Coordination and tracking of workflows

• US 7,849,053 B2
• Filed: 12/29/2005
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Piersol, Kurt W., Wolff, Gregory J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam; Hosain T
• Assistant Examiner(s): OBERLY, VAN HONG
• Application Number:
  US11/322,435
• Publication Number:
  US 20070156632A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,804 Days
• Field of Search: 707/608, 707/999.006, 705/7, 705/8
• US Class Current: 707/608
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method and an apparatus for coordinating and/or tracking workflows are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises performing a workflow having a series of two or more processing operations and, for each of the two or more processing operations, calculating an identifier and adding at least one metadata entry corresponding to said each of the two or more processing operations to a set of metadata entries corresponding to a digital object.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

inserting checkpoint code into each of one or more components that perform a legacy workflow including a series of processing operations related to a legacy workflow document, wherein, for each processing operation of the series of processing operations, the checkpoint code configured to;

analyze data content that is processed by the components at the processing operation;

calculate an identifier of the legacy workflow document based on the analyzed content; and

add at least one metadata entry corresponding to a result of performing the processing operation to one or more other metadata entries in a document log associated with the legacy workflow document, wherein the document log is stored separately from the one or more components and the legacy workflow document;

analyzing the metadata entries of the document log in order to identify one or more patterns found in words in the metadata entries of the document log;

detecting the legacy workflow based on the identified patterns found in the words of the document log; and

performing one or more operations related to the document in response to detecting the workflow.

2. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the checkpoint code configured to calculate the identifier includes calculating the identifier based on data being input into said each processing operation.

3. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the checkpoint code configured to calculate the identifier includes calculating the identifier based on data being output from said each processing operation.

4. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising:

aggregating entries from two separate processing units and assigning sequence numbers to those entries.

5. The method defined in claim 4 wherein the entries are aggregated using the identifiers.

6. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising calculating two identifiers and making entries in a log associated with each identifier that references the other identifier.

7. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the at least one metadata entry comprises a document log entry.

8. The method defined in claim 1 wherein each identifier is based on content of said each metadata entry.

9. The method defined in claim 8 wherein the identifier is a hash value.

10. The method defined in claim 8 wherein the identifier is a result of applying a hashing function to an electronic form of the content.

11. The method defined in claim 10 wherein the hashing function is the MD5 hashing algorithm.

12. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the document log is in XML format.

13. The method defined in claim 12 wherein each entry in the document log is an XML segment.

14. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the document log is identified using the document identifier.

15. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the legacy workflow document comprises a plurality of bytes.

16. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the one or more patterns comprise an order of the words in the document log, wherein the order of the words is indicative of the workflow.

17. The method defined in claim 1 wherein the identified patterns include an occurrence of one of the words in the document log.

18. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising analyzing data in a plurality of document logs for a different legacy workflow documents and detecting the workflow based on patterns that repeat across the plurality of document logs.

19. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising accessing each of the metadata entries with an identifier based on content of said each metadata entry.

20. The method defined in claim 19 wherein the identifier is a hash value.

21. The method defined in claim 19 wherein the identifier is a result of applying a hashing function to an electronic form of the content.

22. The method defined in claim 1 further comprising:

accessing an electronic form of the document;

computing an identifier based on content of the electronic form of the document; and

retrieving the document log associated with the document.

23. The method defined in claim 22 wherein computing the document identifier comprises applying a hashing function to the content of the electronic form of the document.

24. The method defined in claim 1, wherein the one or more operations including at least one of adding additional metadata entries to the document log, performing a backup of the document log, storing information in a memory location associated with the document, sending an email related to the document, performing a remote procedure call related to the document, sending a text message related to the document, initiating a phone call related to the document, triggering a mechanical device related to the document, printing a document related to the document, and sending a fax related to the document.

25. An article of manufacture having one or more recordable media having instructions thereon which, when executed by a system, cause the system to perform a method comprising:

inserting checkpoint code into each of one or more components that perform a legacy workflow including a series of processing operations related to a legacy workflow document, wherein, for each processing operation of the series of processing operations, the checkpoint code configured to;

analyze data content that is processed by the components at the processing operation;

calculate an identifier of the legacy workflow document based on the analyzed content; and

add at least one metadata entry corresponding to a result of performing the processing operation to one or more other metadata entries in a document log associated with the legacy workflow document, wherein the document log is stored separately from the one or more components and the legacy workflow document;

analyzing the metadata entries of the document log in order to identify one or more patterns found in words in the metadata entries of the document log;

detecting the legacy workflow based on the identified patterns found in the words of the document log; and

performing one or more operations related to the document in response to detecting the workflow.