Intelligent advisor system and method

• US 6,473,745 B2
• Filed: 07/31/1998
• Issued: 10/29/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Miksovsky, Jan T., Brownell, Christopher K., Cape, Robert A., Doerr, Eric W., Cole, Stephen N.
• Primary Examiner(s): STARKS, WILBERT L
• Application Number:
  US09/127,649
• Publication Number:
  US 20020002546A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,551 Days
• Field of Search: 706/45, 706/59, 706/11, 703/2, 705/20
• US Class Current: 706/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

A method and system for providing intelligent advice to a user. An architecture is described wherein trigger points are placed in an application program, and an advice engine invoked by the application when a trigger point is reached. The advice engine obtains information such as a user'"'"'s application data, and uses the data to test it against a number of conditions for that trigger point. For each condition met, the advice engine retrieves an advice template for providing advice corresponding to the condition, and based on information in the template versus display state information, decides whether to queue the advice for subsequent display to the user. A display process displays the queued advice according to a priority setting maintained in the template.

Claims

1. A system for providing advice to a user of a computer program, comprising:

an advice queue;

an advice engine separate from the computer program and configured to communicate with the computer program;

a trigger point inserted into the computer program at a point when a user running the computer program may benefit from advice, the trigger point configured to invoke the advice engine when reached;

when invoked, the advice engine further configured to;

1) access at least one test condition based on information associated with the trigger point;

2) access program state data;

3) evaluate the program state data against the at least one test condition to produce a result; and

4) determine whether advice is warranted based on the result, and if so, to locate an advice template corresponding to the state data and the at least one test condition, evaluate queuing data associated with the advice template, and output information transformed from the program state data to the advice queue if the queuing data indicates that the information is appropriate for queuing; and

a display process that accesses at least one display setting and outputs the information in the advice queue into visible advice displayed to a user based on the at least one display setting.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the program state information includes user application data.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the program state information includes data passed from the application to the advice engine.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the program state information is stored in a database.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the test condition includes a formula.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the advice engine and the template are separable components.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the queuing data in the template includes a limit on the number of times the advice may be queued.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the queuing data in the template includes information indicative of a time when advice that is limited from being queued may again be queued.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the queuing data in the template includes a limit on how often the advice may be queued.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the queuing data in the template includes information indicating that at least some existing advice in the queue is to be replaced with the advice.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the template includes only static information.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one display setting includes information indicative of a display priority, and wherein the display process displays the advice relative to other advice according to the display priority.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the data in the template includes a link to other data maintained at a source external to the computer program and the advice engine.

14. A method of providing advice to a user of a computer program, comprising:

inserting a trigger point in the computer program at a point at which advice may be beneficial to the user;

receiving input, the input causing the trigger point to be reached in the program;

invoking an advice engine in response to achieving the trigger point;

obtaining program state information at the advice engine;

comparing the program state information against at least one test condition;

selecting advice data as selected advice data for possible output for each test condition satisfied;

accessing queuing data for the selected advice data;

transforming at least some of the program state information and selected advice data into queued advice data based on the queuing data; and

outputting the queued advice based on at least one display setting associated with the queued advice.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein invoking an advice engine includes passing information from the program to the advice engine.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein obtaining state information at the advice engine includes accessing a storage to retrieve user data therefrom.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein comparing the information against at least one test condition includes evaluating the user data to compute the result of a formula.

18. The method of claim 14 wherein the display setting comprises a display priority associated with the queued advice.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein outputting the queued advice further comprises, displaying the queued advice according to the priority.

20. The method of claim 14 further comprising, storing a date with each piece of queued advice.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising, displaying the queued advice according to the date.

22. The method of claim 14 further comprising, storing a date with the queued advice, and dequeuing the advice based on the date stored therewith.

23. The method of claim 14 wherein queuing the advice further comprises, locating a corresponding piece of advice, and replacing the corresponding piece of advice with a new piece of advice.

24. The method of claim 14 wherein the advice is in a template that corresponds to the condition.

25. The method of claim 14 wherein the queuing data includes a limit value limiting the number of times the advice may be queued, and further comprising, comparing the queuing data against queue state information, and queuing the advice if the queue state information indicates that the advice has not been queued a maximum number of times with respect to the limit value.

26. The method of claim 14 wherein the queuing data includes remission information indicative of a time when advice that is limited from being queued may again be queued, and further comprising, comparing the remission information with a current time, and adjusting queuing state information if the comparing indicates that advice may again be queued.

27. The method of claim 14 wherein the queuing data includes a frequency value limiting how often the advice may be queued, and further comprising, comparing the frequency value against queue state information, and queuing the advice if the queue state information indicates that the advice has not been queued too recently.

28. The method of claim 14, wherein selecting advice for possible output comprises retrieving queue information regarding the test condition and deciding whether to queue advice in a storage based on an evaluation of queue state information against the queue information.

29. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method of claim 14.

30. A method of providing advice to a user of a financial computer program, comprising:

maintaining a trigger point in the financial computer program at which financial advice may be beneficial to the user;

receiving financial data, the financial data causing the trigger point to be reached in the financial computer program;

invoking an advice engine in response to achieving the point;

obtaining user application program data at the advice engine;

comparing the user application program data against at least one test condition;

for each test condition satisfied, retrieving queue information regarding the test condition and deciding whether to queue financial advice in a storage based on an evaluation of queue state information against the queue information;

transforming at least some application program data into queued financial advice; and

processing the queued financial advice in accordance with queue processing rules to provide a tangible representation of the advice to the user.