QUERY RESPONSE USING MAPPING TO PARAMETERIZED REPORT

• US 20170249356A1
• Filed: 02/25/2016
• Published: 08/31/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/25/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Hays, Christopher A., Baumgartner, Patrick J., Meyers, Aaron, Wu, Jingxiao
• Granted Patent: US 10,318,528 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2272 Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/243 Natural language query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24522 Translation of natural language queries to structured queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results

Abstract

A mechanism for responding to a natural language query. Linguistic parsing is applied to the natural language query to generate a set of language element(s). One or more of those language elements are mapped to parameters and/or data elements of a parameterized report, which is selected for use in responding to the query based on the mapping. The selection of the parameterized report and/or mapping to the parameterized report may use the schema of the underlying dataset that the parameterized report uses in order to perform more precise mapping and selection. The selected parameterized report is then used to construct structured data that is responsive to the query. For instance, the structured data could include visualizations. In this manner, already existing parameterized reports that were previously used to generated structured data in the form of reports, may again be used in order to respond to natural language queries.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least a particular dataset having a data elements;

a plurality of parameterized reports that are constructs structured data based on at least the particular dataset, the structure data for each of the plurality of parameterized reports having a corresponding set of data elements and/or parameters;

a natural language processing engine configured to apply a linguistic parsing to natural language queries to generate corresponding sets of one or more language elements;

a mapping component that maps at least some of the sets of one or more language elements to at least some of the plurality of data elements and/or parameters of one or more of the particular parameterized report;

a report selection component that determines, for each of at least some natural language queries and based on the mapping of the mapping component, which one or more of the plurality of parameterized reports to use to respond to the natural language query; and

a structuring component that uses at least a parameterized report selected by the report selection component to generate structured data to respond to the natural language query.

2. The system in accordance with claim 1, the report selection component also using a schema of the particular dataset to select the one or more parameterized reports to use to respond to the natural language query for at least some of the natural language queries.

3. The system in accordance with claim 1, the mapping component also using a schema of the particular data set to perform the mapping for at least some of the natural language queries.

4. The system in accordance with claim 1, the mapping component also using one or more relationships between language elements to perform the mapping for at least some of the natural language queries.

5. The system in accordance with claim 1, the structuring component including a report modification component that generates a derived report based on the selected parameterized report, the structuring component using the derived report to generate the structured data to respond to the natural language query.

6. The system in accordance with claim 5, the derived report having one or more parameters and/or data elements removed from the corresponding selected parameterized report.

7. The system in accordance with claim 6, the one or more parameters and/or data elements being removed including one or more particular parameters being removed, the derived report having one or more data elements added to the corresponding selected parameterized report to replace the one or more particular parameters that had been removed from the corresponding selected parameterized report.

8. The system in accordance with claim 5, the derived report having one or more parameters and/or data elements added to the corresponding selected parameterized report.

9. The system in accordance with claim 5, the derived report replacing one or more parameters and/or data elements of the corresponding selected parameterized report.

10. The system in accordance with claim 5, the corresponding selected parameterized report being a visualized report, the derived report also being a visualized report that has a different visualization than the corresponding selected parameterized report.

11. The system in accordance with claim 1, at least some of the plurality of parameterized reports being visualizations.

12. The system in accordance with claim 1, the mapping performed by the mapping component including mapping to parameters based on described parameters of at least some of the plurality of parameterized reports.

13. A method for responding to a natural language query, the method comprising:

an act of accessing a natural language query;

an act of apply computerized linguistic parsing to the natural language query to generate a set of one or more language elements;

an act of mapping at least some of the one or more natural language elements to at least one of a plurality of parameters and/or data elements of a parameterized report, the parameterized report being structure to use a dataset to construct structured data having the plurality of parameters and/or data elements;

based on the mapping, an act of selecting the parameterized report for use in responding to the natural language query; and

an act using the parameterized report to generated structured data that responds to the natural language query.

14. The method in accordance with claim 13, the act of selecting using a schema of the particular dataset to select the parameterized report to use to respond to the natural language query.

15. The method in accordance with claim 13, the act of mapping also using a schema of the particular dataset to perform the mapping.

16. The method in accordance with claim 13, the act of mapping also using one or more relationships between language elements to perform the mapping.

17. The method in accordance with claim 13, the act of using comprising an act of creating a derived report based on the selected parameterized report, and an act of using the derived report to generate the structured data to respond to the natural language query.

18. The method in accordance with claim 17, the selected parameterized report being a visualization, the derived parameterized reporting being a different visualization.

19. The method in accordance with claim 13, the selected parameterized report being a visualization.

20. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable storage media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing system, the computing system is configured to instantiate and/or operate the following:

a natural language processing engine configured to apply a linguistic parsing to natural language queries to generate corresponding sets of one or more language elements;

a mapping component that maps at least some of the sets of one or more language elements to at least some of a plurality of parameters and/or data elements of one or more of a plurality of parameterized report, each parameterized report being structured to constructed structured data based on at least a particular dataset;

a report selection component that determines, for each of at least some natural language queries and based on the mapping of the mapping component, which one or more of the plurality of parameterized reports to use to respond to the natural language query; and

a structuring component that uses at least a parameterized report selected by the report selection component to generate structured data to respond to the natural language query.