METHODS, APPARATUS, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCTS FOR DYNAMIC GENERATION OF FORMS

• US 20070044041A1
• Filed: 12/16/2005
• Published: 02/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: ILEY, ADAM, DELO, BENJAMIN, BEYNON, MARGARET ANN
• Granted Patent: US 7,752,537 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/862
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging

Abstract

Methods, apparatus, and computer program products for dynamic generation of forms on devices such as mobile telephones. A device user enters a form descriptor code comprising a set of alphanumeric characters. A form generator applies stored mappings between the input characters and a set of electronic form components. This identifies required form components. The form generator dynamically generates an electronic form having the identified components, and displays the form on a display screen of the device. The device user completes the form and sends the completed form to a target data processing system. The dynamic generation of a form in response to a simple input code can be used to control the format of user-entered data, such that the data is validly formatted when received at the target.

Claims

1. A method for generating an electronic form on a data processing device, comprising:

receiving an input of a form descriptor code comprising a plurality of characters that represent components of an electronic form;

comparing characters of the form descriptor code with stored mappings between characters and electronic form components, to determine required components of an electronic form; and

generating an electronic form that comprises the determined required electronic form components.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the received input comprises entry of a form descriptor code via a user input mechanism of the data processing device, and wherein comparing and generating are performed off-line on the data processing device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein generating an electronic form comprises displaying the generated electronic form on a display device of the data processing apparatus and arranging the determined required electronic form components within the generated electronic form in a sequence corresponding to the sequence of characters within the form descriptor code.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising comparing characters of the form descriptor code with stored mappings between characters and addressing information, for determining an address to transmit the generated electronic form to.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

responsive to a user of the data processing apparatus entering data into the electronic form and requesting submission of the form, transmitting the user-entered data to the determined address.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the determined address is an input address of an intermediate broker for handling communications between said data processing apparatus and a data processing system of an information requester registered with the broker, and wherein the broker is adapted to forward the transmitted user-entered data to the data processing system of the information requester.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein comparing the form descriptor code with stored mappings comprises:

performing a lookup operation to identify a set of one or more bit strings representing form components and attributes of the form components, and

interpreting the one or more bit strings to determine the required form components and attributes.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a set of form component types are organized in a hierarchy and specific form component types are associated with specific locations in the hierarchy identified by bit sequences, and wherein interpreting the one or more bit strings comprises identifying locations in the hierarchy corresponding to the one or more bit strings identified by said lookup operation.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising calculating a checksum for a set of characters within the form descriptor code and comparing the calculated checksum with a character at a predefined position within the form descriptor code, to check validity of the form descriptor code.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the form descriptor code is received via a user input mechanism of the data processing device.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the form descriptor code is received at the data processing device via network communications.

12. A computer program product comprising program code recorded on a recording medium, for controlling a data processing apparatus to dynamically generate an electronic form, the program code comprising:

program code, responsive to an input form descriptor code that comprises a plurality of characters representing components of an electronic form, for comparing the characters of the input form descriptor code with stored mappings between characters and electronic form components to determine required components; and

program code for generating an electronic form that comprises the determined required form components.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the program code for comparing and generating is responsive to user input of a form descriptor code via a user input mechanism of the data processing apparatus to perform the comparing and generating off-line on the data processing device.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the program code for generating an electronic form comprises a set of instantiable object classes corresponding to a set of form components.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the instantiable object classes include attributes corresponding to a set of text labels for the form components.

16. A data processing device comprising a data processing unit, a data storage unit, a display device and a form generator for controlling the device to dynamically generate an electronic form, wherein the form generator comprises:

program code, responsive to an input form descriptor code that comprises a plurality of characters representing components of an electronic form, for comparing the characters of the input form descriptor code with stored mappings between characters and electronic form components to determine required components; and

program code for generating an electronic form that comprises the determined required form components.

17. A data processing apparatus comprising:

a data processing unit;

a data storage unit; and

a forms manager providing a registration service and providing a service for assigning forms descriptor codes to electronic form designs;

wherein the forms manager is adapted to receive an input electronic form design from a client data processing system, to process the input electronic form design to generate a form descriptor code comprising a plurality of characters that represent components of an electronic form corresponding to the form design, and to return the generated form descriptor code to the client data processing system; and

wherein the forms manager is adapted respond to a registration request from a client data processing system by assigning a client ID to the client data processing system and storing the client ID in association with address information for the client data processing system.

18. The data processing apparatus of claim 17 further comprising a brokering process for receiving, from a data processing device, a client ID and data entered into an electronic form at the data processing device and for routing the received data to the client data processing system to which the client ID is assigned.

19. A method for managing electronic forms, comprising:

receiving an input electronic form design from a client data processing system;

processing the input electronic form design to generate a form descriptor code comprising a plurality of characters that represent components of an electronic form corresponding to the form design; and

returning the generated form descriptor code to the client data processing system.