Generation of dynamic contextual pivot grid analytics

• US 10,642,990 B2
• Filed: 07/22/2016
• Issued: 05/05/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Pattabhiraman, Balaji, Mahashabde, Rahul, Gupta, Virad, Narayanan, Deepankar, Edalur, Raghu, Gurubaran, Sai Jai Ganesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Gofman, Alex
• Assistant Examiner(s): Black, Linh
• Application Number:
  US15/217,836
• Publication Number:
  US 20170116426A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,383 Days
• Field of Search: 707600, 707603, 707527, 707771, 707779
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/62 Protecting access to data via a platform, e.g. using keys or access control rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6227 where protection concerns the structure of data, e.g. records, types, queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating timely end user creation, customization, and/or configuration of analytic reports in a computing environment, such as an enterprise-computing environment. An example method includes receiving configuration information characterizing one or more User Interface (UI) features to be incorporated into an analytic report; employing the configuration information to generate one or more database queries to selectively retrieve data from the database; using the configuration information and the one or more database queries to construct an analytic template; and publishing the analytic template so that the analytic template is accessible to one or more end users of the computing environment. In a more specific embodiment, the computing environment includes an enterprise-computing environment, and the one or more users include enterprise personnel. The configuration information, which may include user job role information, includes instructions for collecting context information to control user accessibility to the analytic template and data associated therewith in accordance with the context information.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating creation of analytic reports in a computing environment, the method comprising:

receiving a query from a user to build an analytic report associated with an application page from an analytic template selected from a plurality of analytic templates;

in response to the query, analyzing the association of the application page and context information to determine a subset of analytic templates from the plurality of analytic templates to present to the user associated with a given user role, wherein the context information comprises subject matter characterizing the application page and role-level security that defines user permissions for accessing and displaying types of analytic reports based on user roles, wherein the given user role is subordinate to another user role and at least one or more of the analytic templates are unavailable to the other user role that is superior to the given user role;

determining where to present the subset of analytic templates to the user and presenting the subset of analytic templates to the user based on the determination;

receiving a selection of the analytic template from the subset of analytic templates from the user, wherein the analytic template includes a query definition containing a plurality of database queries of a composite query, wherein the plurality of database queries are filterable based on multilayered security policies, wherein the composite query further comprises access criteria specifying role-level security;

analyzing the query definition to determine configuration information characterizing one or more user interface features to be incorporated into the analytic report, wherein the configuration information includes instructions for collecting the context information to control user accessibility to the analytic template in accordance with the context information, wherein the configuration information contains instructions for generating the composite query used to retrieve selected data from a database in accordance with parameters and information defining the analytic template, obtain the one or more user interface features for incorporation into the analytic report, obtain security data pertaining to security settings configured to filter the plurality of database queries based on multilayered security policies, obtain additional information pertaining to data associated with user interface display screens used to display the analytic report, obtain instructions for retrieving data from live databases, and obtain specification data pertaining to joins of data used to produce joined analytic report data;

employing the configuration information to generate the composite query used to selectively retrieve data from the database, obtain application page data and obtain additional context information used to determine which analytic report data to include in the analytic report, wherein the additional context information further includes data retrieved from one or more user entries responsive to one or more user prompts, the one or more user prompts displayed during configuration of the analytic template and an analytic report that is based on the analytic template;

using the configuration information, the application page data, the additional information, and the composite query to construct the analytic template; and

publishing the analytic template to a repository so that the analytic template is accessible to one or more authorized end users of the computing environment with respect to the multilayered security policies,

rendering a user interface in a browser of end user clients, and displaying the application page that includes page data derived from the database via the user interface, wherein the application page includes one or more user interface controls that enable user selection of an analytic report associated with the application page, wherein the selected analytic report is generated in response to the user selection by employing a portion of the page data to configure another composite query in accordance with configuration information specified in the analytic report, wherein the user interface includes the application page that includes page fields that provide context used to create another analytic report; and

publishing the analytic report to the repository of authorized end users in response to user selection of the one or more user interface controls, wherein the repository is a live multi-tenant database and the analytic report is accessible by the one or more authorized end users via a tile repository.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment includes an enterprise-computing environment, and wherein the one or more end users include enterprise personnel.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the configuration information further includes a first security setting specifying which of the one or more database queries of the analytic template will retrieve data for use by the enterprise personnel in accordance with user role information pertaining to the enterprise personnel.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information further includes instructions for obtaining the additional context information pertaining to one or more user interface display screens and data associated therewith, the data pertaining to one or more enterprise transactions that are respectively associated with the one or more user interface display screens.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more user interface display screens represent one or more enterprise application pages of an enterprise application user interface component.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the additional context information includes data available in one or more fields of the one or more user interface display screens.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from a user device operated by the user, location information characterizing a current location of the user device;

wherein the context information further comprises the location information.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein generating an analytic report further comprises:

providing one or more user interface controls in the application page, wherein the user interface controls include enabling user selection of an analytic report type from among one or more report types, wherein the one or more report types accessible via the application page depend on the context information and the one or more report types correspond to one or more respective analytic templates;

generating a configurable analytic report based on user-selected analytic report type and associated analytic template, wherein the configurable analytic report including a predetermined visualization is specified via the analytic template;

enabling user configuration of the configurable analytic report via the one or more user interface controls, wherein the configuring includes specification of one or more user selected fields for the analytic reports such as a location and a date range field, and providing a user option to associate the configurable analytic report with the application page so that the report is accessible from the application page by authorized end users.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

saving, prior to displaying the application page the analytic report, wherein underlying composite queries are executed against a live running database in response to the analytic report being selected, such that data used to populate the analytic report represents current data.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the query definition is an existing query definition saved in the database, modified at runtime and executed while generating and viewing an analytic report, wherein analytic reports reuse the query definition from the analytic report.

7. A non-transitory processor-readable storage device including instructions executable by a digital processor, the non-transitory processor-readable storage device including one or more instructions for:

receiving a query from a user to build an analytic report associated with an application page from an analytic template selected from a plurality of analytic templates;

in response to the query, analyzing the association of the application page and context information to determine a subset of analytic templates from the plurality of analytic templates to present to the user associated with a given user role, wherein the context information comprises subject matter characterizing the application page and role-level security that defines user permissions for accessing and displaying types of analytic reports based on user roles, wherein the given user role is subordinate to another user role and at least one or more of the analytic templates are unavailable to the other use role that is superior to the given user role;

determining where to present the subset of analytic templates to the user and presenting the subset of analytic templates to the user based on the determination;

receiving a selection of the analytic template from the subset of analytic templates from the user, wherein the analytic template includes a query definition containing a plurality of database queries of a composite query, wherein the plurality of database queries are filterable based on multilayered security policies, wherein the composite query further comprises access criteria specifying role-level security;

analyzing the query definition to determine configuration information characterizing one or more user interface features to be incorporated into the analytic report, wherein the configuration information includes instructions for collecting the context information to control user accessibility to the analytic template in accordance with the context information, wherein the configuration information contains instructions for generating the composite query used to obtain selected data from a database in accordance with parameters and information defining the analytic template, obtain the one or more user interface features for incorporation into the analytic report, obtain security data pertaining to security settings configured to filter the plurality of database queries based on multilayered security policies, obtain additional context information pertaining to data associated with user interface display screens used to display the analytic report, obtain instructions for retrieving data from live multitenant databases, and obtain specification data pertaining to joins of data used to produce joined analytic report data;

employing the configuration information to generate the composite query used to selectively retrieve data from the database, obtain application page data and obtain additional context information used to determine which analytic report data to include in the analytic report, wherein the additional context information further includes data retrieved from one or more user entries responsive to one or more user prompts, the one or more user prompts displayed during configuration of the analytic template and an analytic report that is based on the analytic template;

using the configuration information, the application page data, the additional context information, and the composite query to construct an analytic template;

publishing the analytic template to a repository so that the analytic template is accessible to one or more authorized end users of a computing environment incorporating the non-transitory processor-readable storage device with respect to the multilayered security policies;

rendering a user interface in a browser of end user clients, and displaying the application page that includes page data derived from the database via the user interface, wherein the application page includes one or more user interface controls that enable user selection of an analytic report associated with the application page, wherein the selected analytic report is generated in response to the user selection by employing a portion of the page data to configure another composite query in accordance with configuration information specified in the analytic report, wherein the user interface includes the application page that includes page fields that provide context used to create another analytic report; and

publishing the analytic report to the repository for one or more authorized end users in response to user selection of the one or more user interface controls, wherein the repository is a live multi-tenant database and the analytic report is accessible by the one or more authorized end users via a tile repository.

8. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 7, wherein the computing environment includes an enterprise-computing environment, and wherein the one or more end users include enterprise personnel.

9. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein the configuration information further includes one or more security settings specifying which of the enterprise personnel using the computing environment may access the analytic template in accordance with the user role information pertaining to the enterprise personnel.

10. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 9, wherein the configuration information further includes a first security setting specifying which of the one or more database queries of the analytic template will retrieve data for use by the enterprise personnel in accordance with user role information pertaining to the enterprise personnel.

11. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 9, wherein the configuration information further includes instructions for obtaining the additional context information pertaining to one or more user interface display screens and data associated therewith, the data pertaining to one or more enterprise transactions that are respectively associated with the one or more user interface display screens.

12. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 11, wherein the one or more user interface display screens represent one or more enterprise application pages of an enterprise application user interface component.

13. The non-transitory processor-readable storage device of claim 12, wherein the additional context information includes data available in one or more fields of the one or more user interface display screens.