Untethered Interaction With Aggregated Metrics

• US 20080183564A1
• Filed: 01/30/2007
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Lim, Chen-I, Tien, Ian, Hulen, Corey J.
• Application Number:
  US11/668,763
• Publication Number:
  US 20080183564A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations

Abstract

Untethered interaction with a performance metric application in a service-based architecture is provided enabling users to have access to an enterprise library of summarized metrics and metric views in wireless environments. Metric data, aggregations, and analyses are provided to local application(s) for rendering personalized and scalable views. Through caching and synchronization, offline operations are enabled. Permission levels, user profiles, and multi-tiered security measures ensure protection of confidentiality and integrity of performance metric data.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for interacting with a hosted business service providing performance metric operations in an untethered environment, the method comprising:

providing performance metric data to an application on an untethered device from a hosted business service, wherein the hosted business service manages the performance metric data and computations associated with the performance metric data; and

enabling the application to provide a user interface for at least one from a set of;

viewing a portion of the performance metric data, viewing a report based on the performance metric data, and providing a feedback to the hosted business service.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is also configured to provide access to at least one from a set of:

a communication application for collaboration on the scorecard, a presentation application for rendering a report view, an analysis application for statistical analysis, and a data storage application for retrieving or storing data.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to providing the performance metric data, performing a security check based on at least one from a set of;

a user permission, a user profile, a network connection status, a password verification, a temporal verification, and a geographic verification.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling the performance metric data to be cached at the untethered device for offline operations.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

synchronizing the performance metric data at the untethered device with the data managed by the hosted business service upon reconnect.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

enabling the cached data at the untethered device to be deleted in response to at least one of a predefined security condition and an expiration of a predetermined period.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prioritizing a data request from the hosted business service based on a hierarchical representation of a scorecard such that an rendered summary information following an aborted data transfer is maximized; and

enabling recovery from a lost data transfer without the untethered device having to re-request successfully received fragments of a message.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the performance metric data at the untethered device in response to at least one of;

expiration of a predetermined period, a change to the performance metric data at the hosted business service, and a request by the application on the untethered device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is a client shell receiving parameters from the hosted business service, and wherein the application is enabled to receive a plurality of plug-ins.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adjusting a view associated with one of;

a portion of the performance metric data and a report based on a display capability of the application on the untethered device.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling the application to receive performance metric data from a plurality of service providers; and

partitioning the service providers for performance metric services using virtualized instances.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is enabled to receive live data feeds, and the application is configured to perform aggregation of performance metrics based on dependent data feeds.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is an embeddable application that is embedded into a desktop application on the untethered device.

14. A system for interacting with a business service providing performance metric operations in an untethered environment, the system comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor is configured to execute instructions to perform actions including;

configure at least one parameter of an application on an untethered device based on one of a user input and a predefined user profile;

authorize data delivery to the application based on a confirmation of a security status of the application;

provide performance metric data to the application from a hosted business service, wherein the hosted business service manages the performance metric data and computations associated with the performance metric data; and

enable the application to provide a user interface for at least one from a set of;

viewing a portion of the performance metric data, viewing a report based on the performance metric data, and providing a feedback to the hosted business service.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the application is enabled to provide a visualization of the provided performance metric data by mapping attributes of the performance metric data to at least one from a set of:

a size, a rotation, a background color, a foreground color, an outline color, an outline thickness, a position of objects provided by the hosted business service.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to automatically provide at least one of a service update and a security update to the application.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the processor is further configured to provide a library of plug-in modules, objects, and report views to the application based on at least one from a set of:

a user profile, a user permission level, and a predefined configuration.

18. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for interacting with a business service providing performance metric operations in an untethered environment, the instructions comprising:

configuring a visualization application on an untethered device at least in part based on a user input;

registering the visualization application with a hosted business service;

providing performance metric data to the visualization application from the hosted business service managing the performance metric data and computations associated with the performance metric data;

enabling caching of the performance metric data at the untethered device;

enabling the application to render a visualization based on a portion of the performance metric data, the visualization including at least one from a set of;

a report, a presentation, the portion of the performance metric data, commentary on the portion of the performance metric data, and information associated with performance metric owners;

enabling the application to provide feedback to the hosted business service in response to a user action; and

activating another application associated with the provided performance metric data in response to receiving a user selection through the application on the untethered device.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the other application is one of a local application residing on the untethered device and a remote application managed by the hosted device.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the hosted business service further provides an online collaboration service associated with the visualization.