METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SITE CONFIGURABLE ERROR REPORTING

• US 20080126887A1
• Filed: 11/29/2006
• Published: 05/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Malcolm, David, Lockhart, John W., Brodeur, Heather
• Granted Patent: US 8,677,194 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0784 Routing of error reports, e.g. with a specific transmission path or data flow

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to error reporting methods and systems. An error reporting application may be configured to be a stand-alone program, embedded within another application, or added as a plug-in application. The error reporting application may also be configured to provide a mechanism for a user to describe a problem with another application and send the problem description to a configurable, user defined location. The error report from the error reporting application may then be processed by an error processing system at the user-defined location.

Claims

1. A method of reporting bugs, the method comprising:

detecting a bug associated with an application;

invoking a reporting module;

inputting a description of the bug in an input section displayed by the reporting in an error report; and

transmitting the error report to a configurable location.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

capturing a screen shot of the application; and

transmitting the screen shot with the error report.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying an error location interface on the error report in response to the invocation of the reporting module; and

providing a selection of the configurable location and an option to add another user-defined location.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

accepting another user-defined location for the error report; and

transmitting the error report to the another user-defined location.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the invocation of the reporting module is within a third-party application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the invocation of the reporting module is done as a stand-alone application.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the error report; and

logging the error in an error database.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising generating a repair ticket in response to receiving the error report.

9. An apparatus comprising means for performing the method of claim 1.

10. A computer readable medium comprising executable code for performing the method of claim 1.

11. A system for error reporting, the system comprising:

a plurality of computers, each computer executing at least one application; and

a network configured to interconnect the each computer of the plurality of computers;

wherein a selected computer is configured to execute an error reporting application configured to display an error report for a user to describe a bug in the at least one application in response to the bug being detected by the user and transmitting the error report to a site-administrator defined location.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is configured to capture a screen shot of the at least one application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the error reporting application is configured to transmit the screen shot with the error report to the site-administrator defined location.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is further configured to display for input an error description field in response to the invocation of the error reporting application.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is further configured to display an error site field filled with the site administrator defined location.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is further configured to display an error site field for input by the user to specify a user-specified location.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is further configured to be invoked within the at least one application.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the error reporting application is further configured to be a stand-alone application.

19. The system of claim 11, further comprising an error reporting site configured to receive the error report and log the error in an error database.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the error reporting site is further configured to generate a repair ticket in response to receiving the error report.