DYNAMIC GENERATION OF GUIDED PAGES

• US 20160321589A1
• Filed: 05/25/2016
• Published: 11/03/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Inventors: Powers, Frederick A., Zanarotti, Stanley R., Clark, James
• Granted Patent: US 10,671,955 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Configuring guided pages in this document may include preparing a columnar-based multi-domain business intelligence data set, from a plurality of sources of data that can be independently formatted, by processing the data from the plurality of sources with a data calculation engine that organizing the columns to align with user specified and/or automatically determined dimensions that are associated with a business and populating the columns with data that relates to each of the user specified dimensions from each of the plurality of sources of data.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing data from a plurality of disparate data sources that are used in a workflow for a particular business activity, the plurality of disparate data sources consisting of internal data sources of the business and external data sources, the accessed data comprising different first and second data domains among a plurality of data domains;

determining a plurality of core dimensions of the accessed data, at least one of the plurality of core dimensions being common to the first and second data domains, the at least one of the plurality of core dimensions identifying a data type within the plurality of the data domains for enabling the workflow for the particular business activity;

generating a data set from the plurality of disparate data sources using a columnar data generation engine that aligns data from at least a portion of each of the plurality of disparate data sources with the common core dimensions to produce a columnar data structure;

generating machine-specific code from a user inquiry, the code comprising a set of logical instructions for accessing the data set based on the content of the inquiry; and

deriving data from the data set with the machine-specific code for a portion of a plurality of guided pages that are presented in a user interface on an interactive electronic display, the plurality of guided pages including predetermined workflow information for the particular business to facilitate direct navigation from the first domain to the second domain of the plurality of data domains, wherein a first guided page of a plurality of guided pages includes;

at least one displayable actionable element representing data from at least the first domain, wherein user selection in the user interface of the actionable element facilitates presentation in the user interface of a follow-on guided page comprising one of;

a second guided page of the first data domain;

a guided page of a plurality of data domains including at least one of the first data domain and the second data domain; and

a guided page of the second data domain that is associated with a core dimension that is common to the first and second data domains for the workflow of the particular business activity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein facilitating presentation of a follow-on guided page comprises producing data for the follow-on guided page from the data set by executing machine-specific code that represents logical instructions for accessing the data set that are determined from the user-selected actionable element.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the logical instructions for accessing the data set that are determined from the user-selected actionable element are further determined from at least one of the common dimension and the first data domain.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein processing the data set to produce data for the follow-on guided page comprises stateless processing of the data set.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a data set comprises executing a plurality of steps selected from a list of steps consisting of:

parsing source data, harmonizing source data formats, normalizing strings of the source data per language of a locale or industry specific jargon, performing binary encoding and packing of number values, preparing labels that act as links for attributes to data entries, and sorting strings.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the machine-specific code is optimized to group query functions into common processor execution threads based on usage of common data sets by different functions.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the machine-specific code is optimized to group common calculations across query functions.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the internal data sources comprise at least two sources selected from the list consisting of flat files, spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL databases, non-standard formatted data, legacy systems, transactional systems, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the external data sources comprise at least two sources selected from third party feeds, market data, end-user data, state data, county data, regional data, demo data, legacy systems, ERP systems, spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL databases, suppliers, distributors, government entities, product information, state laws and regulations, federal laws and regulations, local laws and regulations, customer information, purchase history, news, and industry guidelines.

10. A system comprising:

a plurality of disparate data sources that are used in a workflow for a particular business activity, the plurality of disparate data sources consisting of internal data sources of the business and external data sources, the data comprising at least a first data domain and a second data domain and a plurality of core dimensions, at least one of the plurality of core dimensions being a common core dimension to at least two of the data domains, the at least one of the plurality of core dimensions identifying a data type within the data domains for enabling the workflow for the particular business activity;

a columnar data set generation engine for generating a columnar data structure from the plurality of disparate data sources, wherein the columnar data structure is generated so that at least a portion of the plurality of disparate data sources are aligned with the plurality of core dimensions;

machine-specific code that is derived from a user inquiry, the code comprising a set of logical instructions for accessing the data structure based on the content of the inquiry; and

a plurality of guided pages adapted for being presented in a user interface on an interactive electronic display, the plurality of guided pages including predetermined workflow information for the particular business to facilitate direct navigation from the first domain to the second domain, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of guided pages comprise data that is generated by processing the columnar data structure based on the user inquiry, and further wherein a first guided page of a plurality of guided pages includes;

at least one displayable actionable element representing data from at least the first domain, wherein user selection in the user interface of the actionable element facilitates presentation in the user interface of a follow-on guided page comprising one of;

a second guided page of the first data domain;

a guided page of a plurality of data domains including at least one of the first data domain and the second data domain; and

a guided page of the second data domain that is associated with a core dimension that is common to the first and second data domains for the workflow of the particular business activity.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein a facilitated presentation of a follow-on guided page comprises data for the follow-on guided page that is produced from the data set by machine-specific code that represents logical instructions for accessing the data set that are determined from the user-selected actionable element.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the logical instructions for accessing the data set that are determined from the user-selected actionable element are further determined from at least one of the common dimension and the first data domain.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein data for the follow-on guided page is produced via stateless processing of the data set.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the machine-specific code is optimized to group query functions into common processor execution threads based on usage of common data sets by different functions.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the machine-specific code is optimized to group common calculations across query functions.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the data set facilitates native machine caching of similar data by configuring similar data to be physically proximal in a non-transient computer memory, thereby improving computer performance.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the machine-specific code disposes of all query-specific state information.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the machine-specific code retains in memory a query result table and a corresponding portion of the data set upon completion of executing the machine-specific code.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the internal data sources comprise at least two sources selected from the list consisting of flat files, spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL databases, non-standard formatted data, legacy systems, transactional systems, and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

20. The system of claim 11, wherein the external data sources comprise at least two sources selected from third party feeds, market data, end-user data, state data, county data, regional data, demo data, legacy systems, ERP systems, spreadsheets, data warehouses, SQL databases, suppliers, distributors, government entities, product information, state laws and regulations, federal laws and regulations, local laws and regulations, customer information, purchase history, news, and industry guidelines.