REPORTING FUNCTION IN GAMING SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT

• US 20080153599A1
• Filed: 11/09/2007
• Published: 06/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LNW Gaming Incorporated (Light & Wonder Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Bally Gaming Incorporated (Light & Wonder Incorporated)
• Inventors: Sutherland, Victoria, Atashband, Farshid
• Granted Patent: US 8,631,501 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/32 for games, toys, sports, or amusements
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/323 wherein the player is informed, e.g. advertisements, odds, instructions

Abstract

A gaming related system employs a front end application that allows access to various reports from various, disparate databases. Such may avoid reviewing reports in SQL Reporting services. Identification of reports and/or categories of reports, as well as access to reports and categories of reports may be limited based on a user role associated with a user identifier and/or pass phrase. Users may only need to provide log in information once per log in session.

Claims

1. A method of game related reporting in a casino gaming network system, the method comprising:

receiving at least one user input at a front end gaming reporting and control application program, the at least one user input indicative of a request for a report including an indication of at least one of a report type and a parameter to populate at least one field of the report type to produce the requested report;

sending a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to a database server reporting service;

receiving the requested report via the database server reporting service; and

displaying the requested report by the front end gaming reporting and control application program.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein sending a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to a database server reporting service includes sending the report path to an SQL server reporting service.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving at least one of a user identifier and a user password at the front end gaming reporting and control application program; and

verifying at least the user password.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the verifying at least the user password is performed before the receiving the at least one user input indicative of the request for the report, and wherein the displaying the requested report by the front end gaming reporting and control application program is performed without any further user inputs indicative of either the user identifier or the user password.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining which of a plurality of report types the user identifier has authority to access, wherein the displaying the requested report by the front end gaming reporting and control application program is only performed with the requested report where the user identifier has authority to access the requested report.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access, without indicating any of the reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein displaying a plurality of indicia at the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access includes displaying the plurality of indicia indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access by category of the reports.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining which of a plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the categories of reports that the user identifier has authority to access without indicating any categories of reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

9. The method of claim 6 wherein determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access includes determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier includes retrieving information indicative of the user role from a directory.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein retrieving information indicative of the user role from a directory includes retrieving information indicative of the user role from an Active directory.

12. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access, without indicating any of the reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access includes determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier includes retrieving information from an active directory.

15. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining which of a plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the categories of reports that the user identifier has authority to access without indicating any of the categories of repots that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein determining which of a plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access includes determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein determining which of the plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier includes retrieving information from an Active directory.

18. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

retrieving a network address of a database server reporting service;

retrieving information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service;

retrieving a user role from a networked directory;

determining which of the report categories and the reports that a user has authority to access; and

displaying the report categories and the reports that the user has authority to access without displaying any of the report categories and the reports that the user does not have authority to access, without requiring the user to provide login information more than one time per user session.

19. A computer-readable medium that stores instructions that cause an end user computer to provide game related reporting in a casino gaming network system, by:

receiving at least one user input at a front end gaming reporting and control application program, the at least one user input indicative of a request for a report including an indication of at least one of a report type and a parameter to populate at least one field of the report type to produce the requested report;

sending a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to a database server reporting service;

receiving the requested report via the database server reporting service; and

displaying the requested report by the front end gaming reporting and control application program.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 wherein sending a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to a database server reporting service includes sending the report path to an SQL server reporting service

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 wherein the instructions cause the end user computer to provide game related reporting in the casino gaming network system, further by:

receiving at least one of a user identifier and a user password at the front end gaming reporting and control application program; and

verifying at least the user password.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 19 wherein the instructions cause the end user computer to provide game related reporting in the casino gaming network system, further by:

determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access, without indicating any of the reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 22 wherein displaying a plurality of indicia at the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access includes displaying the plurality of indicia indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access by category of the reports.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 23 wherein the instructions cause the end user computer to provide game related reporting in the casino gaming network system, further by:

determining which of a plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

displaying a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the categories of reports that the user identifier has authority to access without indicating any categories of reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

25. The computer-readable medium of claim 23 wherein determining which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access includes determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

26. The computer-readable medium of claim 25 wherein determining which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier includes retrieving information indicative of the user role from a directory.

27. The computer-readable medium of claim 26 wherein retrieving information indicative of the user role from a directory includes retrieving the information indicative of the user role from an Active directory.

28. A computer-readable medium that stores instructions that cause an end user computer to provide game related reporting in a casino gaming network system, by:

retrieving a network address of a database server reporting service;

retrieving information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service;

retrieving a user role from a networked directory;

determining which of the report categories and the reports that a user has authority to access; and

displaying the report categories and the reports that the user has authority to access without displaying any of the report categories and the reports that the user does not have authority to access, without requiring the user to provide login information more than one time per user session.

29. The computer-readable medium of claim 28 wherein retrieving information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service includes retrieving information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via an SQL database server reporting service.

30. An end-user computing system to provide game related reporting in a casino gaming network system, comprising:

at least one user interface configure to receive user input device and to provide user output;

a processor communicatively coupled to the user interface and operable to execute a number of instructions;

a computer-readable medium communicatively coupled to the processor, the computer-readable medium stores instructions that cause the processor to;

retrieve a network address of a database server reporting service;

retrieve information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service;

retrieve a user role from a networked directory;

determine which of the report categories and the reports that a user has authority to access; and

display the report categories and the reports that the user has authority to access via the user interface without displaying any of the report categories and the reports that the user does not have authority to access, without requiring the user to provide login information more than one time per user session.

31. The end-user computing system of claim 30 wherein the processor receives at least one user input from the user interface, the at least one user input indicative of a request for a report including an indication of at least one of a report type and a parameter to populate at least one field of the report type to produce the requested report.

32. The end-user computing system of claim 31 wherein the computer-readable medium stores instructions that cause the processor to:

send a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to a database server reporting service;

receive the requested report via the database server reporting service; and

display the requested report via the user interface.

33. The end-user computing system of claim 32 wherein the processor sends the report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to an SQL server reporting service

34. The end-user computing system of claim 32 wherein the processor receives at least one user input from the user interface, the at least one user input indicative of at least one of a user identifier and a user password, and the computer-readable medium stores instructions that cause the processor to verify at least the user password.

35. The end-user computing system of claim 30 wherein the processor determines which of the report categories and the reports that a user has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

36. The end-user computing system of claim 35 wherein processor retrieves information indicative of the user role from a directory.

37. The end-user computing system of claim 36 wherein the processor retrieves information indicative of the user role from an Active directory.

38. A casino gaming network system, comprising:

at least one end-user computing system executing front end gaming reporting and control application program;

at least one database report server communicatively coupled to the end-user computing system by at least one network, the database report server providing at least one database reporting service;

at least one directory communicatively coupled to the end-user computing system by at least one network, wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to receive at least one user input indicative of a request for a report including an indication of at least one of a report type and a parameter to populate at least one field of the report type to produce the requested report, send a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to the database reporting service of the database server, receive the requested report via the database reporting service of the database server, and display the requested report.

39. The casino gaming network system of claim 38 wherein the at least one end-user computing system sends a report path indicative of a network address of the report and a set of credential information to an SQL server reporting service.

40. The casino gaming network system of claim 38 wherein the at least one end-user computing system receives at least one of a user identifier and a user password from an end-user via the front end gaming reporting and control application program and verifies at least the user password.

41. The casino gaming network system of claim 40 wherein the at least one end-user computing system verifies at least the user password before the at least one end-user computing system receives the at least one user input indicative of the request for the report, and the at least one end-user computing system displays the requested report without any further user inputs indicative of either the user identifier or the user password.

42. The casino gaming network system of claim 40 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to:

determine which of a plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

display a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access, without indicating any of the reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

43. The casino gaming network system of claim 42 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to display the plurality of indicia indicative of the reports that the user identifier has authority to access by report category.

44. The casino gaming network system of claim 40 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to:

determine which of a plurality of categories of reports the user identifier has authority to access; and

display a plurality of indicia by the front end gaming reporting and control application program indicative of the categories of reports that the user identifier has authority to access without indicating any categories of reports that the user identifier does not have authority to access.

45. The casino gaming network system of claim 40 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to determine which of the plurality of reports the user identifier has authority to access based on a user role logically associated with the user identifier.

46. The casino gaming network system of claim 45 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to retrieve information indicative of the user role from a directory.

47. The casino gaming network system of claim 45 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to retrieve information indicative of the user role from an Active directory.

48. A casino gaming network system, comprising:

at least one end-user computing system executing front end gaming reporting and control application program;

at least one database report server communicatively coupled to the end-user computing system by at least one network, the database report server providing at least one database reporting service; and

at least one directory communicatively coupled to the end-user computing system by at least one network, wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to retrieve a network address of the database server reporting service;

retrieve information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service, retrieve a user role from the at least one directory, determine which of the report categories and the reports that a user has authority to access; and

indicate all of the report categories and all of the reports that the user has authority to access without indicating any of the report categories and any of the reports that the user does not have authority to access, without requiring the user to provide login information more than one time per user session.

49. The casino gaming network system of claim 48 wherein the front end gaming reporting and control application program is configured to cause the at least one end-user computing system to retrieve information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via the database server reporting service by retrieving information that identifies all report categories and all reports available via an SQL database server reporting service.