US Patent 7124354 Enterprise application transactions as shared active documents

The present invention is directed to a method for a creating an active document that encapsulates a transaction and the transaction's current status. The active document includes a first set of data fields, where the data fields represent attributes of a parent transaction and include a sub-identifier field; and a first set of metadata, where the first set of metadata populates the first set of data fields and describes the attributes represented by the first set of data fields, the sub-identifier filed including metadata from the first set of metadata that identifies a secondary transaction, linking data generated by the secondary transaction to the active document.