GUI) corresponding to that virtual application on a client device coupled to the application server over a network. The GUI includes a display region corresponding to an object or another configurable element in the multi-tenant database and a configuration menu GUI element. When the configuration menu GUI element is activated or otherwise selected, possible configuration actions are determined based on the object type for the displayed object and a view setting for the display region and the configuration menu is populated with GUI elements corresponding to the possible configuration actions. In this regard, the possible configuration actions listed in the configuration menu vary with respect to the object type and the view setting. A user may select a desired configuration action from the configuration menu, wherein the application server presents or otherwise provides a GUI on the client device corresponding to the selected configuration action. For clarity and ease of explanation, the subject matter is described herein in the context of configuration actions with respect to database objects, however, it will be appreciated in the art that the subject matter described herein is not limited to database objects and may be implemented in an equivalent manner for other configurable elements maintained in the database (e.g., configurable metadata or the like).
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As used herein, a “tenant” or an “organization” should be understood as referring to a group of one or more users that shares access to common subset of the data within the multi-tenant database 130. In this regard, each tenant includes one or more users associated with, assigned to, or otherwise belonging to that respective tenant. To put it another way, each respective user within the multi-tenant system 100 is associated with, assigned to, or otherwise belongs to a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants supported by the multi-tenant system 100. Tenants may represent customers, customer departments, business or legal organizations, and/or any other entities that maintain data for particular sets of users within the multi-tenant system 100. Although multiple tenants may share access to the server 102 and the database 130, the particular data and services provided from the server 102 to each tenant can be securely isolated from those provided to other tenants. The multi-tenant architecture therefore allows different sets of users to share functionality and hardware resources without necessarily sharing any of the data 132 belonging to or otherwise associated with other tenants.
The multi-tenant database 130 is any sort of repository or other data storage system capable of storing and managing the data 132 associated with any number of tenants. The database 130 may be implemented using any type of conventional database server hardware. In various embodiments, the database 130 shares processing hardware 104 with the server 102. In other embodiments, the database 130 is implemented using separate physical and/or virtual database server hardware that communicates with the server 102 to perform the various functions described herein. In an exemplary embodiment, the database 130 includes a database management system or other equivalent software capable of determining an optimal query plan for retrieving and providing a particular subset of the data 132 to an instance of virtual application 128 in response to a query initiated or otherwise provided by the virtual application 128 (e.g., via query generator 114).
In practice, the data 132 may be organized and formatted in any manner to support the application platform 110. In various embodiments, the data 132 is suitably organized into a relatively small number of large data tables to maintain a semi-amorphous “heap”-type format. The data 132 can then be organized as needed for a particular virtual application 128. In various embodiments, conventional data relationships are established using any number of pivot tables 134 that establish indexing, uniqueness, relationships between entities, and/or other aspects of conventional database organization as desired. Further data manipulation and report formatting is generally performed at run-time using a variety of metadata constructs. Metadata within a universal data directory (UDD) 136, for example, can be used to describe any number of forms, reports, workflows, user access privileges, business logic and other constructs that are common to multiple tenants. Tenant-specific formatting, functions and other constructs may be maintained as tenant-specific metadata 138 for each tenant, as desired. Rather than forcing the data 132 into an inflexible global structure that is common to all tenants and applications, the database 130 is organized to be relatively amorphous, with the pivot tables 134 and the metadata 138 providing additional structure on an as-needed basis. To that end, the application platform 110 suitably uses the pivot tables 134 and/or the metadata 138 to generate “virtual” components of the virtual applications 128 to logically obtain, process, and present the relatively amorphous data 132 from the database 130.
The server 102 is implemented using one or more actual and/or virtual computing systems that collectively provide the dynamic application platform 110 for generating the virtual applications 128. For example, the server 102 may be implemented using a cluster of actual and/or virtual servers operating in conjunction with each other, typically in association with conventional network communications, cluster management, load balancing and other features as appropriate. The server 102 operates with any sort of conventional processing hardware 104, such as a processor 105, memory 106, input/output features 107 and the like. The input/output features 107 generally represent the interface(s) to networks (e.g., to the network 145, or any other local area, wide area or other network), mass storage, display devices, data entry devices and/or the like. The processor 105 may be implemented using any suitable processing system, such as one or more processors, controllers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, processing cores and/or other computing resources spread across any number of distributed or integrated systems, including any number of “cloud-based” or other virtual systems. The memory 106 represents any non-transitory short or long term storage or other computer-readable media capable of storing programming instructions for execution on the processor 105, including any sort of random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), flash memory, magnetic or optical mass storage, and/or the like. The computer-executable programming instructions, when read and executed by the server 102 and/or processor 105, cause the server 102 and/or processor 105 to create, generate, or otherwise facilitate the application platform 110 and/or virtual applications 128 and perform one or more additional tasks, operations, functions, and/or processes described herein. It should be noted that the memory 106 represents one suitable implementation of such computer-readable media, and alternatively or additionally, the server 102 could receive and cooperate with external computer-readable media (not separately shown) that is realized as a portable or mobile component or platform, e.g., a portable hard drive, a USB flash drive, an optical disc, or the like.
The application platform 110 is any sort of software application or other data processing engine that generates the virtual applications 128 that provide data and/or services to the client devices 140. In a typical embodiment, the application platform 110 gains access to processing resources, communications interfaces and other features of the processing hardware 104 using any sort of conventional or proprietary operating system 108. The virtual applications 128 are typically generated at run-time in response to input received from the client devices 140. For the illustrated embodiment, the application platform 110 includes a bulk data processing engine 112, a query generator 114, a search engine 116 that provides text indexing and other search functionality, and a runtime application generator 120. Each of these features may be implemented as a separate process or other module, and many equivalent embodiments could include different and/or additional features, components or other modules as desired.
The runtime application generator 120 dynamically builds and executes the virtual applications 128 in response to specific requests received from the client devices 140. The virtual applications 128 are typically constructed in accordance with the tenant-specific metadata 138, which describes the particular tables, reports, interfaces and/or other features of the particular application 128. In various embodiments, each virtual application 128 generates dynamic web content that can be served to a browser or other client program 142 associated with its client device 140, as appropriate.
The runtime application generator 120 suitably interacts with the query generator 114 to efficiently obtain multi-tenant data 132 from the database 130 as needed in response to input queries initiated or otherwise provided by users of the client devices 140. In a typical embodiment, the query generator 114 considers the identity of the user requesting a particular function (along with the user's associated tenant), and then builds and executes queries to the database 130 using system-wide metadata 136, tenant specific metadata 138, pivot tables 134, and/or any other available resources. The query generator 114 in this example therefore maintains security of the common database 130 by ensuring that queries are consistent with access privileges granted to the user and/or tenant that initiated the request.
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In exemplary embodiments, the application platform 110 is utilized to create data-driven virtual applications 128. Such virtual applications 128 may make use of interface features such as tenant-specific (or custom) screens 124, universal (or standard) screens 122 or the like. Any number of standard and/or custom objects 126 may also be available for integration into tenant-developed virtual applications 128. As used herein, “custom” should be understood as meaning that a respective object or application is user-specific (e.g., only available to a particular subset of users within the multi-tenant system) or tenant-specific (e.g., only available to users associated with a particular tenant in the multi-tenant system), whereas “standard” or “universal” applications or objects are available across multiple tenants in the multi-tenant system. The data 132 associated with each virtual application 128 is provided to the database 130, as appropriate, and stored until it is requested or is otherwise needed, along with the metadata 138 that describes the particular features (e.g., reports, tables, functions, objects, fields, formulas, code, etc.) of that particular custom virtual application 128. In an exemplary embodiment, a virtual application 128 includes one or more custom objects 126 created or otherwise defined by a user and/or tenant. In this regard, for each custom object 126, information pertaining to its object type and its associated fields are maintained as metadata 138 in the database 130 while the values of the fields for each instance of that respective object 126 are maintained as data 132 in the multi-tenant database 130. In this regard, the metadata 138 for a custom object 126 defines the structure (e.g., the formatting, functions, fields and other constructs) of that respective custom object 126. As discussed above, although the subject matter is primarily described herein in the context of configuration actions with respect to custom and/or standard database objects 126 for clarity and ease of explanation, the subject matter described herein may be implemented in an equivalent manner for other configurable elements in the database 130, such as, for example, configurable instances of metadata 138 (e.g., configurable instances of metadata 138 defining configuration settings for custom screens 124 or other GUIs or features provided by the multi-tenant system 100).
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In an exemplary embodiment, the configuration process 200 continues by presenting, displaying, or otherwise providing a GUI element for a configuration menu within the virtual application (task 204). In this regard, the application platform 110 and/or virtual application 128 displays or otherwise presents a button, icon, or another selectable GUI element for a configuration menu overlying the tabbed interface. In response to identifying a user selecting or otherwise activating the configuration menu GUI element (task 206), the configuration process 200 continues by presenting, displaying, or otherwise providing a configuration menu overlying the tabbed interface that includes a list of GUI elements corresponding to different possible configuration actions for the object type of currently displayed database object (e.g., the database object corresponding to the display region). In an exemplary embodiment, the configuration process 200 identifies the object type for the currently displayed database object and the current view setting for the display region, determines the possible configuration actions for the configuration menu based on the current object type and the current view setting, and displays a configuration menu that includes GUI elements corresponding to those possible configuration actions (tasks 208, 210, 212, 214). In this regard, the different configuration actions presented within the configuration menu are context-sensitive and vary with respect to the type of object being viewed or otherwise displayed within the virtual application, and also, may vary with respect to the view setting for the database object display. In response to identifying selection of a GUI element within the configuration menu (task 216), the configuration process 200 continues by presenting or otherwise providing a GUI corresponding to the selected configuration action (task 218). In this regard, the application platform 110 and/or virtual application 128 may present or otherwise provide a GUI within the client application 142 for performing the configuration action on the type of database object displayed within the virtual application 128 or a displayed instance of that type of database object, as described in greater detail below.
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To briefly summarize, on advantage of the configuration process 200 is that the application platform 110 provides, within a virtual application 128 presented on a client device 140, a configuration menu that includes configuration actions that are likely to be relevant or otherwise desired by the user of the client device 140 based on the type of database object currently being displayed within the virtual application 128 and the current view setting for the database object display, as illustrated by
It will be appreciated that the foregoing description is merely illustrative in nature and is not intended to limit the embodiments of the subject matter or the application and uses of such embodiments. Furthermore, there is no intention to be bound by any expressed or implied theory presented in the technical field, background, or the detailed description. As used herein, the word “exemplary” means “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any implementation described herein as exemplary is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other implementations, and the exemplary embodiments described herein are not intended to limit the scope or applicability of the subject matter in any way.
For the sake of brevity, conventional techniques related to computer programming, computer networking, application virtualization, multi-tenancy, and other functional aspects of the systems (and the individual operating components of the systems) may not be described in detail herein. In addition, those skilled in the art will appreciate that embodiments may be practiced in conjunction with any number of system and/or network architectures, data transmission protocols, and device configurations, and that the system described herein is merely one suitable example. Furthermore, certain terminology may be used herein for the purpose of reference only, and thus is not intended to be limiting. For example, the terms “first”, “second” and other such numerical terms do not imply a sequence or order unless clearly indicated by the context.
Embodiments of the subject matter may be described herein in terms of functional and/or logical block components, and with reference to symbolic representations of operations, processing tasks, and functions that may be performed by various computing components or devices. Such operations, tasks, and functions are sometimes referred to as being computer-executed, computerized, software-implemented, or computer-implemented. In this regard, it should be appreciated that the various block components shown in the figures may be realized by any number of hardware, software, and/or firmware components configured to perform the specified functions. For example, an embodiment of a system or a component may employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements, digital signal processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, or the like, which may carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or more microprocessors or other control devices. In this regard, the subject matter described herein can be implemented in the context of any computer-implemented system and/or in connection with two or more separate and distinct computer-implemented systems that cooperate and communicate with one another. That said, in exemplary embodiments, the subject matter described herein is implemented in conjunction with a virtual customer relationship management (CRM) application in a multi-tenant environment.
While at least one exemplary embodiment has been presented in the foregoing detailed description, it should be appreciated that a vast number of variations exist. It should also be appreciated that the exemplary embodiment or embodiments described herein are not intended to limit the scope, applicability, or configuration of the claimed subject matter in any way. Rather, the foregoing detailed description will provide those skilled in the art with a convenient road map for implementing the described embodiment or embodiments. It should be understood that various changes can be made in the function and arrangement of elements without departing from the scope defined by the claims, which includes known equivalents and foreseeable equivalents at the time of filing this patent application.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 61/528,458, filed Aug. 29, 2011, the entire content of which is incorporated by reference herein.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61528458 | Aug 2011 | US |