Obtaining data from unstructured data for a structured data collection

• US 9,299,041 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2013
• Issued: 03/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Tsumura, Michael, Wang, Yuru, Burbank, JohnPaul, Sam, Jennifer, Sun, George
• Primary Examiner(s): Jacob, Ajith
• Application Number:
  US13/842,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20140278406A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,110 Days
• Field of Search: 707/736
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/1822 Parsing for meaning understanding
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 15/183 using context dependencies, e.g. language models

Abstract

Techniques for obtaining data from unstructured data for a structured data collection include receiving unstructured data that includes text; identifying an attribute associated with a structured data collection; obtaining at least one of historical data associated with the attribute or additional data associated with a user of the computing system; identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on at least one of the historical data or the additional data; and storing the identified one or more terms in a data record of the unstructured data collection.

Claims

1. A method performed with a computing system for obtaining data from unstructured data for a structured data collection, the method comprising:

receiving unstructured data that includes text;

identifying an attribute associated with a structured data collection;

obtaining historical data associated with the attribute and two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system, wherein each additional datum is associated with an accuracy modifier based on the type of the additional datum;

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on at least one of the historical data and the additional data, wherein identifying the one or more terms includes resolving ambiguities in the identified terms based on the accuracy modifier associated with each additional datum;

storing the identified one or more terms in a data record of the structured data collection; and

preparing for display the data record of the structure data collection.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving a natural language utterance; and

converting the natural language utterance into the text.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving an image containing the text; and

performing optical character recognition on the image to identify the text.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining historical data associated with the attribute comprises obtaining a set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the historical data comprises identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is included in the set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system comprises at least one of (i) obtaining a location associated with the user or (ii) accessing a contacts database associated with the user;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the additional data comprises at least one of (i) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with the location and the location is associated with the attribute, or (ii) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with information in the contacts database and the information in the contacts database is associated with the attribute.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an input from the user to associate the one or more terms with the attribute; and

including the one or more terms in the historical data associated with the attribute.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving an input from an administrator of the structured data collection to associate the attribute with the structured data collection, the attribute being from a predetermined set of available attributes, and each attribute from the predetermined set of available attributes being associated with historical data.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving unstructured data that includes text;

identifying an attribute associated with a structured data collection;

obtaining historical data associated with the attribute and two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system, wherein each additional datum is associated with an accuracy modifier based on the type of the additional datum;

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on at least one of the historical data and the additional data, wherein identifying the one or more terms includes resolving ambiguities in the identified terms based on the accuracy modifier associated with each additional datum;

storing the identified one or more terms in a data record of the structured data collection; and

preparing for display the data record of the structure data collection.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving a natural language utterance; and

converting the natural language utterance into the text.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving an image containing the text; and

performing optical character recognition on the image to identify the text.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein obtaining historical data associated with the attribute comprises obtaining a set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the historical data comprises identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is included in the set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein obtaining two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system comprises at least one of (i) obtaining a location associated with the user or (ii) accessing a contacts database associated with the user;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the additional data comprises at least one of (i) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with the location and the location is associated with the attribute, or (ii) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with information in the contacts database and the information in the contacts database is associated with the attribute.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving an input from the user to associate the one or more terms with the attribute; and

including the one or more terms in the historical data associated with the attribute.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving an input from an administrator of the structured data collection to associate the attribute with the structured data collection, the attribute being from a predetermined set of available attributes, and each attribute from the predetermined set of available attributes being associated with historical data.

15. A system of one or more computers configured to perform operations comprising:

receiving unstructured data that includes text;

identifying an attribute associated with a structured data collection;

obtaining historical data associated with the attribute and two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system, wherein each additional datum is associated with an accuracy modifier based on the type of the additional datum;

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on at least one of the historical data and the additional data, wherein identifying the one or more terms includes resolving ambiguities in the identified terms based on the accuracy modifier associated with each additional datum;

storing the identified one or more terms in a data record of the structured data collection; and

preparing for display the data record of the structure data collection.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving a natural language utterance; and

converting the natural language utterance into the text.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein receiving unstructured data that includes text comprises:

receiving an image containing the text; and

performing optical character recognition on the image to identify the text.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein obtaining historical data associated with the attribute comprises obtaining a set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the historical data comprises identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is included in the set of one or more terms previously identified as being associated with the attribute.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein obtaining two or more different types of additional data associated with a user of the computing system comprises at least one of (i) obtaining a location associated with the user or (ii) accessing a contacts database associated with the user;

and

identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data as being associated with the attribute based on the additional data comprises at least one of (i) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with the location and the location is associated with the attribute, or (ii) identifying one or more terms from the unstructured data that is associated with information in the contacts database and the information in the contacts database is associated with the attribute.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving an input from the user to associate the one or more terms with the attribute; and

including the one or more terms in the historical data associated with the attribute.

21. The system of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving an input from an administrator of the structured data collection to associate the attribute with the structured data collection, the attribute being from a predetermined set of available attributes, and each attribute from the predetermined set of available attributes being associated with historical data.