LITIGATION DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT LINKING UNSTRUCTURED DOCUMENTS WITH BUSINESS OBJECTS

• US 20110320494A1
• Filed: 06/28/2010
• Published: 12/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Schmidt, Olaf, Fisher, Martin
• Application Number:
  US12/824,375
• Publication Number:
  US 20110320494A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/780
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/184 Intellectual property management

Abstract

According to some embodiments, it may be determined that an unstructured document is associated with a business objected stored at an enterprise resource planning system. Link information identifying the business object in connection with the unstructured document may be stored in a content management system. A litigation matter may then be identified, and an electronic discovery process may be executed across a plurality of object types for the identified litigation matter to identify relevant objects using a rules repository. The electronic discovery process may be, according to some embodiments, operable to automatically discover relationships among a plurality of the relevant objects. It may then be detected that the unstructured document is a relevant object. Based on the link information stored in connection with the unstructured document, it may then be determined that the business object is also a relevant object.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

determining that an unstructured document is associated with a business objected stored at an enterprise resource planning system;

storing link information identifying the business object in connection with the unstructured document in a content management system;

identifying a litigation matter;

executing an electronic discovery process across a plurality of object types for the identified litigation matter to identify relevant objects using a rules repository, the electronic discovery process being operable to automatically discover relationships among a plurality of the relevant objects;

detecting that the unstructured document is a relevant object; and

based on the link information stored in connection with the unstructured document, determining that the business object is also a relevant object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document comprises an attachment to an email message.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

placing a legal hold on at least a first of the relevant objects; and

visualizing information for at least a portion of the relevant objects.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the link information includes at least one of:

(i) an object identifier, (ii) an object type identifier, and/or (iii) an origin system identifier.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein information associated with at least a portion of the relevant objects is stored in a lookup table.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the stored information comprises information for parent objects and the lookup table stores data defining relationships between the relevant objects and parent objects.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein an application programming interface (API) enables access to the lookup table by one or more remote applications.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the litigation matter identified through a user interface is associated with a case type and a unique identifier.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the electronic discovery process using rules associated with the case type from the rules repository.

10. The method of claim 3, wherein the object types comprise at least a subset of business object, archive data, document, e-mail, and source code.

11. The method of claim 3, wherein the visualized information is presented through an interface and filtered based on a personalization rule.

12. The method of claim 3, wherein the visualized information comprises a tree view of at least one of the relationships.

13. The method of claim 3, wherein software comprises an electronic discovery framework communicably coupled with the rules repository, a legal hold framework communicably coupled with the lookup table, and a front-end for visualizing the information.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the electronic discovery framework includes an archive module, a source code module, a business object module, and an e-mail module.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein each framework is associated with a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) exposed for use by a plurality of applications.

16. A computer-readable medium storing program code executable by a computer to:

determine that an unstructured document is associated with a business objected stored at an enterprise resource planning system;

store link information identifying the business object in connection with the unstructured document in a content management system;

identify a litigation matter;

execute an electronic discovery process across a plurality of object types for the identified litigation matter to identify relevant objects using a rules repository, the electronic discovery process being operable to automatically discover relationships among a plurality of the relevant objects;

detect that the unstructured document is a relevant object; and

based on the link information stored in connection with the unstructured document, determine that the business object is also a relevant object.

17. The medium of claim 16, wherein the unstructured document comprises an attachment to an email message and execution of the instructions further cause the processor to:

place a legal hold on at least a first of the relevant objects; and

visualize information for at least a portion of the relevant objects.

18. The medium of claim 17, wherein the link information includes at least one of:

(i) an object identifier, (ii) an object type identifier, and/or (iii) an origin system identifier.

19. A system, comprising:

an enterprise resource planning system storing business objects;

a content management system storing unstructured documents; and

and attachment service to;

determine that an unstructured document is associated with a business objected stored at an enterprise resource planning system, and

store link information identifying the business object in connection with the unstructured document in a content management system.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

a search component to receive a search element associated with a litigation matter, identify a first unstructured document based on the search element, and identify a first business object based on the first unstructured document and associated information generated by the attachment service.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising:

a visualization service to provide search results associated with the litigation matter to a user