Master data maintenance tool for single source data

• US 6,678,695 B1
• Filed: 06/29/2001
• Issued: 01/13/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: Trilogy Development Group Incorporated (ESW Capital, LLC)
• Inventors: Bonneau, Scott, Weinrib, Jeremy
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane D.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu M
• Application Number:
  US09/895,442
• Time in Patent Office: 928 Days
• Field of Search: 707/9, 707/10, 707/102, 707/104.1, 345/733, 705/1, 705/7, 705/26, 705/27, 705/37
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A maintenance tool is used to import and centrally maintain the data and metadata representing catalog items in a catalog database. The maintenance tool is further used to create and maintain constraint-based rule sets defining custom catalogs that are subsets of the items in the database, constraint-based pricing profiles that define custom pricing schemes to be applied by the items in the database, and a primary browse hierarchy that represents the items in the database. The maintenance tool is used to create and maintain accounts for organizations and to assign to each organization a custom catalog and a pricing profile. The maintenance tool republishes the data on a periodic basis to update the custom catalogs and pricing profiles based on additions and modifications to the database, the rule sets, and the pricing profiles, and to generate new custom browse hierarchies from the primary hierarchy. The maintenance tool may be used to generate physical manifestations of the custom catalogs, pricing information and browse hierarchies for exportation to organizations not directly coupled to the catalog database through a network.

Claims

1. A method of maintaining data in a database representative of a plurality of catalog items, said method comprising:

publishing the data as a plurality of custom catalogs each comprising a unique subset of the catalog items in the database, each of the custom catalogs assigned to one or more organizations;

modifying the data in the database without affecting the published data;

republishing the data to incorporate the modifications made to the data in the database into the custom catalogs; and

establishing a plurality of rule sets, each of the rule sets specifying constraints defining a scope of the items contained in one of the custom catalogs, wherein the constraints identify items in the database based on at least attributes and attribute values of the items.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising importing data into the database from one or more external sources and storing the data in a format that facilitates maintenance of the data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein:

each item is represented by the data as having an item identifier, a product type, one or more attributes and one or more values for each of the attributes; and

the data representing each item is organized in the database as having an entry for each of the one or more attribute values.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein:

said publishing further comprises converting the data into a read only copy of the data into a format that facilitates searching; and

wherein the format that facilitates searching comprises organizing the items into groups by product type, each of the groups having one entry per item identifier.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein said publishing further comprises converting the data from the format facilitating maintenance of the data to a format that facilitates searching the data.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein said converting the data comprises creating a copy of the converted data.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein said publishing and said republishing further comprise locking the database to inhibit said modifying until said publishing and said republishing are completed.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein said modifying and said republishing are performed routinely.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the rule sets are specific to one of the organizations.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein said publishing and said republishing comprise searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the rule sets that meet the constraints specified by each rule set.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the rule sets is associated with a unique identifier, and each wherein each of the one or more organizations is assigned to a custom catalog by the rule set identifier of the rule set defining the scope of items in the custom catalog.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

establishing a primary hierarchy representative of the catalog items in the database using attributes and attribute values of the items; and

generating a browse hierarchy for each of the custom catalogs using attributes and attribute values of the items, wherein each browse hierarchy is associated with one or more customer catalogs, is based on the primary hierarchy, and is representative of the subset of items included within the custom catalog associated with the browse hierarchy.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising establishing pricing profiles for one or more of the organizations, each of the pricing profiles defining none, one or more adjustments to base prices ascribed to each of the catalog items in the database.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein each of the pricing profiles specifies one or more constraint-based rules by which to identify the scope of items in the database for which each of the none, one or more pricing adjustments is to be applied.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein said publishing and said republishing further comprise searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the specified adjustments of each of the pricing profiles.

16. An apparatus for maintaining data in a database representative of a plurality of catalog items, said apparatus comprising:

means for publishing the data as a plurality of custom catalogs each comprising a unique subset of the catalog items in the database, each of the custom catalogs assigned to one or more organizations;

means for modifying the data in the database without affecting the published data;

means for republishing the data to incorporate the modifications made to the data in the database into the custom catalogs; and

means for establishing a plurality of rule sets, each of the rule sets specifying constraints defining a scope of the items contained in one of the custom catalogs, wherein the constraints identify items in the database based on at least attributes and attribute values of the items.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising means for importing data into the database from one or more external sources and storing the data in a format that facilitates maintenance of the data.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein:

each item is represented by the data as having an item identifier, a product type, one or more attributes and one or more values for each of the attributes; and

the data representing each item is organized in the database as having an entry for each of the one or more attribute values.

19. The apparatus of claim 18 wherein:

said means for publishing further comprises means for converting the data into a read only copy of the data into a format that facilitates searching; and

wherein the format that facilitates searching comprises organizing the items into groups by product type, each of the groups having one entry per item identifier.

20. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein said means for publishing further comprises means for converting the data from the format facilitating maintenance of the data to a format that facilitates searching the data.

21. The apparatus of claim 20 wherein said means for converting the data comprises means for creating a copy of the converted data.

22. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein said means for publishing and said means for republishing further comprise means for locking the database to inhibit said means for modifying until said means for publishing and said means for republishing have published and republished the data respectively.

23. The apparatus of claim 22 wherein said means for modifying and said means for republishing are performed routinely.

24. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein each of the rule sets are specific to one of the organizations.

25. The apparatus of claim 24 wherein said means for publishing and said means for republishing comprise means for searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the rule sets that meet the constraints specified by each rule set.

26. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein each of the rule sets is associated with a unique identifier, and each wherein each of the one or more organizations is assigned to a custom catalog by the rule set identifier of the rule set defining the scope of items in the custom catalog.

27. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising:

means for establishing a primary hierarchy representative of the catalog items in the database; and

means for generating a browse hierarchy for each of the custom catalogs, wherein each browse hierarchy is associated with one or more customer catalogs, is based on the primary hierarchy, and is representative of the subset of items included within the custom catalog associated with the browse hierarchy.

28. The apparatus of claim 16 further comprising means for establishing pricing profiles for one or more of the organizations, each of the pricing profiles defining none, one or more adjustments to base prices ascribed to each of the catalog items in the database.

29. The apparatus of claim 28 wherein each of the pricing profiles specifies one or more constraint-based rules by which to identify the scope of items in the database for which each of the none, one or more pricing adjustments is to be applied.

30. The apparatus of claim 29 wherein said means for publishing and said means for republishing further comprise means for searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the specified adjustments of each of the pricing profiles.

31. A computer program product for maintaining data in a database representative of a plurality of catalog items, said computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium and program instructions stored on said storage medium for;

publishing the data as a plurality of custom catalogs each comprising a unique subset of the catalog items in the database, each of the custom catalogs assigned to one or more organizations;

modifying the data in the database without affecting the published data;

republishing the data to incorporate the modifications made to the data in the database into the custom catalogs; and

establishing a plurality of rule sets, each of the rule sets specifying constraints defining a scope of the items contained in one of the custom catalogs, wherein the constraints identify items in the database based on at least attributes and attribute values of the items.

32. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein said computer program instructions are further for importing data into the database from one or more external sources and storing the data in a format that facilitates maintenance of the data.

33. The computer program of claim 32 wherein:

each item is represented by the data as having an item identifier, a product type, one or more attributes and one or more values for each of the attributes; and

the data representing each item is organized in the database as having an entry for each of the one or more attribute values.

34. The computer program product of claim 33 wherein:

said computer program instructions are further for converting the data into a read only copy of the data into a format that facilitates searching; and

wherein the format that facilitates searching comprises organizing the items into groups by product type, each of the groups having one entry per item identifier.

35. The computer program product of claim 32 wherein said computer program instructions are further for converting the data from the format facilitating maintenance of the data to a format that facilitates searching the data.

36. The computer program product of claim 35 wherein computer program instructions are further for creating a copy of the converted data.

37. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein computer program instructions are further for locking the data base to inhibit said modifying until said publishing and said republishing are completed.

38. The computer program product of claim 37 wherein said modifying and said republishing are performed routinely.

39. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein each of the rule sets are specific to one of the organizations.

40. The computer program product of claim 39 wherein said computer program instructions are further for searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the rule sets that meet the constraints specified by each rule set.

41. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein each of the rule sets is associated with a unique identifier, and each wherein each of the one or more organizations is assigned to a custom catalog by the rule set identifier of the rule set defining the scope of items in the custom catalog.

42. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein computer program instructions are further for:

establishing a primary hierarchy representative of the catalog items in the database; and

generating a browse hierarchy for each of the custom catalogs, wherein each browse hierarchy is associated with one or more customer catalogs, is based on the primary hierarchy, and is representative of the subset of items included within the custom catalog associated with the browse hierarchy.

43. The computer program product of claim 31 wherein said computer program instructions are further for establishing pricing profiles for one or more of the organizations, each of the pricing profiles defining none, one or more adjustments to base prices ascribed to each of the catalog items in the database.

44. The computer program product of claim 43 wherein each of the pricing profiles specifies one or more constraint-based rules by which to identify the scope of items in the database for which each of the none, one or more pricing adjustments is to be applied.

45. The computer program product of claim 44 wherein said computer program instructions are further for searching the database and returning a set of item identifiers for each of the specified adjustments of each of the pricing profiles.