Recursive reporting via a spreadsheet

• US 20080140623A1
• Filed: 12/11/2006
• Published: 06/12/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hulen, Corey, Lim, Chen-I, Tien, Ian
• Application Number:
  US11/636,884
• Publication Number:
  US 20080140623A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query

Abstract

Architecture for accessing a repository of information and recursively processing the repository information for relevant information for output as a spreadsheet. Once the relevant information is returned, portions of the relevant information are used to develop and execute one or more queries against data sources for information related to the relevant information. A report is then generated in the form of a spreadsheet that includes the relevant and related information presented as one or more of text, a chart, a graph, matrix, and other combinations of visualizations and perceivable information (e.g., audio data). Moreover, the spreadsheet can include a hierarchical organization of sheets based on relationships in stored metadata definitions. The one or more queries can be processed against backend data sources under a centralized security regime optimized for rapidly aggregating data from across heterogeneous data sources.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates data management, comprising:

an access component for recursively accessing a data source for relevant information;

a query component for processing a query for related information; and

a reporting component for generating a spreadsheet that includes the relevant information and related information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the data source includes hierarchical business definition information.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the spreadsheet generated by the reporting component includes structured and unstructured data.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a cache component for caching the relevant and/or related information.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a formatting component for automatically sizing content of the relevant and/or related information for presentation in the spreadsheet.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a formatting component for automatically compressing files associated with the spreadsheet in an XML format.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the reporting component facilitates automatic distribution of the spreadsheet via a communications technology.

8. A computer-implemented method of managing data, comprising:

recursively accessing a data source for relevant performance information;

generating a query based on the relevant performance information;

recursively executing the query for related metrics information; and

processing the relevant performance information and related metrics information into a spreadsheet.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising automatically creating a snapshot of information for inclusion into the spreadsheet.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising automatically formatting the spreadsheet into slides when the spreadsheet meets predetermined size criteria.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising automatically grouping the slides according to a performance metric.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising one or more of:

presenting the relevant performance information and the related metrics information in the spreadsheet according to dimension members; and

predicting a file size of an output and presenting a warning when the file size exceeds a predetermined file size threshold.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising recursively accessing homogeneous data associated with the relevant performance information.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising recursively accessing heterogeneous data associated with the relevant performance information.

15. The method of claim 8, further comprising grouping the relevant performance information according to sheets of the spreadsheet.

16. The method of claim 8, further comprising generating a briefing book based in part on the spreadsheet and distributing the briefing book according to subscriber.

17. The method of claim 8, further comprising providing load balancing of the relevant performance information and related metrics information.

18. A computer-implemented system, comprising:

computer-implemented means for accessing a data source and generating a scorecard of business metrics;

computer-implemented means for recursively accessing heterogeneous business data of the data source based on the business metrics; and

computer-implemented means for processing the heterogeneous business data into a spreadsheet.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising computer-implemented means for generating a query based on the heterogeneous business data and recursively accessing homogeneous business data based on the query.

20. The system of claim 18, further comprising computer-implemented means for automatically compressing the heterogeneous business data into the spreadsheet via an XML format.