Systems and methods are described herein to automate managing of service layer operations comprised of multiple elementary operations and offloading the burden of performing such multi-step operations from a requesting entity to the service layer. A Request Abstraction Service (RAS) is described herein for the autonomous execution of such multi-step operations. Methods and apparatuses are also described herein for a service layer framework for integrating generic and functional user interfaces as services managed by the SL on behalf of requesting entities.