MEASURE FACTORY

• US 20180121853A1
• Filed: 12/28/2017
• Published: 05/03/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Inventors: Clark, James, Powers, Frederick A., Jablonski, Daniel J., Gorman, Matthew J., Dealy, George M.
• Application Number:
  US15/856,448
• Publication Number:
  US 20180121853A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A measure factory for generating analytic measures includes data sets representing business activities arranged as columnar arrays with each column being associated with a distinct source rule that applies to the column when it is used as a data source. The measure factory includes factory rules that govern which operations on available data sources may be executed under what conditions in the measure factory, such as by taking into account the source rules and other applicable factory rules. A factory rule execution hierarchy governs the execution of ready factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules before executing ready factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules. A script generation facility generates a script to process the plurality of factory rules according to the factory rule execution hierarchy.

Claims

1. A system for managing a business operation through application of insight into the operation, comprising:

a measure factory for generating analytical measures computed on operational business data that characterize the operation independently of the location of data, the measure factory comprising;

a plurality of factory rules that govern which operations are executed on available operational business data based on one or more conditions in the measure factory, the executing of operations taking into account source rules that are associated with individual columns of a columnar array of the data and at least one of the plurality of factory rules;

a factory rule execution hierarchy that specifies executing those factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules before executing factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules; and

a factory rules processing facility adapted to apply a portion of the factory rules to available data in a portion of the plurality of data sets based on the factory rule execution hierarchy;

wherein at least one reference to data in an analytical measure maps to at least one of a type of the operational business data and a rule governing the operational business data that characterize the operation.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein available operational business data comprises data in a column of the columnar array that can be processed with a factory rule independent of the state of completion of any other factory rule.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein executing the operations is independent of a source of the data that characterizes the business operation.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein executing the operations is independent of a presence of data that characterizes the operations being executed.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rules processing facility comprises a processor that applies machine-specific code derived from the factory rules to the plurality of data sets by executing the machine-specific code.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rules processing facility uses execution threads to separately process groups of common calculations grouped across ready rules and groups of rule calculations that process common portions of at least one of the plurality of data sets.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rule execution hierarchy indicates an order of factory rule execution.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the order of factory rule execution requires ready calc, flag, and lookup rules to execute before ready link rules which execute before ready plugin rules.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rules are processed by the factory rules processing facility based on a data graph derived from references to the plurality of data sets in the factory rules.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the data graph is generated as a step in a process to process the factory rules.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rule processing facility selects at least one of a plurality of factory rules based on an effectivity date associated with each of the plurality of factory rules and a target date.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the target date is the date on which the factory rules are processed.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the target date is an effectivity date based on the factory rule execution hierarchy.

14. A method for generating, with a measures factory, analytical measures of operational business data that characterize the business operation independently of the location of data, the operational business data configured in a columnar array of data, the method comprising:

determining a plurality of factory rule conditions in the measure factory;

executing at least one source rule that is associated with data in an individual column of the columnar array of data;

accessing a factory rule execution hierarchy that ensures factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules are executed before factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules;

determining available data sources of the operational business data based factory rule execution dependency and execution status on data in individual columns in the columnar array;

applying, with a processor, a plurality of factory rules on available data based on at least one of the plurality of determined factory rule conditions and the factory rule execution hierarchy; and

mapping references to data in the analytical measures to at least one of the type of operational business data and a rule that governs the operational business data that characterize the operation.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the analytical measures of data are measures of operating the business operation.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein applying the factory rules is independent of a source of the data that characterizes the business operation.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein applying the factory rules is independent of a presence of data that characterizes the operations being executed.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising applying, with a processor, machine-specific code derived from the factory rules to the plurality of data sets by executing the machine-specific code.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising using execution threads to separately process grouped common calculations grouped across factory rules and grouped rule calculations that process common portions of at least one of the plurality of data sets.