METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR POLICY STATEMENT EXECUTION ENGINE

• US 20080082375A1
• Filed: 01/31/2006
• Published: 04/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Andrew T. Otwell, Charles A. Coombs, Daniel R. Kuokka, Jeffrey Z. Johnson, Michael E. Lortz, Patrick J.D. Taylor, Peter H. Kennis, Stayton D. Addison
• Original Assignee: Andrew T. Otwell, Charles A. Coombs, Daniel R. Kuokka, Jeffrey Z. Johnson, Michael E. Lortz, Patrick J.D. Taylor, Peter H. Kennis, Stayton D. Addison
• Inventors: OTWELL, Andrew T., TAYLOR, Patrick J.D., LORTZ, Michael E., KENNIS, Peter H., COOMBS, Charles A., KUOKKA, Daniel R., JOHNSON, Jeffrey Z., ADDISON, Stayton D.
• Application Number:
  US11/307,305
• Publication Number:
  US 20080082375A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0635 Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A policy statement execution engine for use in connection with a policy compliance monitoring system that determines exceptions to policies expressed by computer-executable policy statements. The system allows establishment, codification, and maintenance of enterprise policies, monitors electronic transactions of the enterprise from various data sources, detects exceptions to established policies, reports exceptions to authorized users such as managers and auditors, and/or provides a case management system for tracking exceptions and their underlying transactions. A storage device stores a set of computer-executable policy statements. A data storage device stores enterprise data analyzed in connection with determining policy exceptions. A policy analysis engine retrieves data from the data storage device that is referenced by the policy statement, evaluates an indicator provided in the policy statement, and determines a confidence level associated with the indicator. An exception determining component responsive to the confidence level generates data indicating a policy exception.

Claims

1. A system for detecting exceptions to a policy expressed in a computer-executable policy statement, comprising:

a storage device for storing a set of policy statements, the set of policy statements comprising at least one base policy statement and optionally one or more custom policy statements;

a data retrieval subsystem for connecting to a data storage device storing data for use in connection with determining policy exceptions;

a policy analysis engine responsive to each policy statement in the storage device for retrieving data corresponding to at least one entity stored in the storage device that is referenced by the policy statement the policy analysis engine being further operative for evaluating an indicator provided in the policy statement and determining a confidence level associated with the indicator; and

an exception determining component responsive to the determined confidence level exceeding a predetermined threshold value for generating data corresponding to an exception to the policy.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an output component for:

generating a description of the exception in response to an exception; and

providing the exception description and confidence level value to an external system for utilization.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the policy analysis engine computes a potential impact of the exception in response to an exception.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the custom policy statement comprises a base policy statement that has been modified for particular circumstances.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the data corresponding to the entity stored in the storage device comprise monitoring entities stored in a monitoring database.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the entity comprises data items corresponding to an electronic transaction expressed in a predetermined ontology;

wherein the indicator comprises at least one computer-executable logical statement expressed in terms of an ontology that resolves to the exception in response to a predetermined condition.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the policy statement is an XML data structure.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a connection to one or more data sources that provide additional data for use in evaluating the policy statement.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more data sources are from the group:

ERP systems, enterprise application systems, external data sources, and information technology (IT) infrastructure data.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one entity is a transactional entity.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one entity is a support entity.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one indicator utilizes additional information together with entity information in resolving to an exception, the additional information obtained from an additional data source.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising an output for providing the exception to an external system for user disposition.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the indicator includes a confidence level associated with the exception.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein confidence levels of a plurality of indicators are combined statistically to obtain a single composite confidence level.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the evaluation of the indicator comprises determining a predetermined condition based on retrieved information, and wherein the predetermined condition is a confidence level exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising an output for providing information relating to an entity involved in the exception to an external system for utilization.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising an output for providing information relating to the exception to an external system for utilization.

19. A computer-implemented method for detecting exceptions to a policy expressed in a computer-executable policy statement, comprising the steps of:

opening a connection to a data storage device storing data for use in connection with determining policy exceptions;

retrieving a base policy statement from a storage device;

retrieving a custom policy statement from a storage device;

for each policy statement, retrieving data corresponding to at least one entity stored in the storage device that is referenced by the policy statement;

evaluating an indicator provided in the policy statement;

determining a confidence level associated with an indicator determined in the evaluating step; and

if a determined confidence level exceeds a predetermined threshold value, generating data corresponding to an exception to the policy.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising the steps of:

generating a description of the exception in response to an exception; and

providing the exception description and confidence level value to an external system for utilization.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of computing a potential impact of the exception in response to an exception.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein the custom policy statement comprises a base policy statement that has been modified for particular circumstances.

23. The method of claim 19, wherein the data corresponding to the entity stored in the storage device comprise monitoring entities stored in a monitoring database.

24. The method of claim 19, wherein the entity comprises data items corresponding to an electronic transaction expressed in a predetermined ontology;

wherein the indicator comprises at least one computer-executable logical statement expressed in terms of an ontology that resolves to the exception in response to a predetermined condition.

25. The method of claim 19, wherein the policy statement is an XML data structure.

26. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of retrieving data from one or more data sources for use in evaluating the policy statement.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the one or more data sources are from the group:

ERP systems, enterprise application systems, external data sources, and information technology (IT) infrastructure data.

28. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one entity is a transactional entity.

29. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one entity is a support entity.

30. The method of claim 19, wherein the at least one indicator utilizes additional information together with entity information in resolving to an exception, the additional information obtained from an additional data source.

31. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of providing the exception to an external system for user disposition.

32. The method of claim 19, wherein the indicator provides a confidence level associated with the exception.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein confidence levels of a plurality of indicators are combined statistically to obtain a single composite confidence level.

34. The method of claim 19, wherein the evaluation of the indicator comprises determining a predetermined condition based on retrieved information, and wherein the predetermined condition is a confidence level exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

35. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of providing information relating to an entity involved in the exception to an external system for utilization.

36. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of providing information relating to the exception to an external system for utilization.

37. A computer-implemented policy statement execution system for use in detecting possible exceptions to a policy expressed in a computer-executable policy statement, comprising:

a program module for retrieving a computer-executable policy statement from a storage device;

an interpreter program module for interpreting the policy statement and determining computer operations corresponding to the policy statement;

a program module for executing computer operations determined by the interpreter module;

a program module for retrieving any required data for use in connection with the policy statement from one or more data sources;

a program module for determining an exception based on resolution of a logical expression contained in the policy statement; and

an output for providing data corresponding to an exception resulting from the exception determining program module.

38. The system of claim 37, wherein the policy statement comprises:

information identifying at least one entity in the storage device, the entity comprising data items corresponding to an electronic transaction expressed in a predetermined ontology;

at least one indicator comprising at least one computer-executable logical statement expressed in terms of the ontology that resolves to an exception in response to a predetermined condition; and

information specifying a view of information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to an external system.

39. The system of claim 38, wherein the policy statement is an XML data structure and the program module for interpreting the policy statement is operative to parse an XML data structure.

40. The system of claim 38, wherein the storage device is a monitoring database storing monitoring entities associated with transactions.

41. The system of claim 38, wherein the one or more data sources are from

the group:

ERP systems, enterprise application systems, external data sources, and information technology (IT) infrastructure data.

42. The system of claim 38, wherein the data is obtained from one or more data sources and mapped into a schema corresponding to a predetermined ontology and mapping information, and stored in a monitoring database in an operation prior to execution of the policy statement.

43. The system of claim 38, wherein the at least one entity is a transactional entity.

44. The system of claim 38, wherein the at least one entity is a support entity.

45. The system of claim 38, wherein the at least one indicator utilizes additional information together with entity information in resolving to an exception.

46. The system of claim 37, wherein the exception is provided to an external system for user disposition.

47. The system of claim 38, wherein the at least one indicator provides a confidence level associated with the exception.

48. The system of claim 47, wherein confidence levels of a plurality of indicators are combined statistically to obtain a single composite confidence level.

49. The system of claim 47, wherein the predetermined condition is the confidence level exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

50. The system of claim 47, further comprising logical statements for computing a priority associated with an exception based on confidence and impact.

51. The system of claim 47, wherein the statement provides for computing a wariness associated with an entity involved in an exception, and providing wariness as an output.

52. The system of claim 51, wherein wariness is computed by combining the confidence levels of one or more exceptions as probabilities, incrementally, as one or more exceptions are resolved, thereby providing updated values for wariness for particular entities over time and as a result of multiple exceptions.

53. The system of claim 38, wherein the at least one indicator provides an expected impact expression.

54. The system of claim 53, wherein the expected impact comprises a product of the confidence level and potential impact.

55. The system of claim 37, further comprising information that determines whether the policy statement should be executed by the system.

56. The system of claim 37, further comprising information that identifies at least one system with which the policy statement is effective.

57. The system of claim 37, wherein the information specifying a view of information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to an external system comprises information relating to an entity involved in the statement.

58. The system of claim 37, wherein the information specifying a view of information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to an external system comprises information relating to the exception.

59. A method for detecting possible exceptions to a policy expressed in a computer-executable policy statement, comprising the steps of:

retrieving a computer-executable policy statement from a storage device;

interpreting the policy statement to determine computer operations corresponding to the policy statement;

executing computer operations determined in the interpreting step;

retrieving any required data for use in connection with the policy statement from one or more data sources;

determining an exception based on resolution of a logical expression contained in the policy statement; and

providing a data output corresponding to an exception resulting from the exception determining step.

60. The method of claim 59, wherein the policy statement comprises:

information identifying at least one entity in the storage device, the entity comprising data items corresponding to an electronic transaction expressed in a predetermined ontology;

at least one indicator comprising at least one computer-executable logical statement, expressed in terms of the ontology, that resolves to an exception in response to a predetermined condition; and

information specifying a view of information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to an external system.

61. The method of claim 60, wherein the policy statement is an XML data structure and step of interpreting the policy statement comprises parsing the XML data structure.

62. The method of claim 60, wherein the storage device is a monitoring database storing monitoring entities associated with transactions.

63. The method of claim 60, wherein the one or more data sources are from the group:

ERP systems, enterprise application systems, external data sources, and information technology (IT) infrastructure data.

64. The method of claim 60, wherein the data is obtained from one or more data sources and mapped into a schema corresponding to a predetermined ontology and mapping information, and stored in a monitoring database in an operation prior to execution of the policy statement.

65. The method of claim 60, wherein the at least one entity is a transactional entity.

66. The method of claim 60, wherein the at least one entity is a support entity.

67. The method of claim 60, wherein the at least one indicator utilizes additional information together with entity information in resolving to an exception.

68. The method of claim 59, wherein the exception is provided to an external system for user disposition.

69. The method of claim 60, wherein the at least one indicator provides a confidence level associated with the exception.

70. The method of claim 69, wherein confidence levels of a plurality of indicators are combined statistically to obtain a single composite confidence level.

71. The method of claim 69, wherein the predetermined condition is the confidence level exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

72. The method of claim 69, wherein the logical statements for computing a priority associated with an exception based on confidence and impact.

73. The method of claim 69, wherein the policy statement provides for computing a wariness associated with an entity involved in an exception, and providing wariness as an output.

74. The method of claim 73, wherein wariness is computed by combining the confidence levels of one or more exceptions as probabilities, incrementally, as one or more exceptions are resolved, thereby providing updated values for wariness for particular entities over time and as a result of multiple exceptions.

75. The method of claim 60, wherein the at least one indicator provides an expected impact expression.

76. The method of claim 75, wherein the expected impact comprises a product of the confidence level and potential impact.

77. The method of claim 59, wherein the information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to the external system comprises information relating to an entity involved in the statement.

78. The method of claim 59, wherein the information resulting from execution of the statement for provision to the external system comprises information relating to the exception.