METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATING AND CONTROLLING EXECUTION OF SOFTWARE TOOLS AND TOOL SETS VIA WHEN/THEN RELATIONSHIPS

A method and apparatus for automating and controlling execution of tools in a computer system that includes a number of software application tools. The method and apparatus of the present invention enables a user without knowledge of the event connector, the message server or of software programming to create customized tool interactions from the different application tools present to match the user's needs. The method and apparatus of the present invention gives the user control of software tool integration without having to write any code or changing the implementations of the individual software tools. The tool integration is based on user-defined, event-driven interactions between the functions of the different tools of the system.