System and method for automating manual transactions between disjoint systems

• US 7,735,017 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2005
• Issued: 06/08/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cunningham, Bruce R., Rigoni, Jamie P., Martin, James A. Jr., Hicks, Scott D., Rauch, Diane C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu; Kieu
• Assistant Examiner(s): Pan; Yongjia
• Application Number:
  US11/062,366
• Publication Number:
  US 20060190835A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,932 Days
• Field of Search: 715/770
• US Class Current: 715/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting

Abstract

A system, method and program product for copying data between disjoint data processing applications. A system is disclosed that includes: a source application having a system for selecting a data record and a triggering agent that extracts relevant data from the selected data record, launches a dialog box and displays the extracted relevant data in the dialog box; and a data transfer system having a keystroke simulator for copying and pasting data from the dialog box to an interface window in a target application based on a set of data transfer rules.

Claims

1. A program product stored on a computer storage medium for copying data between disjoint applications, comprising:

program code configured to allow a user to select a data record from a source application;

program code configured to extract relevant data from the selected data record, launch a dialog box and display the extracted relevant data in the dialog box, wherein relevant data includes any portion of the data record required by a target application; and

program code configured for copying and pasting data from the dialog box to an interface window in the target application based on a set of data transfer rules,

wherein the source application and the target application are disjoint from one another,

wherein the set of data transfer rules include rules dictating at least one of a location in which the data is pasted, an order in which the data is pasted, and an arrangement of the data, and

wherein a ticket number is generated by the target application and associated with the relevant data, and the ticket number is used in a subsequent window of the target application in order to complete the copying data between disjoint applications.

2. The program product of claim 1, wherein the dialog box includes a field for temporarily storing target data generated by the target application.

3. The program product of claim 1, wherein the selected data record comprises time and billing data.

4. The program product of claim 1, wherein the data transfer rules provide a mapping of the data from the dialog box to the interface window in the target application.

11. The program product of claim 1, wherein the ticket number is displayed in the dialog box.

14. The program product of claim 1, wherein the copying and pasting steps further comprise utilizing a keystroke simulator to perform a copy and paste operation of the extracted relevant data from the dialog box into the target application based on the set of data transfer rules.

5. A method of copying data between disjoint applications, comprising:

selecting a data record in a source application;

extracting data from the data record, wherein the data extracted includes any portion of the data record that is required by a target application;

launching a dialog box;

displaying the extracted data in the dialog box;

displaying a target application window of the target application; and

copying and pasting the extracted data into the target application window in accordance with a set of data transfer rules,

wherein the source application and the target application are disjoint from one another,

wherein the set of data transfer rules include rules dictating at least one of a location in which the data is pasted, an order in which the data is pasted, and an arrangement of the data, and

wherein a ticket number is generated by the target application and associated with the relevant data, and the ticket number is used in a subsequent window of the target application in order to complete the copying data between disjoint applications.

6. The method of claim 5, comprising the further steps of:

generating target data within the target application;

copying and pasting the target data to the dialog box;

displaying the target data in an imported target data field in the dialog box;

navigating to a subsequent window in the target application; and

copying and pasting the target data from the dialog box into the subsequent window.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the extracted data record comprises time and billing data.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the data transfer rules provide a mapping of the data from the dialog box to the target application interface window.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the copying and pasting steps further comprise utilizing a keystroke simulator to perform a copy and paste operation of the extracted relevant data from the dialog box into the target application based on the set of data transfer rules.

12. The method of claim 5, wherein the ticket number is displayed in the dialog box.

10. A method for deploying an application for copying data between disjoint data processing applications, comprising:

providing a computer infrastructure being operable to;

select a data record in a source application;

initiate a triggering agent to extract relevant data from the selected data record,

wherein relevant data includes any portion of the data record that is required by a target application;

launch a dialog box and display the extracted relevant data in the dialog box; and

copy and paste data from the dialog box to an interface window in the target application based on a set of data transfer rules,

wherein the source application and the target application are disjoint from one another,

wherein the set of data transfer rules include rules dictating at least one of a location in which the data is pasted, an order in which the data is pasted, and an arrangement of the data, and

wherein a ticket number is generated by the target application and associated with the relevant data, and the ticket number is used in a subsequent window of the target application in order to complete the copying data between disjoint applications.

13. The method of deploying of claim 10, wherein the ticket number is displayed in the dialog box.

15. The method of deploying of claim 10, wherein the copying and pasting steps further comprise utilizing a keystroke simulator to perform a copy and paste operation of the extracted relevant data from the dialog box into the target application based on the set of data transfer rules.