US Patent 7519976 Collaborative business plug-in framework

A plug-in framework can be used in an integration system to extend business process management functionality. A plug-in manager, which can be part of an integration process engine, is used to support configuration, design, and run-time management of the plug-ins. A plug-in API is used to provide support for configuration, design, and run-time interactions between the process engine and a deployed plug-in. The plug-in API can consist of components such as session beans, run-time management classes, and packages.