1. A method for facilitating user queries to a database, comprising: determining one or more search fields from query criteria generated by a user in a client-side application; automatically generating one or more query criteria templates from the determined one or more search fields by extracting search-field names, search-field data types, and search-field length from a set of user interface metadata; obtaining search-field values from the one or more query criteria templates; and representing the search-field names and search-field values in an XML format which can be stored in a column of the record corresponding to the one or more query criteria templates; storing the one or more query criteria templates in a single template table in the database, wherein the query template table comprises rows and columns, wherein each row in the query template table corresponds to a query criteria template and comprises one or more of template name, user name, creation time, and flag type corresponding to a specific query criteria template record, and wherein a query criteria template contains information on search-field names and search-field values for a query; populating a query form with appropriate search-field values; and allowing a user to select a template from the stored query criteria templates prior to performing a query, thereby reducing manual entry of search-field values for similar queries.
1. A method for facilitating user queries to a database, comprising: determining one or more search fields from query criteria generated by a user in a client-side application; automatically generating one or more query criteria templates from the determined one or more search fields by extracting search-field names, search-field data types, and search-field length from a set of user interface metadata; obtaining search-field values from the one or more query criteria templates; and representing the search-field names and search-field values in an XML format which can be stored in a column of the record corresponding to the one or more query criteria templates; storing the one or more query criteria templates in a single template table in the database, wherein the query template table comprises rows and columns, wherein each row in the query template table corresponds to a query criteria template and comprises one or more of template name, user name, creation time, and flag type corresponding to a specific query criteria template record, and wherein a query criteria template contains information on search-field names and search-field values for a query; populating a query form with appropriate search-field values; and allowing a user to select a template from the stored query criteria templates prior to performing a query, thereby reducing manual entry of search-field values for similar queries. 4. The method of claim 1 , wherein storing the one or more query criteria templates in the template table involves storing a template name, a user name, a template creation time, or a public/private flag in one or more columns within the record corresponding to the template.