US-12625696-B2 - Application hub for applications for an analytical services platform

US12625696B2US 12625696 B2US12625696 B2US 12625696B2US-12625696-B2

Abstract

An application hub is provided for applications of an analytical services platform. The analytical services platform may receive data from analytical devices and provide services, such as filtering, processing and visualizing the data. The application hub may act as a landing site for users on client devices to launch applications for the analytical services platform. The application hub may provide a web page to the client devices over a network that provides a user interface listing applications for the analytical services platform. Users may launch the applications through the user interface, such as by selecting user interface elements for the applications. The user interface may identify what applications have been installed on a client device and what applications have not been installed. The user interface may also identify when an application needs to be upgraded. Since the application hub is intended to be a single landing site for al applications, a single login may be provided.

Inventors

Coralia Popa
Alessio Zammataro
Richard Woodhead

Assignees

WATERS TECHNOLOGIES IRELAND LIMITED

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20240412

Claims (14)

1 . A method performed on an application hub computing device, comprising: transmitting a user login user interface to a client computing device from an application hub running on the application hub computing device, wherein the user login user interface prompts a user to provide credentials to login to an application hub and wherein the application hub serves as a landing site where the user via the client computing device launches applications for an analytical services platform; receiving at the application hub the credentials from the client computing device; sending the credentials from the application hub to an authentication service; receiving an indication at the application hub that the user has been authenticated; granting access to the user to execute one or more applications for the analytical services platform, that provides services to analytical devices, that include at least one of a chromatography device or a mass spectrometry device, via the application hub where the user is not required to again authenticate to execute the one or more applications; requesting an authorization code and receiving the authorization code in response to the request; and receiving an access token from the authentication service and forwarding the access token to the client computing device after the user has been authenticated.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising launching an application and passing the authorization code to an application repository.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting the user login interface to the client computing device comprises transmitting a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) file or an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) file to the client computing device.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the credentials include a username and a password.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein granting access to the user to access one or more applications comprises granting access to the user to access multiple applications via the applications hub.
6 . A non-transitory processor-readable storage medium storing programming instructions that when executed by a processor cause the processor to: transmit a user login user interface to a client computing device from an application hub running on the application hub computing device, wherein the user login user interface prompts a user to provide credentials to login to the application hub wherein the application hub serves as a landing site where the user via the client computing device launches applications for an analytical services platform; receive at the application hub the credentials from the client computing device; send the credentials from the application hub to an authentication service; receive an indication at the application hub that the user has been authenticated; grant access to the user to execute one or more applications for the analytical services platform, that provides services to analytical devices, that include at least one of a chromatography device or a mass spectrometry device, via the application hub where the user is not required to again authenticate to execute the one or more applications; request an authorization code and to receive the authorization code in response to the request; and receive an access token from the authentication service and to forward the access token to the client computing device after the user has been authenticated.
7 . The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the programming instructions when executed further cause the processor to launch an application and to pass the authorization code to an application repository.
8 . The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the transmitting of the user login interface to the client computing device comprises transmitting a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) file or an extensible Markup Language (XML) file to the client computing device.
9 . The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the credentials include a username and a password.
10 . The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the granting of access to the user to access one or more applications comprises granting access to the user to access multiple applications via the applications hub.
11 . A computing device, comprising: a non-transitory computing device-readable storage medium storing programming instructions; a processor configured to execute the programming instructions to: transmit a user login user interface to a client computing device from an application hub running on the application hub computing device, wherein the user login user interface prompts a user to provide credentials to login to an application hub, wherein the application hub serves as a landing site where the user via the client computing device launches applications for an analytical services platform; receive at the application hub the credentials from the client computing device; send the credentials from the application hub to an authentication service; receive an indication at the application hub that the user has been authenticated; grant access to the user to execute one or more applications for the analytical services platform, that provides services to analytical devices, that include at least one of a chromatography device or a mass spectrometry device, via the application hub where the user is not required to again authenticate to execute the one or more applications; request an authorization code and to receive the authorization code in response to the request; and receive an access token from the authentication service and to forward the access token to the client computing device after the user has been authenticated.
12 . The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the executing of the programming instructions further causes the processor to launch an application and to pass the authorization code to an application repository.
13 . The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the credentials include a username and a password.
14 . The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the granting of access to the user to access one or more applications comprises granting access to the user to access multiple applications via the applications hub.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/066,726, filed Oct. 9, 2020, which claims the benefit of and priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/913,603, filed on Oct. 10, 2019, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. BACKGROUND Users of mass spectrometry systems and liquid chromatography systems have to contend with a disjointed landscape of software tools. There may be separate tools for the different types of systems. Moreover, there may be separate software tools for each type of functionality, such as data acquisition, data processing, visualization, reporting and compliance. In addition, a user must separately login to each of the tools to gain access to the tools. SUMMARY There is a need for an integrated solution for the software tools for analytical devices such as mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography devices. The exemplary embodiments attempt to address this need. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, a method is performed by a client computing device. Per the method, a user interface is received at the client computing device from an application hub running on an application hub computing device. The application hub serves as a landing site where a client may launch applications for an analytical services platform on the client computing device, and the user interface identifies a selected one of the applications as not installed on the client computing device. Input is received via the user interface on the client computing device. The input indicates a request to install the selected application on the client device. Based on the received communication, the selected application is retrieved from an application repository, and the retrieved selected application is installed on the client computing device. An application hub client may be installed on the client computing device and an application hub client services may be installed on the client computing device. The retrieving of the selected application may include sending a request to retrieve the selected application from the application hub client to the application hub client services. The retrieving of the selected application may include receiving the selected application at the application hub client services from the application repository. The installing of the selected application may be initiated by the application hub client services. The application hub client services may have administrative privileges on the client computing device. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, a method is performed by a client computing device. In this method, a user interface is received from an application hub running on the application hub computing device at a client computing device. The application hub serves as a landing site where a client via the client computing device launches applications for an analytical services platform. The user interface identifies a selected application as needing to be updated. Based on input received via the user interface at the client computing device, an update to the selected application is obtained. The update of the selected application on the client computing device is performed as a background process. An application hub client services may be installed on the client computing device. The obtaining of the update may include the application hub client services retrieving an updated version of the selected application from an application repository. The application repository may be remote from the client computing device. Performing the update may include installing the retrieved selected application on the client computing device. The installing of the retrieved selected application may include the application hub client services launching an installer to install the retrieved selected application. The input received via the user interface may be indicative of selection of a user interface element of the user interface for the selected application. The method may further include determining whether a version of the selected application is a current version. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, a method is performed on an application hub computing device. Per this method, a user login user interface is transmitted to a client computing device from an application hub running on the application hub computing device. The user login user interface prompts a user to provide credentials to login to an application hub. The credentials are received at the application hub from the client computing device. The credentials are sent from the application hub to an authentication service. An indication is received at the application hub that the user has been authenticated. Access is granted to the user to execute one or more applications for an analytical services platform via the application hub where the user is not required to again authenticate to execute the one or more applicati