Investment database application

• US 20050187969A1
• Filed: 12/23/2004
• Published: 08/25/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Morgan Stanley Services Group Inc. (Morgan Stanley)
• Original Assignee: Morgan Stanley
• Inventors: Chaudri, Bikramjit Singh
• Granted Patent: US 7,533,118 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/86 Mapping to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/149 Adaptation of the text data for streaming purposes, e.g. Efficient XML Interchange [EXI] format
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

An investment database application is configured to perform a download process and an upload process. During the download process, the investment database application creates a spreadsheet out of a customized spreadsheet template, receives XML data from a database on a server system, converts the XML data, loads the spreadsheet with the converted data, and saves the populated spreadsheet template to a location specified by the user. During the upload process, the investment database application may convert a populated spreadsheet template created during the download process into an XML formatted file and transmit the XML file to a secure server system that loads the XML data into a Relational Database Management System (RDMS).

Claims

1. A system for processing financial data comprising:

a client system;

a spreadsheet application installed on the client system, the spreadsheet application configured to generate an electronic spreadsheet having rows and columns of cells for receiving data; and

an investment database application installed on the client system, the investment database application configured to automate data entry into the electronic spreadsheet,

wherein the investment database downloads XML formatted financial data from a server system, converts the XML formatted financial data into a format compatible with the spreadsheet application, and populates the electronic spreadsheet with converted financial data.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the investment database application is configured to present a list of spreadsheet templates, each spreadsheet template corresponding to a particular business process.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the business process comprises one of:

a business plan process, an asset tracking process, an operations pages process, and a debt and hedge schedules process.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the investment database application is configured to present fund information related to the business process that is available for download.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the fund information comprises one or more of:

a list of fund information, associated investments, and a reporting period.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the investment database application is configured to convert a populated spreadsheet from the format compatible with the spreadsheet application into XML formatted financial data and to upload the XML formatted financial data to the server system.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the populated spreadsheet comprises a spreadsheet template corresponding to a particular business process.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the business process comprises one of:

a business plan process, an asset tracking process, an operations pages process, and a debt and hedge schedules process.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the investment database application comprises a plug-in to the spreadsheet application.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a component object model interface installed on the client system, the component object model interface configured to transfer data between the client system and the server system through a network.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the component object model communicates with the server system through the network using a standard protocol.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system comprises:

a business controller including logic specific to a particular business process; and

a database for storing financial data related to the particular business process.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the business process comprises one of:

a business plan process, an asset tracking process, an operations pages process, and a debt and hedge schedules process.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the business controller is configured to dynamically generate a list of fund information related to the particular business process.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the business controller is configured to generate a snapshot of financial data existing on the database.

16. A method for processing financial data comprising:

generating an electronic spreadsheet with a spreadsheet application, the electronic spreadsheet having rows and columns of cells for receiving data;

downloading XML formatted financial data from a server system; and

automatically populating the electronic spreadsheet by converting the XML formatted financial data into a format compatible with the spreadsheet application data.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising presenting a list of spreadsheet templates, each spreadsheet template corresponding to a particular business process.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising presenting fund information related to the business process that is available for download.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

converting a populated spreadsheet from the format compatible with the spreadsheet application into XML formatted financial data; and

uploading the XML formatted financial data to the server system.

20. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium, the computer program comprising instructions for:

generating an electronic spreadsheet with a spreadsheet application, the electronic spreadsheet having rows and columns of cells for receiving data;

downloading XML formatted financial data from a server system; and

automatically populating the electronic spreadsheet by converting the XML formatted financial data into a format compatible with the spreadsheet application data.