Virtual Aggregation

• US 10,223,421 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2015
• Issued: 03/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Xu, Huixin, Chen, Yingyu, Qi, Juan
• Primary Examiner(s): Burke, Jeff A
• Application Number:
  US14/983,603
• Publication Number:
  US 20170193022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,161 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24556 Aggregation; Duplicate elimination

Abstract

A framework for performing aggregation methods on hierarchical data objects is described herein. A data aggregation request is received, the request including a tree of nodes to aggregate, an aggregation method, and a filter criteria. A configuration table is used to identify previously generated aggregation hierarchies that correspond to the received request, and a mapping of attributes of the received nodes to attributes of the previously generated aggregation hierarchies. For each node in the tree of nodes, when a corresponding node in the previously generated aggregation hierarchy is identified, attribute values from the corresponding node are used to create a node in a target aggregation hierarchy. When a corresponding node does not exist, but corresponding child nodes do exist in the previously generated aggregation hierarchy, the aggregation method is applied to the corresponding child nodes and the result is used to create a node in the target aggregation hierarchy.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, using a computing device comprising one or more processors and one or more memories coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more memories storing computer-executable instructions to cause the one or more processors to perform operations for executing a query to generate and return a report attribute aggregation result, the operations comprising:

receiving a request to generate a report, the report associated with at least one hierarchical report attribute;

evaluating a plurality of target report attributes, the evaluating comprising evaluating a flag indicating whether a respective attribute is associated with a hierarchy;

for report attributes determined to be associated with a hierarchy;

retrieving attributes associated with one or more existing reports;

comparing semantic identifiers of target report attributes with semantic identifiers of attributes of the one or more existing reports;

for target report attributes having a semantic identifier matching a semantic identifier of an existing report attribute, generating a data aggregation request, the data aggregation request comprising a tree of nodes, each node having a semantic identifier, and an aggregation method; and

executing the data aggregation request to generate a target aggregation hierarchy, the executing the data aggregation request comprising;

for each node in the tree of nodes having a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, creating a node in the target aggregation hierarchy by retrieving a value of the respective corresponding node and storing the value in the respective created node;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, but does have, for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, a corresponding child node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, creating a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to the corresponding child nodes by retrieving values from the corresponding child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provide an aggregation result, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy or a corresponding child node for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, creating a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes by retrieving values from the corresponding child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provide an aggregation results, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy;

returning the report attribute aggregation result, the report attribute aggregation result comprising a value associated with a root node of the target aggregation hierarchy as a data aggregation result, wherein the value is an aggregated value using the aggregation method for one or more child nodes of the target aggregation hierarchy; and

generating the report, the report comprising the report attribute aggregation result.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the operations further comprising:

identifying a common dimension identifier associated with the tree of nodes and a corresponding common dimension identifier associated with the existing aggregation hierarchy;

receiving a criteria regarding the common dimension identifier; and

filtering out nodes from the existing aggregation hierarchy based on the received criteria.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the semantic identifier comprises a shared group identifier retrieved from a configuration table associated with the aggregation method.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the nodes included in the tree of nodes is determined by a hierarchy table.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the existing aggregation hierarchy is the result of performing the aggregation method on a second tree of nodes.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing the executing the data aggregation request for at least first and second existing aggregation hierarchies.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the semantic identifiers comprise shared group identifiers retrieved from a configuration table associated with the aggregation method.

8. A computing apparatus facilitating generating a predictive analytics user interface, the computing apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, configures the apparatus to perform operations for executing a query to generate and return an aggregation result to be displayed on the predictive analytics user interface, the operations comprising;

evaluating a plurality of target report attributes, the evaluating comprising evaluating a flag indicating whether a respective attribute is associated with a hierarchy;

for report attributes determined to be associated with a hierarchy;

retrieving attributes associated with one or more existing reports;

comparing semantic identifiers of target report attributes with semantic identifiers of attributes of the one or more existing reports;

for target report attributes having a semantic identifier matching a semantic identifier of an existing report attribute, generating a data aggregation request, the data aggregation request comprising a tree of nodes, each node having a semantic identifier, and an aggregation method; and

executing the data aggregation request to generate a target aggregation hierarchy, the executing the data aggregation request comprising;

for each node in the tree of nodes having a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, creating a node in the target aggregation hierarchy by retrieving a value of the respective corresponding node and storing the value in the respective created node;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the node identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, but does have, for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes to one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, a corresponding child node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, create a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to the corresponding child node by retrieving values from the corresponding one or more child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provide an aggregation result, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy or a corresponding child node for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, creating a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes by retrieving values from the corresponding child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provides an aggregation results, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy; and

returning the aggregation result, the aggregation result comprising a value associated with a root node of the target aggregation hierarchy, as a data aggregation result, wherein the value is an aggregated value using the aggregation method for one or more child nodes of the target aggregation hierarchy.

9. The computing apparatus of claim 8, the operations further comprising:

identifying a common dimension associated with the tree of nodes and a corresponding common dimension associated with the existing aggregation hierarchy;

receiving a criteria regarding the common dimension; and

filtering out nodes from the existing aggregation hierarchy based on the received criteria.

10. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the semantic identifier comprises a shared group identifier retrieved from a configuration table associated with the aggregation method.

11. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the aggregation method is one of summation, count, or average.

12. The computing apparatus of claim 8, wherein the tree of nodes is defined using a graph database.

13. The computing apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

performing the executing the data aggregation request for at least first and second existing aggregation hierarchies.

14. The computing apparatus of claim 8, further comprising:

making a transportation resource allocation decision based on the target aggregation hierarchy.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium facilitating generating a predictive analytics user interface, the computer-readable storage medium including instructions that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a report attribute of a plurality of report attributes of a target report;

from metadata associated with the report attribute, determine that the report attribute is a hierarchical report attribute;

retrieve attributes associated with one or more existing reports;

comparing a semantic identifier of the target report attribute with semantic identifiers of the one or more existing reports;

for target report attributes having a semantic identifier matching a semantic identifier of an attribute of an existing report, generating a data aggregation request, the data aggregation request comprising a tree of nodes, each node having a semantic identifier, and an aggregation method;

executing the data aggregation request to generate a target aggregation hierarchy, the executing the data aggregation request comprising;

for each node in the tree of nodes having a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, create a node in the target aggregation hierarchy by retrieving a value of the corresponding node and storing the value in the respective created node;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing hierarchy, but does have, for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier for a respective node of the tree of nodes with one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, a corresponding child node in the existing aggregation hierarchy, create a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to the corresponding child nodes by retrieving values from the corresponding one or more child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provide an aggregation result, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy;

for each node in the tree of nodes that does not have a corresponding node in the existing aggregation hierarchy or a corresponding child node for each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes, determined by comparing the semantic identifier of a respective node of the tree of nodes to one or more semantic identifiers of respective one or more nodes of the existing aggregation hierarchy, create a node in the target aggregation hierarchy based on applying the aggregation method to each child node of one or more child nodes of the respective node of the tree of nodes by retrieving values from the corresponding child nodes, applying the aggregation method to the retrieved values to provide an aggregation result, and storing the aggregation result in the created node in the target aggregation hierarchy; and

return the aggregation result, the aggregation result comprising a value associated with a root node of the target aggregation hierarchy, as a data aggregation result, wherein the value is an aggregated value using the aggregation method for one or more child nodes of the target aggregation hierarchy.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the semantic identifier comprises a shared identifier in a configuration table.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable storage medium further comprises a configuration table that includes a column identifying whether an attribute of a node of a tree of nodes comprises hierarchical data.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable storage medium further comprises a configuration table that includes a column identifying whether an attribute of a node of a tree of nodes comprises measurement data to be aggregated by the aggregation method.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable storage medium further comprises a configuration table that includes a group identification column identifying used to determine correspondence between a node in the existing aggregation hierarchy and a node in the target aggregation hierarchy.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the computer-readable storage medium further comprises a configuration table that includes a column identifying the aggregation method.