System and Method for Categorizing Activities in Computer-Accessible Environments

• US 20080126158A1
• Filed: 02/08/2006
• Published: 05/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Timest Limited
• Original Assignee: Timest Limited
• Inventors: Notea, Amir
• Granted Patent: US 8,301,472 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3447 Performance evaluation by modeling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations

Abstract

The invention discloses a system and method for collecting over time significant amounts of low-level data about automated devices used by the users, and for analyzing these data over time in order to achieve insight into what improves the users'"'"' ability to perform their activity and what hinders their performance. Such analysis may relate to a single user, to a group of users, to the effect of a user'"'"'s habits on his/her performance, to the effect of one user'"'"'s actions on other users'"'"' performance, etc. The results of such analysis can help users, managers and organizations to improve their competitive position in their respective fields.

Claims

1-6. -6. (canceled)

7. An analysis and reporting subsystem for analyzing and reporting activities in of one or more a monitored environment comprising:

a correlation data subsystem to receive activity data from said at least one monitored environment, and to export data to a high-level analysis subsystem, said correlation data subsystem comprising;

imported external entity representation module to receive data from a database and to forward said received data to time synchronization and data integration subsystem, and

time synchronization and data integration subsystem to integrate data received from said imported external entity representation module with said activity data from said at least one monitored environment;

a high-level analysis subsystem to receive input from said correlation data subsystem and to analyze said data to perform at least one from the list comprising quantification of financial waste and creation of a high-level model for user behavior;

a reporting subsystem to receive result of analysis from said high-level analysis subsystem and to do at least one of report said result and export said results to an external system

8. The system of claim 7 wherein said correlation data subsystem further comprising:

an entity correlation module to receive input from said time synchronization and data integration subsystem and to identify correlation between said time, said data and said activities;

wherein said imported external entity representation module is adapted to import data from at least one monitored environment, and

wherein said time synchronization and data integration subsystem is further adapted to perform time synchronization of said activity data.

17. The analysis and reporting subsystem of claim 7 further adapted to accept data from two or more monitored environments.

18. The analysis and reporting subsystem of claim 7, further adapted to exchange data with categories definition subsystem, said categories definition subsystem is adapted to provide input to said analysis and reporting subsystem and to facilitate categorization of activities into groups, wherein said categories definition subsystem is modifiable by said analysis and reporting subsystem.

21. The system of claim 7, wherein said reporting subsystem is adapted to identify and report missing pieces of information in received data.

9. A categorization system comprising:

a measurement subsystem to collect data from monitored environment;

a primary analysis subsystem to receive input from said measurement subsystem, to perform initial analysis of said data, said analysis comprising at least one of a UI conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of UI conditions, HW conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of hardware conditions and a SW conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of software conditions;

a categories definition subsystem to provide input to said primary analysis subsystem 300 and to facilitate categorization of activities into groups;

16. The categorization system of claim 9, wherein at least one of said measurement subsystem and said primary analysis subsystem is adapted to accept data from two or more monitored environments.

19. The categorization system of claim 9, wherein said categories definition subsystem is modifiable by primary analysis subsystem.

10. A primary analysis subsystem comprising:

modeling subsystems comprising UI conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of UI conditions and at least one of a list comprising HW conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of hardware conditions, SW conditions over time modeling subsystem to generate designations of software conditions and User Behavior Modeling subsystem to generate designations of temporary conditions and conditions over time of a user, wherein said of HW conditions over time modeling subsystem and SW conditions over time modeling subsystem being in parallel configuration with said UI conditions over time modeling subsystem; and

condition model integration subsystem to receive output of each of said UI conditions over time modeling subsystem, HW conditions over time modeling subsystem and SW conditions over time modeling subsystem and to combine Temporary-Condition and/or Condition-Over-Time from two or more of said inputs into aggregated Temporary-Condition and aggregated Condition-Over-Time.

11. The primary analysis subsystem of claim 10 wherein said condition model integration subsystem is further adapted to receive input from categories definition subsystem, said input provided to facilitate categorization of activities into groups.

20. The primary analysis subsystem of claim 10, wherein said categories definition subsystem is modifiable by said primary analysis subsystem.

12. A categorization system to collect activity data from at least one monitored environment, to analyze and report in task-level said activities, said system comprising at least one pre-transmit data conditioning subsystem to reduce the amount of data transmitted between at least two subsystems of said categorization system, said pre transmit data condition subsystem comprising:

at least one estimator selected from a list comprising channel availability estimator to estimate the availability of a transmission channel, target host workload estimator to estimate the available workload capacity of a target host, local workload estimator to estimate the available workload capacity on a local machine, target host storage availability estimator to estimate the amount of available storage at a target host, and local storage availability estimator to estimate local storage availability;

data evaluating and purging subsystem to receive input from an input source external to said pre-transmit data conditioning subsystem and from said at least one estimator, to decide of at least two from the list comprising which data-nuggets need to be purged, which data-nuggets need to be transmitted immediately and which data-nuggets need to be delayed.

13. The categorization system of claim 12 wherein said channel availability estimator comprising:

entry terminal comprising at least one of passive channel traffic estimator adapted to passively monitor channel traffic availability and active channel traffic estimator to actively investigate channel traffic availability both in parallel to each other, to estimate channel traffic availability;

known channel availability patterns storage unit to hold information about known channel availability patterns;

channel availability history manager to hold information about historical channel availability estimations;

channel availability pattern matcher to match patterns of traffic data from at least one of said passive channel traffic estimator and said active channel traffic estimator and said channel availability history manager with patterns from said known channel availability patterns storage unit; and

channel availability projector to receive input from said channel availability pattern matcher and to project future channel availability that matches the identified pattern.

14. The categorization system of claim 12, wherein said pre-transmit data conditioning subsystem is further adapted to make delayed data-nuggets available for re-processing by external data reprocessing unit.

15. The categorization system of claim 12 further comprising at least one data expunging subsystem to eliminate some of the data transmitted between at least two subsystems of said categorization system.

22. A method for analyzing and reporting activities in at least one monitored environment comprising:

receiving data from at least one monitored environment;

receiving data from at least one from a list comprising an external system and a categories definition subsystem;

creating a model from designations of user interface conditions and at least one of a list comprising designations of hardware conditions and designations of software conditions; and

reporting said model, said reporting is responsive to activity data received from said at least one monitored environment and data received from at least one of said categories definition subsystem and said external system.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising a step of synchronizing in time said at least one monitored environment with at least one of additional monitored environment and said categories definition subsystem and said external system.

24. The method of claim 22 wherein said categories definition subsystem is modifiable in response to said model.

25. The method of claim 22 wherein said step of reporting comprising at least reporting of Missing Pieces.