MEASURE FACTORY

• US 20170270452A1
• Filed: 02/28/2017
• Published: 09/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Dimensional Insight Incorporated
• Inventors: Clark, James, Powers, Frederick A., Jablonski, Daniel J., Gorman, Matthew J., Dealy, George M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,445,674 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A measure factory for generating analytic measures includes data sets representing business activities arranged as columnar arrays with each column being associated with a distinct source rule that applies to the column when it is used as a data source. The measure factory includes factory rules that govern which operations on available data sources may be executed under what conditions in the measure factory, such as by taking into account the source rules and other applicable factory rules. A factory rule execution hierarchy governs the execution of ready factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules before executing ready factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules. A script generation facility generates a script to process the plurality of factory rules according to the factory rule execution hierarchy.

Claims

1. A measure factory for generating analytic measures, comprising:

a plurality of data sets comprised of data representing business activities arranged as a columnar array wherein each column is associated with a distinct source rule that applies to the column when it is used as a data source;

a plurality of factory rules that govern which operations on available data sources are executed based on one or more conditions in the measure factory, the executing of operations taking into account the source rules that are applicable to the data sources and other applicable factory rules;

a factory rule execution hierarchy that ensures executing factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules before executing factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules;

a script generation facility that generates a script for processing of a portion of the plurality of factory rules according to the factory rule execution hierarchy; and

a script processing facility that processes the generated script by operating on at least a portion of the plurality of data sets.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein an order in which factory rules are presented to the measure factory is independent of an order in which the generated script executes the presented factory rules.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein a factory rule is determined to be ready when data that the factory rule requires is available in one or more of the plurality of data sets.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the data is treated as available when at least one of the following conditions exist:

(a) if it is determined only by application of source rules and (b) if it is generated by another factory rule the processing of which is complete for data that the factory rule requires.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the script for processing the plurality of factory rules comprises machine-specific code and the script processing facility comprises a processor that applies the machine-specific code embodied script to the plurality of data sets by executing the machine-specific code.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the script processing facility executes the generated script using execution threads that separately process portions of the generated script based on at least one of grouping common calculations across ready rules and grouping different rule calculations that process common portions of at least one of the plurality of data sets.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the factory rule execution hierarchy indicates an order of factory rule execution.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the order of factory rule execution requires ready calc, flag, and lookup rules to execute before ready link rules which execute before ready plugin rules.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the script generation facility generates the script based on a data graph derived from references to the plurality of data sets in the factory rules.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the script generation facility generates the data graph as a step in a process to create the script.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the script generation facility selects among a plurality of factory rules based on an effectivity date associated with each of the plurality of factory rules and a script target date.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the script target date is the date on which the script is generated.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the script target date is an effectivity date of the script.

14. A method of automated measurement of business performance with a measure factory, comprising:

configuring a plurality of business performance measure factory rules as relationships of data source rules and of other factory rules;

arranging a plurality of data sets with data representing business activities as columnar arrays wherein each column is associated with a distinct source rule that applies to the column when the column is used as a data source by the measure factory;

generating a script for processing a portion of the plurality of data sets with the factory rules based on a factory rule execution hierarchy that ensures that factory rules that lack dependency on other factory rules execute before factory rules that have dependency on other factory rules execute; and

processing the portion of the plurality of data sets with the generated script to produce a business measure.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein an order in which factory rules are presented to the measure factory is independent of an order in which the generated script executes the presented factory rules.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein a factory rule is determined to be ready when data that the factory rule requires is available in one or more of the plurality of data sets.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the data is treated as available when at least one of the following conditions exist:

(a) if it is determined only by application of source rules and (b) if it is generated by another factory rule the processing of which is complete for the data that the factory rule requires.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the script to process the plurality of factory rules comprises machine-specific code and executing the script comprises executing the machine-specific code embodied script with a processor on the portion of the plurality of data sets.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the script executes on a processor using execution threads that separately process portions of the generated script based on at least one of grouping common calculations across ready rules and grouping different rule calculations that process common portions of at least one of the plurality of data sets.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the factory rule execution hierarchy indicates an order of factory rule execution.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the order of factory rule execution requires ready calc, flag, and lookup rules to execute before ready link rules which execute before ready plugin rules.

22. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of generating a script generates the script based on a data graph derived from references to the plurality of data sets in the factory rules.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the step of generating a script generates the data graph as a step in a process to create the script.

24. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of generating a script selects among a plurality of factory rules based on an effectivity date associated with each of the plurality of factory rules and a script target date.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the script target date is the date on which the script is generated.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the script target date is an effectivity date of the script.

27-56. -56. (canceled)