Apparatus and method for collecting and displaying information in a workflow system

• US 7,221,377 B1
• Filed: 04/24/2000
• Issued: 05/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Aspect Communications Corporation (Alvaria Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Aspect Communications Corporation (Alvaria Incorporated)
• Inventors: Poon, Stanley Ka-Hung, Okita, Glen Kazumi, Chan, Alex Yiu-Man, Thomas, Binu
• Primary Examiner(s): Tung; Kee M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): CUNNINGHAM, GREGORY F
• Application Number:
  US09/557,264
• Time in Patent Office: 2,584 Days
• Field of Search: 340/7.29, 345/629, 345/630, 345/734, 345/736, 345/763, 345/764, 345/965, 345966-969, 345/633, 37926502-26514, 379/266.04, 379/266.09, 379/221.09, 705/102, 705 1- 45, 707 1- 10, 707100-1041, 707200-206, 709201-253, 715/715, 715/811, 715500-542, 715900-911, 715961-977, 717100-178
• US Class Current: 345/629
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method and apparatus for extensible real-time workflows are described. The present invention allows a user of a transaction processing system, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) tool or an automatic call distribution (ACD), for example, to easily add new event sources without recompiling the core workflow server engine of the transaction processing system. The invention also supports features such as the adding of new services, the exchange of events and parameters with other systems, real-time collection and display of workflow statistical information, the use of a centralized configuration database, incremental loading and unloading of workflows and rules, and exception handling.

Claims

1. A method of displaying information relating to a workflow driven by a computer system comprising:

executing the workflow, the workflow implementing business rules and associated with transactions of a call center;

obtaining data about the workflow the data being obtained by a workflow engine;

querying the workflow engine on an interface exposed by the workflow engine and extracting related data from the obtained data by a data provider;

calculating execution statistics relating to the execution of the workflow on the computer system using the selected data by the data provider;

displaying a workflow diagram on a display screen associated with the computer system, wherein the workflow diagram symbolically depicts how business rules are implemented for a given input and providing the execution statistics to a workflow editor for display of the execution statistics with no direct communication between the workflow engine and the workflow editor; and

displaying the execution statistics on the workflow diagram in real time, wherein the execution statistics are for various steps displayed in the workflow diagram, wherein the execution statistics comprise time elapsed during execution of one of the various steps; and

wherein the execution statistics are selectively displayed by positioning a pointer over the display.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes displaying the execution statistics as one or more tables that overlay each of the steps.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes displaying within the one or more tables as at least one of total execution times for each of the steps and as numbers of executions performed for each of the steps.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes displaying a number of the statistics in at least one of a numbered format and a percentage format.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes presenting a number of the steps in a distinguishing color, wherein the distinguishing color is associated with select ones of the statistics.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes identifying the statistics in response to a profile.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating further includes obtaining metrics to calculate the execution statistics from a database query in response to an identifier associated with the workflow.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sharing a central configuration database by multiple distributed workflow engines.

9. A method of displaying information relating to a workflow driven by a computer system comprising:

obtaining data about the workflow using a workflow engine;

extracting selected data from the obtained data;

calculating execution statistics relating to execution of the workflow on the computer system using the selected data;

displaying a workflow diagram on a display screen associated with the computer system, wherein the workflow diagram symbolically depicts how business rules are implemented for a given input and providing the execution statistics to a workflow editor for display of the execution statistics; and

displaying the execution statistics on the workflow diagram in real time, wherein the execution statistics are for various steps displayed in the workflow diagram.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein displaying the execution statistics further includes displaying the execution statistics within one or more tables that overlay each of the steps and at least one includes total execution times for each of the steps and numbers of executions performed for each of the steps.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein there is no direct communication between the workflow engine and the workflow editor.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein calculating further includes obtaining metrics to calculate the execution statistics from a database query in response to an identifier associated with the workflow.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising sharing a central configuration database by multiple workflow engines.

14. A system for displaying information related to a workflow driven by a computer system comprising:

a workflow engine adapted to obtain data about the workflow and having the interface to permit extraction of selected data;

a computer application module to calculate execution statistics relating to execution of the workflow using the related data;

display screen associated with the computer system which displays a workflow diagram which symbolically depicts how business rules are implemented for a given input;

a workflow editor which edits and displays the execution statistics;

wherein the display screen displays the execution statistics on the workflow diagram in real-time with execution statistics for various steps displayed in the workflow diagram.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein there is no direct communication between the workflow engine and the workflow editor.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the execution statistics comprise time elapsed during execution of the various steps and are selectively displayed by positioning a pointer over the display.

17. The system of claim 14 wherein the application module uses metrics to calculate the execution statistics from a database query in response to an identifier associated with the workflow.