Method for selecting one or more functions of an implementation guide

• US 8,869,069 B2
• Filed: 11/23/2011
• Issued: 10/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Kemmler, Andreas, Kamenz, Torsten
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cao Kevin
• Application Number:
  US13/303,937
• Publication Number:
  US 20120131467A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,063 Days
• Field of Search: 715851-853, 715763-765, 715734-736, 715840-841, 715/741
• US Class Current: 715/853
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A computer-implemented method for selecting one or more functions for display is provided. The selection may be performed via an implementation guide that is a hierarchy comprising nodes. A node may represent one function. The method may comprise retrieving a first list of switches in response to selection of a function, extracting one or more switches from the first list such that the extracted switches include function switches and/or conflict switches, determining whether each of the extracted switch is an active conflict switch and, if yes, adding the active conflict switch to a second list of switches. After removing all switches from the first list or having added all of them to the second list, the method processes the second list to determine which functions can be executed on the processor without conflicts and presenting a function GUI element representing a function determined to be executable without conflicts.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for process integration, the method for selecting one or more functions for display, the selection being performed via an implementation guide, wherein the implementation guide is a hierarchical data structure comprising nodes, wherein at least some of said nodes respectively represent one of said one or more functions, the method comprising:

retrieving, by a processor, in response to a user'"'"'s selection of one of the one or more functions, a first list of switches, the first list of switches comprising all switches assigned to the one selected function;

extracting the switches from the first list of switches, wherein the extracted switches include at least one of function switches and conflict switches, wherein a conflict switch has at least two switches of any combination of function switches or conflict switches assigned to it and wherein each function switch is assigned to one of the one or more functions and optionally also to a conflict switch and wherein each conflict switch is assigned to at least two of the one or more functions via two of the function switches and optionally in addition via one or more of the conflict switches;

determining, for each of the extracted switches, whether the extracted switch is an active conflict switch, wherein an active conflict switch is any conflict switch whose assigned functions are currently all selected;

in case any of the extracted switches is determined to be an active conflict switch, adding the active conflict switch to a second list of switches;

after all switches in the first list of switches have either been removed from the first list or have been added to the second list of switches, processing the second list of switches for determining which of the one or more computer functions can be executed on the processor without conflicts; and

as a result of the processing, presenting, by the processor, in a graphical user interface, one or more function GUI elements, each of the function GUI elements representing one of the one or more functions determined to be executable without conflicts on the processor.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the retrieving comprises:

analyzing, by the processor, attributes of the selected function to identify which function switches are assigned to the selected function;

analyzing the attributes of the identified function switches to determine which of said function switches are assigned to a respective conflict switch, thereby also determining which conflict switch is assigned to the selected function;

analyzing each of the determined conflict switches to determine if any other of the conflict switches are assigned to said determined conflict switch; and

adding each conflict switch having been determined in the analysis to be assigned to the selected function or to be assigned to one of the determined conflict switches to the first list of switches.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2,

wherein the attributes are stored in a configuration data structure of an enhancement package,

wherein at least some first ones of the attributes are indicative of whether and which one of the function switches are assigned to any of the functions,

wherein at least some second ones of the attributes are indicative of whether and which one of the conflict switches are assigned to any of the function switches;

and

wherein at least some third ones of the attributes are indicative of the status of the function, said status being active if the function GUI element of said function is currently selected by the user, said status otherwise being inactive.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the data content of the configuration data structure is automatically updated upon the receipt of the selection of the one function by the user if in addition the one selected function was automatically determined not to conflict with any of the other functions, wherein updating an attribute in dependence on the user'"'"'s selection implies changing one of the third attributes assigned to the selected functions from inactive to active.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first list of switches is sorted before executing the extraction step, the sorting being performed in a way that conflict switches appear prior to function switches within said first list of switches.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the determining whether the extracted switch is an active conflict switch comprises:

determining if the extracted switch is a conflict switch;

in case the extracted switch was determined to be a conflict switch, determining if said conflict switch is an active conflict switch, wherein a conflict switch is an active conflict switch when all function switches or conflict switches assigned to the extracted switch are selected;

otherwise, determining that the extracted switch is an inactive conflict switch; and

deleting the inactive conflict switch from the list of all switches.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein processing the second list of switches comprises:

identifying, for each active conflict switch in the second list, a switch conflict resolution indicated by said active conflict switch, the switch conflict resolution being a set of program instructions for prohibiting the execution of two conflicting ones of the one or more functions; and

executing the identified switch conflict resolution, thereby modifying the displaying of at least one of the one or more function GUI elements representing the conflicting functions.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the modification comprises hiding and/or displaying function GUI elements in dependence on the result of the functions having been determined to be executable without conflicts on the processor.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, further comprising updating the display of the function GUI elements upon each selection of one of the functions by the user, wherein the visibility of the updated function GUI elements depends on the result having been calculated upon said selection and being indicative of one or more conflicting functions.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user selection of one of the one or more functions comprises:

displaying to the user the one or more function GUI elements representing the one or more functions, wherein each of said function GUI elements is a selectable GUI element;

receiving a signal being indicative of the one function selected by the user from a selected function GUI element;

wherein presenting the one or more function GUI elements as a result of the processing comprises updating the display of the one or more function GUI elements in dependence on the one or more functions determined to be executable without conflicts.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein presenting the one or more function GUI elements as a result of the processing comprises hiding at least one first and at least one second function GUI element, the at least one first GUI element representing a first one of the one or more functions, the at least one second GUI element representing a second one of the one or more functions, the first function having been determined to conflict with the second function.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method comprising:

evaluating each switch in the first list of switches to determine whether the switch is a conflict switch;

for switches determined to be a conflict switch, determining whether the conflict switch is active or inactive.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the nodes comprise leaf-nodes and non-leaf nodes and wherein at least some of the non-leaf nodes respectively represent one of the functions and wherein each leaf node represents computer-implemented routines operable to execute one of said functions.

14. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium embodied with program instructions executable by a processor, the instructions causing the processor to perform a method for selecting one or more functions for display in an implementation guide according to claim 1.

15. A computer system, comprising:

a display device for displaying a graphical user interface;

a processor;

a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium comprising instructions being executable by the processor, said instructions specifying

an enhancement package configuration tool being adapted for selecting one or more functions for display, the selection being performed via an implementation guide, wherein the implementation guide is a hierarchical data structure comprising nodes, wherein at least some of said nodes respectively represent one of said one or more functions, the functions being provided by an enhancement package by;

retrieving, by the processor, in response to a user'"'"'s selection of one of the one or more functions, a first list of switches, the first list of switches comprising all switches assigned to the one selected function;

extracting one or more individual switches from the first list of switches, wherein the extracted individual switches include at least one of function switches and conflict switches, wherein a conflict switch has at least two switches of any combination of function switches or conflict switches assigned to it and wherein each function switch is assigned to one of the one or more functions and optionally also to a conflict switch and wherein each conflict switch is assigned to at least two of the one or more functions via two of the function switches and optionally in addition via one or more of the conflict switches;

determining, for each of the one or more extracted switches, whether the extracted switch is an active conflict switch, wherein an active conflict switch is any conflict switch whose assigned functions are currently all selected;

in case any of the extracted switches is determined to be an active conflict switch, adding the active conflict switch to a second list of switches;

after all switches in the first list of switches have either been removed from the first list or have been added to the second list of switches, processing the second list of switches for determining which of the one or more computer functions are to be executable on the processor without conflicts; and

as a result of the processing, presenting, by the processor, in a graphical user interface, one or more function GUI elements, each of the function GUI elements representing one of the one or more functions determined to be executable without conflicts on the processor.

16. A computer-implemented method for process integration, the method comprising:

retrieving, by a processor, in response to a user'"'"'s selection of one of the one or more functions, a first list of switches, the first list of switches comprising all switches assigned to the one selected function;

extracting the switches from the first list of switches, wherein the extracted switches include at least one of function switches and conflict switches, wherein a conflict switch has at least two switches of any combination of function switches or conflict switches assigned to it and wherein each function switch is assigned to one of the one or more functions and optionally also to a conflict switch;

determining, for each of the extracted switches, whether the extracted switch is an active conflict switch;

in case any of the extracted switches is determined to be an active conflict switch, adding the active conflict switch to a second list of switches;

after all switches in the first list of switches have either been removed from the first list or have been added to the second list of switches, processing the second list of switches; and

as a result of the processing, presenting, by the processor, in a graphical user interface (GUI), an implementation guide;

wherein the implementation guide is a hierarchical data structure comprising nodes, and at least some of the nodes respectively represent one of the one or more functions.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein each of the conflict switches is assigned to the at least two of the one or more function via at one of:

(a) two of the function switches and (b) one or more of the conflict switches.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the active conflict switch is any conflict switch whose assigned functions are currently all selected.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the second list of switches is processed for determining which of the one or more computer functions can be executed on the processor without conflicts.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the GUI includes one or more function GUI elements, each of the function GUI elements representing one of the one or more functions determined to be executable without conflicts on the processor.