METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR EXTRACTION OF TRANSACTION DATA FOR COMPLIANCE MONITORING

• US 20080195579A1
• Filed: 01/31/2006
• Published: 08/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Andrew T. Otwell, Charles A. Coombs, Daniel R. Kuokka, Jeffrey Z. Johnson, Michael E. Lortz, Patrick J.D. Taylor, Peter H. Kennis, Stayton D. Addison
• Original Assignee: Andrew T. Otwell, Charles A. Coombs, Daniel R. Kuokka, Jeffrey Z. Johnson, Michael E. Lortz, Patrick J.D. Taylor, Peter H. Kennis, Stayton D. Addison
• Inventors: Kennis, Peter H., Kuokka, Daniel R., Coombs, Charles A., Lortz, Michael E., Johnson, Jeffrey Z., Otwell, Andrew T., Taylor, Patrick J.D., Addison, Stayton D.
• Application Number:
  US11/307,300
• Publication Number:
  US 20080195579A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0635 Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

Methods and systems for extraction of transaction data for compliance monitoring, particularly useful in a system for monitoring electronic transactions of an enterprise and detecting exceptions indicating noncompliance with enterprise policies. Data extractors obtain data from various data sources and provide the data for use by a transaction analysis engine that executes computer-executable compliance policy statements against extracted data. Data extractors include one or more of following: a master extractor, a log extractor, a resync extractor, a programmatic extractor, an environmental source extractor, and an external source extractor. Data extraction is effected by using the master extractor and/or programmatic extractor to extract an initial subset of information about monitored transactions from an enterprise system, and then using the log extractor, the resync extractor, the programmatic extractor, the environmental source extractor, and/or the external source extractor to extract a second subset of information about changed data.

Claims

1. A system for extracting data relating to transactions from one or more external data sources and for providing data for use by a transaction analysis engine operative for executing one or more computer-executable compliance policy statements against extracted data, comprising:

a data communications port coupled to one or more data sources;

a master extractor program module operative for extracting an initial selected subset of information about monitored transactions from one or more data sources;

a log extractor program module operative for extracting information about monitored transactions from a log file provided by one or more data sources;

a resync extractor program module operative for extracting information from one or more data sources from which data was previously extracted in response to a resynchronize condition;

a programmatic extractor program module operative to receive information provided by programmatic operation of a data source that conducts data export; and

a storage program module for storing extracted information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the data sources is an enterprise system that stores information corresponding to enterprise data transactions.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the data sources comprise a plurality of heterogeneous databases that store information relating to business transactions of the enterprise.

4. The system of claim 2, further comprising an external data source extractor program module for obtaining information relating to transactions from one or more data sources external to the enterprise system.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage program module stores extracted information in a monitoring database.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the storage program module stores extracted information in a staging database, and a mapper program module stores the extracted information in the monitoring database according to an enterprise ontology.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising an extractor file for identifying each data source and information required to access data in the data sources.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the extractor file provides information identifying a source table, predetermined fields of the source table, a destination table, and predetermined fields in the destination table in which the source table fields are stored.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the data sources include one or more additional data sources that provide information supplemental to the monitored transactions.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the additional data sources include an information technology (IT) system infrastructure equipment that provides data corresponding to IT system utilization.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the IT system infrastructure equipment is selected from the group:

file server, application server, firewall, router, intrusion detection equipment, authentication server.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the additional data sources include an external data source that provides data ancillary to a particular monitored transaction.

13. A method for extracting data relating to transactions from one or more external data sources and for providing data for use by a transaction analysis engine operative for executing one or more computer-executable compliance policy statements against extracted data, comprising the steps of:

extracting an initial selected subset of information about monitored transactions from one or more data sources;

extracting information about monitored transactions from a log file provided by one or more data sources;

extracting information from one or more data sources from which information was previously extracted to resynchronize data in response to a resynchronization condition;

receiving information provided by programmatic operation of a data source that conducts data export; and

storing extracted information for access by the transaction analysis engine.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein at least one of the data sources is an enterprise system that stores information corresponding to enterprise data transactions.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the data sources comprise a plurality of heterogeneous databases that store information relating to business transactions of the enterprise.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising the step of obtaining information relating to transactions from one or more data sources external to the enterprise system.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the storage program module stores extracted information in a monitoring database.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein step of storing extracted information comprising storing in a staging database to minimize the computational load on the data source, and further comprising the steps of retrieving the information from the staging database and storing the extracted information in the monitoring database according to an enterprise ontology.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of identifying each data source and information required to access data in the data sources in an extractor file.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the extractor file provides information identifying a source table, predetermined fields of the source table, a destination table, and predetermined fields in the destination table in which the source table fields are stored.

21. The method of claim 13, wherein the data sources include one or more additional data sources that provide information supplemental to the monitored transactions.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the additional data sources include an information technology (IT) system infrastructure equipment that provides data corresponding to IT system utilization.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the IT system infrastructure equipment is selected from the group:

file server, application server, firewall, router, intrusion detection equipment, authentication server.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein the additional data sources include an external data source that provides data ancillary to a particular monitored transaction.

25. A system for monitoring transactions of an enterprise stored in one or more enterprise systems associated with an enterprise, the transactions corresponding to one or more business transactions of the enterprise, to determine possible lack of compliance of a business transaction with one or more predetermined policies of the enterprise, comprising:

an extractor for extracting an initial selected subset of information about monitored transactions from an enterprise system;

a second extractor, responsive to changed data in the enterprise system, for extracting a second selected subset of information about the changed data;

a monitoring database for storing the initial subset of information and the second subset of information as monitoring entities;

a transaction analysis engine for executing one or more computer-executable policy statements against the monitoring database; and

a user interface, responsive to a determination from execution of a policy statement of an exception to a predetermined policy for providing an output corresponding to the exception indicating a possible lack of compliance with the predetermined policy.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the selected subsets of information correspond to a predetermined selection of data fields from a predetermined selection of database tables storing business transactions.

27. The system of claim 25, wherein the initial selected subset of information from the enterprise system comprises information corresponding to a complete set of business transactions current through a predetermined date.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the second selected subset of information from the enterprise system comprises information corresponding to business transaction changes occurring subsequent to the predetermined date.

29. The system of claim 25, wherein the policy statements comprise computer-executable expressions of relationships between predetermined data items in the monitoring database, expressed in terms of an enterprise ontology, that resolve into indicators that determine exceptions.

30. The system of claim 25, wherein the extractors refer to stored extractor information identifying one or more data sources, access information for the data sources, selected data tables in the data sources, and selected fields in the selected tables.

31. The system of claim 25, wherein the extractors comprise computer program modules providing for a master extractor, a log extractor, a programmatic extractor, a resync extractor, an external data source extractor, and an information technology (IT) system extractor.

32. The system of claim 25, further comprising one or more additional data sources that provide information supplemental to the monitored transactions.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the additional data sources include an information technology (IT) system infrastructure equipment that provides data corresponding to IT system utilization.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the IT system infrastructure equipment is selected from the group:

file server, application server, firewall, router, intrusion detection equipment, authentication server.

35. The system of claim 32, wherein the additional data sources include an external data source that provides data ancillary to a particular monitored transaction.

36. A computer-implemented method for monitoring transactions of an enterprise stored in one or more enterprise systems associated with an enterprise, the transactions corresponding to one or more business transactions of the enterprise, to determine possible lack of compliance of a business transaction with one or more predetermined policies of the enterprise, comprising the steps of:

extracting an initial selected subset of information about monitored transactions from an enterprise system;

storing the initial subset of information in a monitoring database as a monitoring entity;

thereafter, in response to changed data in the enterprise system, extracting a second selected subset of information about the changed data;

storing the second subset of information in the monitoring database as a monitoring entity;

executing one or more computer-executable policy statements from a knowledge base against the monitoring database; and

in response to the determination from the execution of a policy statement of an exception to a predetermined policy, providing an output corresponding to an exception indicating a possible lack of compliance with the predetermined policy.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the selected subsets of information correspond to a predetermined selection of data fields from a predetermined selection of database tables storing business transactions.

38. The method of claim 36, wherein the initial selected subset of information from the enterprise database comprises information corresponding to a complete set of business transactions current through a predetermined date.

39. The method of claim 38, wherein the second selected subset of information from the enterprise database comprises information corresponding to business transaction changes occurring subsequent to the predetermined date.

40. The method of claim 36, wherein the policy statements comprise computer-executable expressions of relationships between predetermined data items in the monitoring database, expressed in terms of an enterprise ontology, that resolve into indicators that determine exceptions.

41. The method of claim 36, wherein the extracting steps are effected with reference to stored extractor information identifying one or more data sources, access information for the data sources, selected data tables in the data sources, and selected fields in the selected tables.

42. The method of claim 36, wherein the extracting steps are effected with computer program modules for a master extractor, a log extractor, a programmatic extractor, a resync extractor, an external data source extractor, and an information technology (IT) system extractor.

43. The method of claim 36, further comprising the step of extracting information from one or more additional data sources that provide information supplemental to the monitored transactions.

44. The method of claim 43, wherein the additional data sources include an information technology (IT) system infrastructure equipment that provides data corresponding to IT system utilization.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein the IT system infrastructure equipment is selected from the group:

file server, application server, firewall, router, intrusion detection equipment, authentication server.

46. The method of claim 43, wherein the additional data sources include an external data source that provides data ancillary to a particular monitored transaction.