ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING ORIENTED CONTEXT-AWARE ENVIRONMENT

• US 20120110579A1
• Filed: 10/29/2010
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Bullen, Geoffrey Norman
• Granted Patent: US 10,026,058 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) context-aware environment may be provided. Upon receipt of an action request, a context state may be updated. The context state may be analyzed to determine whether the context state is associated with at least one predicted objective. If so, a suggested next action associated with the at least one predicted objective may be provided.

Claims

1. A method for providing a context-aware environment, the method comprising:

receiving an action request;

updating a context state according to the action request;

determining whether the new context state comprises a completed objective;

in response to determining that the context state does not comprise the completed objective, providing a suggested next action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the action request is received from a user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the context state is associated with the user.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the completed objective is associated with the user.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the completed objective is associated with an organization.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a second action request;

determining whether the second action request comprises the suggested next action; and

in response to determining that the second action request comprises the suggested next action, providing a second suggested next action associated with the at least one predicted objective.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

in response to determining that the second request comprises the suggested next action, increasing a probability factor associated with the at least one predicted objective.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

in response to determining that the second request does not comprise the suggested next action;

decreasing a probability factor associated with the at least one predicted action,

updating the context state according to the second action request;

determining whether the context state comprises a second completed objective, and

in response to determining that the context state does not comprise the second completed objective, providing a second suggested next action.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the context state in a prediction database.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the prediction database comprises an aggregation of a plurality of context states, wherein each context state is associated with a user.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising categorizing each of the plurality of context states according to an objective associated with each of the plurality of context states.

12. A computer-readable medium which stores a set of instructions which when executed performs a method for providing a context-aware environment, the method executed by the set of instructions comprising:

receiving a first action request from a user;

identifying a current context associated with the user;

providing a first suggested next action according to a predicted objective associated with the current context to the user;

receiving a second action request from the user;

determining whether the second user action request comprises the suggested next action; and

in response to determining that the second user action request comprises the suggested next action, providing a second suggested next action associated with a predicted objective to the user.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising:

in response to determining that a plurality of predicted objectives are associated with the current context, providing at least a subset of the plurality of predicted objectives to the user;

receiving a selection of one of the plurality of predicted objectives from the user; and

providing the first suggested next action according to the selected one of the plurality of predicted objectives to the user.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of predicted objectives are provided to the user according to a decreasing order of a probability factor associated with each of the plurality of predicted objectives.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the current context is derived from at least one of the following:

a role associated with the user, at least one previous user objective, at least one previous user action request, a location of the user, a time, a date, a category associated with the first action request from the user, a data type associated with the first action request from the user, and a data category associated with previous user action requests.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising:

recording each of a plurality of action requests from the user as a user context;

associating the user context with an objective of the user; and

storing the objective of the user and the user context in a prediction database.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising sharing the prediction database with a plurality of users.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising identifying the predicted objective according to the prediction database.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, further comprising associating a probability with the objective of the user according to the user context.

20. A system for providing a context-aware environment, the system comprising:

a memory storage; and

a processing unit coupled to the memory storage, wherein the processing unit is operative to;

create a plurality of objectives,

gather a context state associated with a user, wherein the context state comprises at least one of the following;

a role associated with the user, at least one previous user objective, at least one previous user action request, a location of the user, a time, a date, a category associated with the first action request from the user, a data type associated with the first action request from the user, and a data category associated with previous user action requests,

provide a suggested action associated with at least one of the plurality of objectives according to the context state,

receive an action request from the user,

execute the requested action according to the context state,

determine whether the action is associated with accomplishing the at least one of the plurality of objectives, wherein being operative to determine whether the context state is associated with accomplishing the at least one predicted objective comprises being operative to compare the context state to a plurality of user context states each associated with the at least one of the plurality of objectives,

in response to determining that the action is associated with accomplishing the at least one of the plurality of objectives, update the context state,

update a probability associated with the suggested action,

determine whether the context state comprises a completed objective of the plurality of objectives, and

in response to determining that the context state does not comprise the completed objective, provide at least one second suggested action.