System and Method for Delivering Results of a Search Query in an Information Management System

• US 20070136345A1
• Filed: 11/13/2006
• Published: 06/14/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Blazejewski, Edward, Angle, Thomas
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

A system and method for managing data repositories may include providing techniques for end users to access and manipulate reports stored in the repositories. Text-based, image-based, or other types of reports may be stored in online and/or offline repositories, and in response to a search request, reports stored in the online and/or offline repositories may be retrieved. End users may export report data from text-based and/or image-based formats by converting the data into a spreadsheet format using various customization techniques. Thus, end users may edit, modify, analyze, or otherwise manipulate information in online and/or offline reports, while maintaining integrity of the information in the repositories.

Claims

1. A method for converting reports stored in one or more data repositories to a user-customized format, the method comprising:

retrieving at least one report from the data repositories in response to a search query;

receiving formatting preferences for converting the retrieved report into a spreadsheet data structure;

parsing the retrieved report in accordance with the received formatting preferences to identify at least one column of data and at least one row of data in the retrieved report; and

populating the spreadsheet data structure with the identified at least one column of data and the identified at least one row of data, whereby the populated spreadsheet data structure represents a user-customized conversion of the retrieved report.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the retrieved report using optical character recognition when the retrieved report is an image-based report; and

converting the image-based report into a text-based report using the optical character recognition analysis.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the formatting preferences include a parsing criteria indicating one or more pages to parse in retrieved report.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the formatting preferences include an automatic parsing criteria, the method further comprising automatically determining at least one of a parsing delimiter, a parsing column offset, or a data type based on information in the retrieved report.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one user-specified parsing column offset.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one parsing delimiter.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the formatting preferences further include an indication that two or more consecutive occurrences of the at least one delimiter are to be treated as one occurrence of the at least one delimiter.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one filtering criteria, the at least one filtering criteria including at least one of an inclusion criteria or an exclusion criteria.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more data repositories include online data repositories and offline data repositories, the method further comprising:

searching at least one of the online data repositories or the offline data repositories in response to the search query, wherein the search query indicates whether to search the online data repositories, the offline data repositories, or the online and offline data repositories; and

recalling a report from the offline data repositories when a user selects an offline report matching the search query.

10. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions recorded thereon for converting reports stored in one or more data repositories to a user-customized format, the computer-executable instructions operable when executed on a computer to:

retrieve at least one report from the data repositories in response to a search query;

receive formatting preferences for converting the retrieved report into a spreadsheet data structure;

parse the retrieved report in accordance with the received formatting preferences to identify at least one column of data and at least one row of data in the retrieved report; and

populate the spreadsheet data structure with the identified at least one column of data and the identified at least one row of data, whereby the populated spreadsheet data structure represents a user-customized conversion of the retrieved report.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, the computer-executable instructions further operable when executed to:

analyze the retrieved report using optical character recognition when the retrieved report is an image-based report; and

convert the image-based report into a text-based report using the optical character recognition analysis.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting preferences include a parsing criteria indicating one or more pages to parse in retrieved report.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting preferences include an automatic parsing criteria, the computer-executable instructions further operable when executed to automatically determine at least one of a parsing delimiter, a parsing column offset, or a data type based on information in the retrieved report.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one user-specified parsing column offset.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one parsing delimiter.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the formatting preferences further include an indication that two or more consecutive occurrences of the at least one delimiter are to be treated as one occurrence of the at least one delimiter.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one filtering criteria, the at least one filtering criteria including at least one of an inclusion criteria or an exclusion criteria.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the one or more data repositories include online data repositories and offline data repositories, the computer-executable instructions further operable when executed to:

search at least one of the online data repositories or the offline data repositories in response to the search query, wherein the search query indicates whether to search the online data repositories, the offline data repositories, or the online and offline data repositories; and

recall a report from the offline data repositories when a user selects an offline report matching the search query.

19. A system for converting reports to a user-customized format, the system comprising one or more data repositories containing one or more reports, at least one input device for receiving a search query, and one or more processors collectively operable to:

communicate the search query to the one or more data repositories;

retrieve at least one report from the data repositories in response to the search query;

receive formatting preferences for converting the retrieved report into a spreadsheet data structure;

parse the retrieved report in accordance with the received formatting preferences to identify at least one column of data and at least one row of data in the retrieved report; and

populate the spreadsheet data structure with the identified at least one column of data and the identified at least one row of data, whereby the populated spreadsheet data structure represents a user-customized conversion of the retrieved report.

20. The system of claim 19, the one or more processors further collectively operable to:

analyze the retrieved report using optical character recognition when the retrieved report is an image-based report; and

convert the image-based report into a text-based report using the optical character recognition analysis.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the formatting preferences include a parsing criteria indicating one or more pages to parse in retrieved report.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the formatting preferences include an automatic parsing criteria, the one or more processors further collectively operable to automatically determine at least one of a parsing delimiter, a parsing column offset, or a data type based on information in the retrieved report.

23. The system of claim 19, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one user-specified parsing column offset.

24. The system of claim 19, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one parsing delimiter.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the formatting preferences further include an indication that two or more consecutive occurrences of the at least one delimiter are to be treated as one occurrence of the at least one delimiter.

26. The system of claim 19, wherein the formatting preferences include at least one filtering criteria, the at least one filtering criteria including at least one of an inclusion criteria or an exclusion criteria.

27. The system of claim 19, wherein the one or more data repositories include online data repositories and offline data repositories, the one or more processors further collectively operable to:

search at least one of the online data repositories or the offline data repositories in response to the search query, wherein the search query indicates whether to search the online data repositories, the offline data repositories, or the online and offline data repositories; and

recall a report from the offline data repositories when a user selects an offline report matching the search query.