Merger and acquisition data validation

• US 8,725,701 B2
• Filed: 10/08/2008
• Issued: 05/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Parkes, Alastair, Hasegawa, Mari, Manjunatha, Ravi
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Miranda
• Application Number:
  US12/247,290
• Publication Number:
  US 20100088132A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,043 Days
• US Class Current: 707/690
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/214 Database migration support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided that perform data validation in real time. By uploading the source data from spreadsheets or entering the data directly into an application, the required validations can be run and reported in real time. Users can then either extract the data back into spreadsheets for manipulation, and then re-upload it, or correct the data directly within the application. Once the data set has passed all validations, it is then passed to the technical team for upload into the transactional system.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for validating data before migration from a first computer software platform of a first organization to a second computer software platform of a second organization, comprising:

uploading data associated with a first software license for a first enterprise software application to be validated from the first platform, wherein the first computer software platform is a different computer software platform than the second computer software platform, and the data from the first computer software platform must be validated before the data is associated with a second software license for a second enterprise software application on the second computer software platform, wherein the first software license is different than the second software license, and the first enterprise software application is different than the second enterprise software application;

wherein the data comprises product names, license terms, and license prices;

wherein the data further comprises customer information of the first organization comprising customer reference numbers, tax registration numbers and customer company names;

wherein the data further comprises contact information of the first organization comprising contact names, addresses, and telephone numbers;

wherein the data further comprises support license data, each support license data comprising a corresponding software product, corresponding customer, corresponding address and corresponding contact; and

validating by a processor the data at a third platform;

wherein the validating the data comprises checking for missing values among the data, checking for duplicate values among the data, detecting orphaned records, mapping a first subset of the data to be validated to a second subset of the data to be validated comprising a mapping of customers to addresses, verifying a mapping of the data to a second schema of the second platform and verifying that a customer, address and contact for one or more support licenses is in a correct combination, wherein the second schema is different from a first schema of the first platform;

generating a description of errors from the validating and allowing the errors to be corrected on the third computer platform that is different from the first computer platform and the second computer platform;

receiving updated data in response to the generated description and after the errors are corrected;

validating the updated data;

repeating the generating the description of errors, receiving updated data and validating the updated data until the validating the data does not generate errors; and

associating the validated data with the second software license on the second computer software platform by migrating the validated data from the first computer software platform to the second computer software platform, wherein the validated data is not migrated to the second computer software platform until the data to be validated passes validation.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a user interface that comprises links related to validation of parts information and license and support information.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first platform is of an acquired company and the second platform is of an acquiring company.

4. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to validate data before migration from a first computer software platform of a first organization to a second computer software platform of a second organization, the validation comprising:

uploading data associated with a first software license for a first enterprise software application to be validated from the first platform, wherein the first computer software platform is a different computer software platform than the second computer software platform, and the data from the first computer software platform must be validated before the data is associated with a second software license for a second enterprise software application on the second computer software platform, wherein the first software license is different than the second software license, and the first enterprise software application is different than the second enterprise software application;

wherein the data comprises product names, license terms, and license prices;

wherein the data further comprises customer information of the first organization comprising customer reference numbers, tax registration numbers and customer company names;

wherein the data further comprises contact information of the first organization comprising contact names, addresses, and telephone numbers;

wherein the data further comprises support license data, each support license data comprising a corresponding software product, corresponding customer, corresponding address and corresponding contact; and

validating by a processor the data at a third platform;

wherein the validating the data comprises checking for missing values among the data, checking for duplicate values among the data, detecting orphaned records, mapping a first subset of the data to be validated to a second subset of the data to be validated comprising mapping of customers to addresses, verifying a mapping of the data to a second schema of the second platform, wherein the second schema is different from a first schema of the first platform and verifying that a customer, address and contact for one or more support licenses is in a correct combination;

generating a description of errors from the validating and allowing the errors to be corrected on the third computer platform that is different from the first computer platform and the second computer platform;

receiving updated data in response to the generated description and after the errors are corrected;

validating the updated data;

repeating the generating the description of errors, receiving updated data and validating the updated data until the validating the data does not generate errors; and

associating the validated data with the second software license on the second computer software platform by migrating the validated data from the first computer software platform to the second computer software platform, wherein the validated data is not migrated to the second computer software platform until the data to be validated passes validation.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 4, the validation further comprising generating a user interface that comprises links related to validation of parts information and license and support information.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the first platform is of an acquired company and the second platform is of an acquiring company.

7. A system for validating data before migration from a first computer software platform of a first organization to a second computer software platform of a second organization, comprising:

a memory having stored thereon instructions that cause the system to upload data associated with a first software license for a first enterprise software application to be validated from the first platform, wherein the first computer software platform is a different computer software platform than the second computer software platform, and the data from the first computer software platform must be validated before the data is associated with a second software license for a second enterprise software application on the second computer software platform, wherein the first software license is different than the second software license, and the first enterprise software application is different than the second enterprise software application;

wherein the data comprises product names, license terms, and license prices;

wherein the data further comprises customer information of the first organization comprising customer reference numbers, tax registration numbers and customer company names;

wherein the data further comprises contact information of the first organization comprising contact names, addresses and telephone numbers;

wherein the data further comprises support license data, each support license data comprising a corresponding software product, corresponding customer, corresponding address and corresponding contact; and

validate the data at the third platform;

wherein the validate the data comprises checking for missing values among the data, checking for duplicate values among the data, detecting orphaned records, mapping a first subset of the data to be validated to a second subset of the data to be validated comprising a mapping of customers to addresses, validating by verifying a mapping of the license data to a second schema of the second platform, wherein the second schema is different from a first schema of the first platform and verifying that a customer, address and contact for one or more support licenses is in a correct combination; and

a processor that executes the instructions;

the instructions further causing the processor to

generate a description of errors from the validating and allow the errors to be corrected on the third computer platform that is different from the first computer platform and the second computer platform;

receive updated data in response to the generated description and after the errors are corrected;

validate the updated data; and

repeat the generate the description of errors, receive updated data and validate the updated data until the validate the data does not generate errors; and

associating the validated data with the second software license on the second computer software platform by migrating the validated data from the first computer software platform to the second computer software platform, wherein the validated data is not migrated to the second computer software platform until the data to be validated passes validation.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the first platform is of an acquired company and the second platform is of an acquiring company.

9. The system of claim 7, the validating further comprising generating a user interface that comprises links related to validation of parts information and license and support information.