Patent Application
20140012869
Business software such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software implements business processes by modeling business data as business objects (BOs) with data exchange between the BOs. The business data provided via BOs can be accessed through mechanisms such as user interfaces, forms, and analytical reports.
Traditionally, it has been difficult for a third party (such as a partner or a consumer) to customize software since the third party did not have an intuitive view of BOs and related software building blocks such as BO instances, nodes, data types, attributes, etc. Therefore customization of software has been a process which does not scale easily.
Embodiments may be discussed in systems to efficiently display information related to BO instances, BOs, and/or nodes. In an embodiment, a search area to search business object instance(s), business object(s), node(s), and/or data types may be displayed. Business object instance(s), business object(s), node(s), and/or data type(s) based on search criteria specified in the search area may be displayed. In response to identification of a business object instance, a business object, a node, or a data type, information pertaining to the identified business object instance, business object, node, or data type may be displayed.
In an embodiment, the displayed information may be corresponding attribute names, attribute user interface texts, and attribute values of attributes belonging to the identified business object, business object instance, or node. In an embodiment, the displayed information may be associated business object instances, associated business objects, and/or associated nodes associated with the identified business object, business object instance, or node. In an embodiment, the displayed information may be release status, write access, and/or mandatory indicator of the identified business object, business object instance, or node. In an embodiment, the displayed information may be available data type values and corresponding data type value descriptions of the identified data type. In an embodiment, the displayed information may be a tree representation of the identified business object, business object instance, or node.
Business software usually includes a standard set of BOs which can be utilized by the software user to model a business organization and the activities pertaining to the business organization. For example, in an embodiment, business software may include BOs representing sales orders, sales quotes, customer quotes, service documents, business opportunities, production models, and production segments. There may be multiple instances of a BO. For example, a business organization may receive multiple sales orders, and each sales order may be represented by a sales order BO instance.
In an embodiment, a BO and/or BO instance may contain a set of nodes. Each node of a BO instance may represent information about the BO instance. For example, a sales order received by a business organization may be represented by a sales order BO instance. The sales order BO instance may include nodes representing a product within that sales order, a delivery location of the sales order, etc. In an embodiment, a root node of the BO instance may represent the BO instance. In an embodiment, one or more nodes in a BO instance may themselves be BO instances. For example, a product BO instance may be a node included within a sales order BO instance.
In an embodiment, a BO, BO instance, and/or nodes may contain a set of attributes.
Each attribute may represent information about the BO instance and/or node. For example, a sales order received by a business organization may be represented by a sales order BO instance. The sales order BO instance may include attributes representing, for example, the price of the sales order, the time of delivery of the sales order, etc.
In an embodiment, a node from a BO and/or BO instance may be associated with a node from another BO and/or BO instance. For example, a sales quote BO instance may represent a sales quote given by a seller to a consumer. The consumer may then place a sales order based on the sales quote. Therefore, the product in the sales quote and the product in the sales order may be the same. To represent the relationship between the sales order and the sales quote, the product node in the sales quote BO instance may be associated with the product node in the sales order BO instance. In an embodiment, since the sales order is fulfilled based on the initial sales quote, the root node of the sales quote BO instance may be associated with the root node of the sales order BO instance. In an embodiment, a node from a BO instance may be associated with another node in the same BO instance.
In an embodiment, a software provider may provide the software to a third party, called a software partner, and the software partner may customize the software further and provide the software to the ultimate software consumer. The software partner may customize the software to fit particular needs of a type of consumer.
For example, in an embodiment, a business software consumer such as an automobile seller may be interested in purchasing business software to model the consumer's business. A software provider may provide business software with generic BOs to a partner specializing in the automobile industry. The business software with generic BOs may include a generic sales quote BO. The generic sales quote BO may include a field to specify a type of product such as a car. However, the generic sales quote BO may not allow for enough granularity to specify the exact make and model of the car. Therefore the software provider may provide the partner with tools to extend the generic sales quote BO. Since the partner specializes in the automobile industry, the partner may extend the generic sales quote BO such that the exact make and model of the car can be specified. The partner may then provide the software to the business software consumer (the automobile seller) with the added functionality. In an embodiment, the software provider may directly provide the business software consumer with tools to extend the generic sales quote BO. Thus, instead of the partner, the business software consumer may extend the generic sales quote BO such that the exact make and model of the car can be specified.
Traditionally, it has been difficult for a third party (such as a partner or a consumer) to customize software since the third party did not have an intuitive view of BOs and related software building blocks such as BO instances, nodes, data types, attributes, etc. Therefore customization of software has been a process which does not scale easily.
For example, in an embodiment, a user may specify the values: “production model,” in the BO field 112, “root” in the node field 116, and “query 1” in the query field 118. The GUI 100 may automatically populate the relevant query parameters associated with query 1 in the area to specify query parameters 120. The user may then modify the values of the query parameters 120 such as “creation date,” “productionID,” and “last change date.” As a result, the root nodes of production model BO instances with attribute values matching the query parameters 120 may be displayed in GUI 100 or another GUI. In an embodiment, the query parameters field 120 may contain an option to exclude BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes based on the attribute values of certain attributes. In an embodiment, instead of specifying the exact value of a query parameter, a range may be specified with a lower boundary value and an upper boundary value.
In an embodiment, the available values for the search fields displayed in search area 110 may be shown via a pre-populated drop down menu. In an embodiment, the values for the search fields may be typed in manually as a text string.
In an embodiment, the first display area 220 may display attribute(s) of the displayed BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes. The first area 220 may display the attributes(s) of the BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes and the may present the information in an organized manner. For example, in an embodiment, the first area 220 may display the BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes in a table format. Each row of the table may represent a BO, BO instance, or node, and each column of each row may present attribute(s) of that BO, BO instance, or node.
In an embodiment, the second display area 230 may display attribute(s) of a selected BO(s), BO instance(s), and/or node(s). In an embodiment, a displayed BO, BO instance, or node may be selected by clicking on the row representing the BO, BO instance, or node in the first display area 220. In response to selecting a BO, BO instance, or node in the first area 220, the row representing the BO, BO instance, or node may be highlighted, outlined by a shadow, etc., to indicate that the BO, BO instance, or node has been selected. In an embodiment, in response to selecting a BO, BO instance, or node in the first area 220, attribute(s) of that BO, BO instance, or node may be automatically populated in the second area 230.
The second area 230 may display a technical identifier of the attribute(s), a user-friendly identifier of the attribute(s), known as attribute user interface (UI) text, and/or the value(s) of the attribute(s). The technical identifier of an attribute may be an identifier used during programming of software to identify an attribute. The user-friendly identifier of an attribute may be a more descriptive identifier which relays more information about the attribute to a user. For example, a production model BO instance may include an attribute identifying the creation date of the production model BO instance. The creation date attribute may be identified by a terse technical identifier such as “creationDate,” but may be identified by a more descriptive user-friendly identifier such as “date of creation of BO instance.”
Similarly, in an embodiment, the attribute values displayed on the GUI 200 may be shown in a technical format and/or in a user-friendly format. The technical attribute value may be used during programming of software to identify the attribute value. The user-friendly attribute value may be a more descriptive value which relays more information to a user. For example, a production model BO instance may include an attribute value identifying the creation date of the production model BO instance. The creation date attribute value may be presented as a terse technical value such as “20120428,” but may also be presented as a more descriptive user-friendly value such as “Apr. 28, 2012.”
In an embodiment, the GUI 200 may display mechanisms to view BO, BO instance, or node information unable to fit on the GUI 200. For example, in an embodiment, the number of BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes corresponding to a search criteria and/or the attributes of the BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes may exceed the number of BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes and/or the number of attributes displayable on the GUI 200. In an embodiment, the GUI 200, the first area 220, and/or the second area 230 may include buttons (not shown) to scroll horizontally and/or the vertically across the results from the search criteria. For example, in an embodiment, the first area 220 may only be capable of displaying 50 attributes. However, each BO, BO instance, or node may include 100 attributes. Thus, initially, only the first 50 attributes of each BO, BO instance, or node may be displayed on the first area 220, and a button labeled “next attributes” may be presented on the GUI 200. Clicking on the button may display the second 50 attributes (i.e., attributes 50 to 100).
A person having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the scrolling mechanism can be implemented in various ways including horizontal and vertical scroll bars, clickable arrows, dragging/swiping with the mouse pointer, etc.
In an embodiment, selecting an associated BO, BO instance, or node in GUI 300 may display the attributes, attribute UI text, and attribute values as discussed with reference to GUI 200 (
In an embodiment, a filtering field 312 may be displayed on GUI 300. The user may type in an identifier or a portion of an identifier identifying any of the associated BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes 310, and in response, only the associated BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes matching the typed in identifier or portion of the identifier may be displayed. For example, in an embodiment, typing in the phrase “Agg,” may filter the displayed BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes such that only the BO, BO instance, or node, “AggregationLevel” may be displayed since the identifiers of other BOs, BO instances, and/or nodes may not include the phrase “Agg.”
In an embodiment, detailed information 412 related to a selected BO may be presented. In an embodiment, a displayed BO may be selected by clicking on the row representing the BO. In response to selecting a BO, the row representing the BO may be highlighted, outlined by a shadow, etc., to indicate that the BO has been selected. In an embodiment, in response to selecting a BO, information 412 related to that BO instance may be automatically populated and displayed.
In an embodiment, the information related to BO(s) displayed may include an identifier identifying each BO, a namespace, the release status of the BO, the BO UI text (i.e., the user-friendly description of the BO), and whether there is write access to the BO. In an embodiment, the write access information may be displayed for different types of users. For example, in an embodiment, the write access level for a partner may be displayed. In another embodiment, the write access level for a consumer of the software may be displayed.
In an embodiment, the GUI 400 may display mechanisms to view BO information unable to fit on the GUI 400 as discussed with reference to GUI 200 (
In an embodiment, a second area may present information 512 related to a selected attribute from the first area. In an embodiment, a displayed attribute may be selected by clicking on the row representing the attribute in the first display area. In response to selecting an attribute in the first area, the row representing the attribute may be highlighted, outlined by a shadow, etc., to indicate that the attribute has been selected. In an embodiment, in response to selecting an attribute in the first area, information 512 related to that attribute may be automatically populated in the second area.
In an embodiment, the information related to attribute(s) displayed in the first area and/or the second area may include an identifier identifying the attribute, the namespace of the attribute, the release status of the attribute, the data type of the attribute, whether there is write access to the attribute, the BO which the attribute belongs to, the node which the attribute belongs to, the attribute UI text, data type namespace, data type representation term, data type release status, alternative key, foreign key usage, if the attribute is mandatory, if the attribute is enabled in the software, and if the attribute is read-only. In an embodiment, the write access information may be displayed for different types of users. For example, in an embodiment, the write access level for a partner may be displayed. In another embodiment, the write access level for a consumer of the software may be displayed.
In an embodiment, a grouping field 516 may be displayed on GUI 500. The displayed results 514 may be grouped based on criteria specified in the grouping field 516. For example, as illustrated, in an embodiment, the results 514 may be grouped based on nodes. Specifically, the attributes belonging to a first node (such as the root node) may be displayed first, the attributes belonging to a second node may be displayed second, and so on.
In an embodiment, the GUI 500 may display mechanisms to view attribute information unable to fit on the GUI 500 as discussed with reference to GUI 200 (
In an embodiment, the displayed information may include a description of the data type value. The value of a data type may be used when a software program is executing to keep track of a state of a variable (such as an attribute). However, the value may not be descriptive. The description of the data type value may relay more information about the data type value to a user. For example, a data type may include many numeric values. Each numeric value may have a particular meaning, and this meaning may be displayed as the value's description in GUI 600.
In an embodiment, the GUI 600 may display mechanisms to view attribute information unable to fit on the GUI 600 as discussed with reference to GUI 200 (
In an embodiment, each branch of the tree may represent a node(s), BO(s), BO instance(s), action(s), association(s), one or more queries, key(s), and/or child node(s). Each branch of the tree may indicate the type of data represented by that branch and an identifier identifying that data. For example, in an embodiment, a search performed in the search area may return information 714 about the BO, production model 720. The initial branch displayed may be the root node 722. The initial branch may include two sets of information: the type of data in that branch (“node”) and the identifier identifying that data (“root”).
In an embodiment, the user may expand a branch to view more information under that branch. For example, the user may expand the branch 722 (by an action such as clicking on the branch) to view all information under the branch 722. In an embodiment, under the root node branch 722 associations 724 associated to that root node may be displayed. The user may then expand the associations to view each individual association.
In an embodiment, the GUI 700 may display mechanisms to view attribute information unable to fit on the GUI 700 as discussed with reference to GUI 200 (
A person having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the GUIs illustrated in
A person having ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that while internal systems 830 and external systems 850 are included in
Each of the systems in
In an embodiment, memory 813 may contain different components for retrieving, presenting, changing, and saving data. Memory 813 may include a variety of memory devices, for example, Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static RAM (SRAM), flash memory, cache memory, and other memory devices. Additionally, for example, memory 813 and processing device(s) 812 may be distributed across several different computers that collectively comprise a system.
Database 811 may include any type of data storage adapted to searching and retrieval. The database 811 may include SAP database (SAP DB), Informix, Oracle, DB2, Sybase, and other such database systems. The database 811 may include SAP's HANA (high performance analytic appliance) in-memory computing engine and other such in-memory databases.
Processing device 812 may perform computation and control functions of a system and comprises a suitable central processing unit (CPU). Processing device 812 may comprise a single integrated circuit, such as a microprocessing device, or may comprise any suitable number of integrated circuit devices and/or circuit boards working in cooperation to accomplish the functions of a processing device. Processing device 812 may execute computer programs, such as object-oriented computer programs, within memory 813.
The foregoing description has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not exhaustive and does not limit embodiments of the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from the practicing embodiments consistent with the invention. For example, some of the described embodiments may include software and hardware, but some systems and methods consistent with the present invention may be implemented in software or hardware alone. Additionally, although aspects of the present invention are described as being stored in memory, this may include other computer readable media, such as secondary storage devices, for example, solid state drives, or DVD ROM; the Internet or other propagation medium; or other forms of RAM or ROM.
