Patent Application
20060080325
The invention relates to the field of document management. More particularly, the present invention relates to displaying documents in a way that explicitly demonstrates the connections between documents.
Business processes that last over a period of several years, and evolve over that period, lead to a lot of documents. These documents may evolve by changes to the original agreement, execution of options, and the like. Each of these evolutions lead to a new document. That new document is linked to the preceding document. By analyzing the flow of such documents, one can get a sense of the progress of the overall business process. However many of these business transactions are highly complex with too many documents to process in an efficient manner.
a is a flowchart of one embodiment of a method of using the document flow analyzer.
a-b are block diagrams of one embodiment of a graphical user interface (GUI) to display the document chain.
a-d are block diagrams of embodiments of various types of reporting paths.
A system and a method for displaying and analyzing a business process based on the document flow of that business process. The graphical user interface may graphically display a set of documents relevant to a business process and the linkages between the set of documents as a document chain on a computer display to facilitate analysis of a business process. The linkages may represent change processes or binary relationships. A subset of documents may be filtered from the group of documents. The filtering may be performed based on a type of linkage. The subset of documents may be all successors of a starting document, all predecessors of the starting document, all successors of a root document of the starting document, or all successors and predecessors of the starting document. The graphical user interface may further graphically display items within documents and the linkages between the items. The graphical user interface may further display details about the selected document.
One or more of the terminals 110, 120 may be personal computers, computer workstations, handheld personal digital assistants (“PDA”), or any other type of microprocessor-based device.
The network 130 may be a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), remote access network, an intranet, or the Internet, for example. Network links for the network 130 may include telephone lines, DSL, cable networks, T1 or T3 lines, wireless network connections, or any other arrangement that implements the transmission and reception of network signals. However, while
The controller/processor 210 may be any programmed processor known to one of skill in the art. However, the decision support method can also be implemented on a general-purpose or a special purpose computer, a programmed microprocessor or microcontroller, peripheral integrated circuit elements, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or other integrated circuits, hardware/electronic logic circuits, such as a discrete element circuit, a programmable logic device, such as a PLD, PLA, FPGA, or PAL, or the like. In general, any device or devices capable of implementing the decision support method as described herein can be used to implement the decision support system functions of this invention.
The Input/Output interface 250 may be connected to one or more input devices that may include a keyboard, mouse, pen-operated touch screen or monitor, voice-recognition device, or any other device that accepts input. The Input/Output interface 250 may also be connected to one or more output devices, such as a monitor, printer, disk drive, speakers, or any other device provided to output data.
The memory 220 may include volatile and nonvolatile data storage, including one or more electrical, magnetic or optical memories such as a RAM, cache, hard drive, CD-ROM drive, tape drive or removable storage disk.
The network interface 260 may be connected to a communication device, modem, network interface card, or any other device capable of transmitting and receiving signals over a network 130. The components of the terminals 110, 120 may be connected via an electrical bus 270, for example, or linked wirelessly.
Client software and databases may be accessed by the controller/processor 210 from memory 220 or through the database interface 240, and may include, for example, database applications, word processing applications, the client side of a client/server application such as a billing system, as well as components that embody the decision support functionality of the present invention. The terminals 110, 120 may implement any operating system, such as Windows or UNIX, for example. Client and server software may be written in any programming language, such as ABAP, C, C++, lava or Visual Basic, for example.
The document flow analyzer may be used to analyze the course of a business process as memorialized in the business documents controlling the process.
The document flow analyzer may differentiate between three different kinds of document linkages, illustrated in
A first binary document 530 may be linked to a second binary document 540 in a binary linkage. The binary linkage refers to two documents linked due to a binary relationship, or a relationship not created by a change process. For example, every time a leasing item is created, a master agreement is assigned to that item which contains the general terms and conditions. A leasing item may have a master agreement, a vendor invoice, and a billing document.
Further, linkages may exist on an item level with a global allocation identification (GAID), between items of a combined contract, and due to an upgrade process. The GAID or other identifiers may be used by the document flow analyzer to signify links between the items. The linkages may be binary linkages, such as between Item A 552 of a first document 550 and Item A 562 of a second document 560. The linkages may be change process linkages, such as between Item B 554 of a first document 550 and Item B 564 of a second document 560. Furthermore, linkages may occur between items in the same document, such as between Item C 556 and Item D 558 of a document 550. These may be due to an inbound change process. An inbound change process does not create a new document, but rather a new item inside the same document. The new item is linked to the old item.
A selection screen 600 may be provided to the user by the document flow analyzer to allow the user to choose a start document, as shown in
The document chain may be displayed using a graphical user interface (GUI) 700, as shown in
b illustrates one embodiment of the document relation area 740, in which the document relation area 740 is presented as a root directory. A business process may be listed in the title section 741. An arrow icon may show each document linked by a change process 742. A chain icon may show each document linked by a binary process 743. A document icon may show each item linked to the previous document 744. For example, the business process may be a leasing agreement 741, with a lease and a lease quotation 742, a vendor invoice and a bill 743, and related provisions 744.
Parameters that may be used to determine layout and amount of selected data include reporting path, binary relation, transaction types, document types, item types, status conditions on an item level, column area, and data to be read. These parameters may be customized, with certain types of these parameters excluded, to the taste of the users. These parameters are encapsulated in so called “reporting views”. The reporting views may be maintained in customizing. The user has to choose one reporting view before executing the program. The parameters of the chosen reporting view are used as default parameters, but may be changed temporarily by the user online. Furthermore the user may change the reporting view or select another starting document without restarting the program. So the displayed data may be changed in a very flexible manner.
Various types of reporting paths may be used, as shown in
A GAID reporting path may also be displayed. This path includes all documents that have at least one item with a GAID that matches a GAID entered by the user. This path may be used if the user wants to identify a special deal by the GAID and read all items over several documents with that GAID.
Binary relations may be excluded from the display based on their process type. This exclusion reduces the number of selected and displayed documents. For example, all master agreements or billing documents may be excluded from display.
A special item view may be displayed, showing an item overview. The item overview displays all items in a table and not in a hierarchy. This view allows a user to view the items based on their status, such as active or inactive. If the status conditions are not fulfilled for all items of a document, the document will not be displayed in the hierarchy.
The columns in the document information area 750 and the detail area 760 may be customized as to which columns are displayed and in which order. The width and names of the columns may be adjusted or edited by the user. Certain columns may be emphasized in the display based on the user's needs.
Several embodiments of the invention are specifically illustrated and/or described herein. However, it will be appreciated that modifications and variations of the invention are covered by the above teachings and within the purview of the appended claims without departing from the spirit and intended scope of the invention.
