Methods and systems for providing a document with interactive elements to retrieve information for processing by business applications

• US 20030055748A1
• Filed: 09/09/2002
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Hoch, Rainer, Bezrukov, Vladislav, Goring, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 7,234,105 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

An interactive computer system (901/902/903) feeds (31) customer input data (Z) into a business application (202). A first computer (901) designs a visual document appearance and thereby provides layout data (X) with interactive elements in a first document. A second computer (902) processes the first document by adding (102, 12) customer specific data (Y) from the business application (202), thereby provides a second document (302), and codes the second document (302, 312) into markup language having representations for the interactive elements. A third computer (903) with a browser displays a visual representation of the second document (302, 312) to a customer as designed and prompts the customer for input data (Z) through the interactive elements. The third computer (903) forwards (33) the input data (Z) to the second computer (902) through a third document (323) and the second computer (902) relates (104) the customer input data (Z) with customer specific data (Y) in the business application (202).

Claims

1. A method for retrieving information through interactive elements on a browser for subsequent processing by a business application, the method comprising:

storing layout data with interactive elements in a first document while designing a visual document appearance;

processing the first document by adding customer specific data from the business application, thereby providing a second document in markup language, the second document having representations for the interactive elements;

receiving customer input data from a customer in a third document from a browser, wherein the browser has presented the visual document appearance of the second document to the customer and has prompted the customer through the interactive elements to return customer input data; and

relating customer input data with customer specific data in the business application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein storing layout data is performed on a first computer, processing is performed on a second computer, receiving customer input data is performed an a third computer that communicates with the second computer via the Internet, and relating is performed on the second computer.

3. An interactive computer system that feeds customer input data into a business application, the system comprising:

a first computer to design a visual document appearance, to provide thereby layout data with interactive elements in a first document;

a second computer to process the first document by adding customer specific data from the business application, to provide thereby a second document, to code the second document into markup language having representations for the interactive elements, and to further relate customer input data with customer specific data in the business application; and

a third computer with a browser to display a visual representation of the second document to the customer as designed by the first computer to prompt the customer for input data through the interactive elements and to forward the input data to the second computer through a third document.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the first computer has a graphical interface to assist a designer by a tree view to the document structure and by a property view to the properties of layout items.

5. Method for prompting a customer to input customer input data,

the method comprising the following steps:

by a form builder at a design computer, designing a form document with layout data, the form document having representations of interactive elements to be shown to the customer;

by a pre-processing module at an application computer, pre-processing the form document to provide an intermediate document, thereby combining layout data with customer specific data and converting the representations of interactive elements into markup code for interactive elements;

by a browser at a customer computer, interpreting the markup code to present the intermediate document to the customer and to prompt the customer to input customer input data into the interactive elements, thereby providing a final document with layout data, customer specific data and customer input data;

by the browser at the customer computer, providing a response document with customer input data; and

by a post-processing module at the application computer, post-processing the customer input data in combination with customer specific data.

6. A combination of computer-program products to process customer input data obtained through browser-customer interaction by interactive elements, the combination comprising:

a first product for designing a first document with layout data that partially represents the interactive elements;

a second product to provide a second document by adding customer specific data to the first document and by coding the interactive elements such that a browser interpreting the second document is able to write customer input data into a third document; and

a third product to process the third document in combination with customer specific data.

7. The combination of claim 6, wherein the first product is a form builder, the second product is a pre-processing module, and the third product is a post-processing module.

8. The combination of claim 6, wherein the first product provides the first document as a form document, and the second product provides the second document as an intermediate document.

9. The combination of claim 6, wherein the first product provides the first document with processing order instructions for the second product.

10. The combination of claim 6, wherein the second product provides the second document in a markup language.