Intelligent advisor system and method
First Claim
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 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
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.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A system for providing advice to a user of a computer program, comprising:
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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. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method of providing advice to a user of a computer program, comprising:
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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. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method of providing advice to a user of a financial computer program, comprising:
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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.
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Specification