SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DELIVERING RESULTS OF A SEARCH QUERY IN AN INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• US 20120036109A1
• Filed: 10/21/2011
• Published: 02/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Angle, Thomas, BLAZEJEWSKI, Edward
• Granted Patent: US 8,577,847 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/667
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

A system and method for managing data repositories may include providing techniques for end users to access and manipulate reports stored in the repositories. Text-based, image-based, or other types of reports may be stored in online and offline repositories, and in response to a search request, reports stored in the online and offline repositories may be retrieved. End users may export report data from text-based and image-based formats by converting the data into a spreadsheet format using various customization techniques. Thus, end users may edit, modify, analyze, or otherwise manipulate information in online and offline reports, while maintaining integrity of the information in the repositories.

Claims

1. A method for delivering search query results in an information management system that manages data associated with reports stored offline, comprising:

storing multiple archived or compressed reports in a long-term backup system;

searching, by a processor, the multiple archived or compressed reports stored in the long-term backup system to identify one or more reports among the multiple archived or compressed reports that match criteria provided in a search query;

bringing one or more offline data repositories that store the one or more identified reports in the long-term backup system online, wherein bringing the one or more offline data repositories online includes unarchiving or decompressing the one or more reports to make data associated with the one or more reports available;

exporting, by the processor, the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports in accordance with one or more export options provided in a request to view the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports; and

delivering, by the processor, the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports to a spreadsheet application, wherein manipulating the data delivered to the spreadsheet application does not modify the one or more reports stored in the one or more offline data repositories associated with the long-term backup system.

2. The method recited in claim 1, wherein exporting the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports includes:

identifying, by the processor, criteria associated with the one or more export options that indicate one or more delimiter characters to organize the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports; and

treating multiple consecutive occurrences associated with the delimiter characters as one occurrence to eliminate additional delimiter characters accidentally included in the data to export from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports.

3. The method recited in claim 1, wherein bringing the one or more offline data repositories online further includes:

displaying a proceed message that displays a prompt to confirm whether to recall the one or more archived or decompressed reports to make the data associated therewith available, wherein the proceed message further displays an availability associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports and an expected time to recall the one or more archived or decompressed reports from the one or more offline data repositories; and

displaying a confirmation message in response to receiving a confirmation to the prompt displayed in the proceed message, wherein the confirmation message displays an indication that a recall request associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports has been submitted to the long-term backup system, an expected time until the data associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports will be available, and an elapsed time since the recall request was submitted to the long-term backup system.

4. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

storing multiple immediately available reports in one or more online data repositories;

searching, by the processor, the multiple immediately available reports stored in the one or more online data repositories to identify one or more reports among the multiple immediately available reports that match the criteria provided in the search query;

exporting, by the processor, data associated with the one or more immediately available reports in accordance with the one or more export options; and

delivering the data exported from the one or more immediately available reports to the spreadsheet application, wherein manipulating the exported data associated with the one or more immediately available reports via the spreadsheet application does not modify the one or more reports stored in the one or more online data repositories.

5. The method recited in claim 4, wherein the processor searches the multiple archived or compressed reports stored in the one or more offline data repositories associated with the long-term backup system in response to the criteria provided in the search query selecting a first option to search the one or more offline data repositories or a second option to search the one or more online data repositories and the one or more offline data repositories.

6. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the processor searches the multiple archived or compressed reports stored in the long-term backup system in response to the criteria provided in the search query including one or more predefined mandatory fields.

7. The method recited in claim 1, further comprising:

securing access to the multiple archived or compressed reports in the long-term backup system, wherein the processor delivers the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports to the spreadsheet application in response to a user that submitted the search query having one or more permissions that permit the secured access; and

tracking activity that relates to manipulation or interaction associated with the data delivered to the spreadsheet application.

8. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the processor uses one or more threads in a scalable dynamic thread pool to bring the one or more offline data repositories online, recall the one or more archived or compressed reports from the long-term backup system, and make the data associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports available.

9. The method recited in claim 1, wherein exporting the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports includes the processor converting one or more images associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports into text using optical character recognition.

10. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more export options provided in the request to view the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports include criteria to indicate one or more pages, delimiter characters, column offset values, data types, inclusion filters, or exclusion filters to organize the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports.

11. A system for delivering search query results in an information management system that manages data associated with reports stored offline, comprising:

a long-term backup system configured to store archived or compressed reports; and

one or more processors configured to;

search the archived or compressed reports stored in the long-term backup system to identify one or more reports among the archived or compressed reports that match criteria provided in a search query;

bring one or more offline data repositories that store the one or more identified reports in the long-term backup system online, wherein the one or more processors are configured to unarchive or decompress the one or more reports to bring the one or more offline data repositories online and make data associated with the one or more identified reports available;

export the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports in accordance with one or more export options provided in a request to view the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports; and

deliver the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports to a spreadsheet application, wherein manipulating the data delivered to the spreadsheet application does not modify the one or more reports stored in the one or more offline data repositories associated with the long-term backup system.

12. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

identify criteria associated with the one or more export options that indicate one or more delimiter characters to organize the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports; and

treat multiple consecutive occurrences associated with the delimiter characters as one occurrence to export the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports and eliminate additional delimiter characters accidentally included in the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports.

13. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

display a proceed message to confirm whether to bring the one or more offline data repositories online, wherein the proceed message displays a prompt to confirm whether to recall the one or more archived or decompressed reports to make the data associated therewith available, an availability associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports, and an expected time to recall the one or more archived or decompressed reports from the one or more offline data repositories; and

display a confirmation message in response to a confirmation to the prompt displayed in the proceed message, wherein the confirmation message displays an indication that a recall request associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports has been submitted to the long-term backup system, an expected time until the data associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports will be available, and an elapsed time since the recall request was submitted to the long-term backup system.

14. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

store multiple immediately available reports in one or more online data repositories;

search the multiple immediately available reports stored in the one or more online data repositories to identify one or more reports among the multiple immediately available reports that match the criteria provided in the search query;

export data associated with the one or more immediately available reports in accordance with the one or more export options; and

deliver the data exported from the one or more immediately available reports to the spreadsheet application, wherein manipulating the exported data associated with the one or more immediately available reports via the spreadsheet application does not modify the one or more reports stored in the one or more online data repositories.

15. The system recited in claim 14, wherein the one or more processors are configured to search the multiple archived or compressed reports in the long-term backup system in response to the criteria provided in the search query selecting a first option to search the one or more offline data repositories or a second option to search the one or more online data repositories and the one or more offline data repositories.

16. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are configured to search the multiple archived or compressed reports in the long-term backup system in response to the criteria provided in the search query including one or more predefined mandatory fields.

17. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are configured further to:

secure access to the multiple archived or compressed reports in the long-term backup system and deliver the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports to the spreadsheet application in response to a user that submitted the search query having one or more permissions that permit the secured access; and

track activity that relates to manipulation or interaction associated with the data delivered to the spreadsheet application.

18. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to use one or more threads in a scalable dynamic thread pool to bring the one or more offline data repositories online, recall the one or more archived or compressed reports from the long-term backup system, and make the data associated with the one or more archived or compressed reports available.

19. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to convert one or more images associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports into text using optical character recognition to export the data associated with the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports.

20. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more export options provided in the request to view the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports include criteria to indicate one or more pages, delimiter characters, column offset values, data types, inclusion filters, or exclusion filters to organize the data exported from the one or more unarchived or decompressed reports.