This invention relates generally to a system and method for associating data records within one or more databases, and in particular to a system and method for identifying data records in one or more databases that may contain information about the same entity, associating those data records together for easier access to information about the entity, associating related entities for easier access to information about relationships between entities and interfaces for the management, manipulation and viewing of such data records, entities and relationships.
Data about almost anything, such as people, products, or parts may be stored in digital format in a data source such as a computer database. These computer databases permit this data to be accessed rapidly and may permit the data to be cross-referenced to other relevant pieces of data within the database. The databases also permit a person to query the database to find data records pertaining to a particular search criteria. A database, however, has several limitations which may limit the ability of a person to find the correct data within the database. The actual data within the database is only as accurate as the person who entered the data. Thus, a mistake in the entry of the data into the database may cause a person looking for data in the database to miss some relevant data because, for example, a last name of a person was misspelled. Another kind of mistake involves creating a new separate record for something that already has a record within the database (e.g. duplicative records, where the data records may have one or more different attributes). Furthermore, several data records may contain information about the same thing, but, for example, the names or identification numbers contained in the two data records may be different so that the database may not be able to associate the two data records with one another.
For a business that operates one or more databases containing a large number of data records, the ability to locate relevant information about a particular thing within and among the respective databases is very important, but not easily obtained. Once again, any mistake in the entry of data (including without limitation the creation of more than one data record for the same thing) at any information source may cause relevant data to be missed when the data for a particular thing is searched for in the database. In addition, in cases involving multiple information sources, each of the information sources may have slightly different data syntax or formats which may further complicate the process of finding data among the databases. An example of the need to properly identify something referred to in a data record and to locate all relevant data records in the health care field is one in which a number of different hospitals associated with a particular health care organization may have one or more information sources containing information about their patient, and a health care organization collects the information from each of the hospitals into a master database. It may be desired to link data records from all of the information sources pertaining to the same patient to enable searching for information for a particular patient in all of the hospital records.
There are several problems which limit the ability to find relevant data in such a database. Multiple data records may exist for a particular thing as a result of separate data records received from one or more information sources, which leads to a problem that can be called data fragmentation. In the case of data fragmentation, a query of the master database may not retrieve all of the relevant information about a particular thing. In addition, as described above, the query may miss some relevant information due to a typographical error made during data entry, which leads to the problem of data inaccessibility. In addition, a large database may contain data records which appear to be identical, such as a plurality of records for people with the last name of Smith and the first name of Jim. A query of the database will retrieve all of these data records and a person who made the query to the database may often choose, at random, one of the data records retrieved which may be the wrong data record. The person may not often typically attempt to determine which of the records is appropriate. This can lead to the wrong data records being retrieved even when the correct data records are available. These problems limit the ability to locate desired information for about a particular thing within the database.
For a variety of reasons it may also be desirable to associate various data records within these various information sources. For example, to reduce the amount of data that must be reviewed and prevent the user from picking the wrong data record, it is also desirable to identify and associate data records from the various information sources that may contain information about the same thing. There are conventional systems that locate duplicate data records within a database and delete those duplicate data records, but these systems only locate data records which are identical to each other. Thus, these conventional systems cannot determine if two data records, with for example slightly different last names, nevertheless contain information about the same entity. In addition, these conventional systems do not attempt to index data records from a plurality of different information sources, locate data records within the one or more information sources containing information about the same entity, and link those data records together.
Additionally, it may be desired to associate or group data records within various information sources where the various data records pertain to a particular logical or physical thing. For example, different family members may each have distinct data records yet it may still be desirable to associate these various distinct data records with one another such that the grouping of data records represents a household. Another example may be the association of various distinct data records together to represent a division within a business, etc. In other words, it may be desired to group distinct data records together according to almost any logical pr physical group or thing.
Similarly, data records in an information source may relate to one another in a variety of manners and it may be desired to associate data records within multiple information sources in a manner which expresses relationships between those things on which the data records contain information. For example, one data record may comprise information on an employer while another data record may comprise information on an employee, it may thus be desired to associate the two data records in a manner which expresses this employer/employee relationship. Similarly, one data record may comprise information on a parent corporation and another data record may comprise information on a subsidiary corporation. Here as well it may be desired to associate the two data records in a manner which expresses this parent/subsidiary relationship between the corporations on which the data records comprise information.
Thus, as can be seen from the above discussion, in many cases it may be desired to associate data records for a variety of reasons and purposes to allow a user to better manipulate, organize, filter or otherwise process data in a variety of data sources. As may also be discerned the manipulation, organization or processing or viewing of such a large amount of data may be somewhat problematic, especially once data records have been grouped to represent various things and the relationships between these various things have also been represented. Thus, not only is it desired to be able to associate these data records in an arbitrarily complex manner to represent various things and the relationships amongst these things, but it is also desired to have an interface which allows the management, manipulation or visualization of such data records and associations.
Systems and methods for use in association with a master entity index system which allows data records to be process, updated, stored or managed are presented herein. More specifically, embodiments of such a master entity index system may allow data records to be grouped together into various entities, where each of the entities may represent a logical or physical item. These entities may also be associated with one another in a manner such that relationships between entities may likewise be represented.
Particularly, in one embodiment, a set of entity types representing logical or physical items may be defined and data records algorithmically associated with one or more entities corresponding to an entity type. One or more relationship types may also be defined such that data records may be related to one or more entities and entities themselves related to one or more other entities using these relationships. In this manner, data records from a variety of data sources may be associated with entities representing a variety of real world (or application specific, etc.) phenomena and relationships between these entities established and tracked.
Additionally, in one embodiment an interface may be provided for use in conjunction with such a master entity index system to facilitate management, manipulation or visualization of these various entities and relationships. This interface may allow a user to search for or otherwise obtain an entity, where a representation of this entity and one or more associated entities may be presented to the user along with representations of the relationships between these entities. Such an interface may allow a user to obtain a wide variety of information or accomplish a whole host of tasks with respect to the entities and relationships maintained by the master entity index system, as will be explained in more detail below.
Embodiments of the present invention may provide the technical advantages that data record from various data sources may be associated with a variety of types entities, resulting in the representation of many different types of logical or physical phenomena, the relationships between these phenomena and the disambiguation of various data records which may be received from the variety of different sources with respect to these various entities. Furthermore, a current state (e.g. of the entities and relationships) of the master entity index system (or a portion thereof) may be loaded and represented graphically for a user, such that a user can manipulate the graphical representation to change the underlying state of the master entity index system.
Embodiments of the invention disclosed herein can be implemented by programming one or more computer systems or devices with computer-executable instructions embodied in a computer-readable medium. When executed by a processor, these instructions operate to cause these computer systems and devices to perform one or more functions particular to embodiments of the invention disclosed herein. Programming techniques, computer languages, devices, and computer-readable media necessary to accomplish this are known in the art and thus will not be further described herein.
These, and other, aspects of the invention will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. The following description, while indicating various embodiments of the invention and numerous specific details thereof, is given by way of illustration and not of limitation. Many substitutions, modifications, additions or rearrangements may be made within the scope of the invention, and the invention includes all such substitutions, modifications, additions or rearrangements.
The invention and the various features and advantageous details thereof are explained more fully with reference to the nonlimiting embodiments that are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and detailed in the following description. Descriptions of well known starting materials, processing techniques, components and equipment are omitted so as not to unnecessarily obscure the invention in detail. Skilled artisans should understand, however, that the detailed description and the specific examples, while disclosing preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only and not by way of limitation. Various substitutions, modifications, additions or rearrangements within the scope of the underlying inventive concept(s) will become apparent to those skilled in the art after reading this disclosure.
Reference is now made in detail to the exemplary embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts (elements). In one embodiment, the system and method of the invention is particularly applicable to a system and method for indexing information from multiple information sources pertaining to organizations. It is in this context that certain embodiments will be described. It will be appreciated, however, that the systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention have utility in a large number of applications that involve identifying, associating, manipulating or otherwise managing data records in a variety of contexts.
In reviewing embodiments of the systems and methods of the present invention, it may first be helpful to go over examples of embodiments of systems and methods for associating and indexing data records which may be utilized in conjunction with embodiments of the present invention, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,758, entitled “System and Method for Indexing Information about Entities from Different Information Sources”, issued Nov. 23, 1999 by inventor Scott Ellard and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/656,111 entitled “Method and System for Indexing Information about Entities with Respect to Hierarchies”, filed Jan. 22, 2007 by inventors Scott Ellard et at both of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
After reviewing the discussions presented herein and the above reference patent it will be apparent that there may be a variety reasons why it is desired to associate, index or otherwise manage data records from a variety of sources. To that end, attention is now directed to systems and methods for use in association with a master entity index system which allows data records to be process, updated, stored or managed. More specifically, embodiments of such a master entity index system may allow data records to be grouped together into various entities, where each of the entities may represent a logical or physical item. These entities may also be associated with one another in a manner such that relationships between entities may likewise be represented.
Particularly, in one embodiment, a set of entity types representing logical or physical items may be defined and data records algorithmically associated with one or more entities corresponding to an entity type. One or more relationship types may also be defined such that data records may be related to one or more entities and entities themselves related to one or more other entities using these relationships. In this manner, data records from a variety of data sources may be associated with entities representing a variety of real world (or application specific, etc.) phenomena and relationships between these entities established and tracked.
Additionally, an interface may be provided for use in conjunction with an embodiment of a master entity index system such that these various entities and relationships may be better managed, manipulated or visualized. In one embodiment, this interface may allow a user to search for or otherwise obtain an entity, where a representation of this entity and one or more associated entities may be presented to the user along with representations of the relationships between these entities. Such an interface may allow a user to obtain a wide variety of information or accomplish a whole host of tasks with respect to the entities and relationships maintained by the master entity index system, as will be explained in more detail below.
Turing now to
Reading thus far it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, that both the data sources 34, 36, 38 and the operators 40, 42, 44 may be affiliated with similar or different organizations or owners. For example, data source 34 may be affiliated with a hospital in Los Angeles run by one health care network, while data source 36 may be affiliated with a hospital in New York run by another health care network. Consequently, the data records of each of data sources may be of a different format or may pertain to different types of items.
This may be illustrated more clearly with reference to
Notice, however, that each of the records may have a different format, for example data record 202 may have a filed for the attribute of driver's license number, while data record 200 may have no such field. Similarly, like attributes may have different formats as well. For example, name fields 210a, 210b 210c in record 200 may accept the entry of a full first, last and middle name, while name fields 210d, 210e, 210f in record 202 may be designed for full first and last names, but only allow the entry of a middle initial.
As may be imagined, discrepancies such as this may be problematic when comparing two or more data records (e.g. attributes of data records) to identify data records which should be linked. The name “James T. Kirk” is not the same as “James Tiberius Kirk”. Similarly, a typo or mistake in entering data for a data record may also affect the comparison of data records (e.g. comparing the name “James T. Kirk” with “Kames T. Kirk” where “Kames” resulted from a typo in entering the name “James”). Exacerbating the data management issues which may arise with respect to data sources 34, 36, 38, in many cases data sources 34, 36, 38 may comprise data records on different items altogether. For example, data sources 34 and 36 may comprise data records pertaining to patients in a health care organization while data source 38 may comprise data records pertaining to medical supply inventories.
It may be desired therefore, not only to associate, index and manage data records which pertain to the same physical or logical entity, but also to manage data records that pertain to distinct logical or physical entities in conjunction with one another under the rubric of another type of entity. For example, data sources 34, 36, 38 may comprise data records which pertain to different people. Some of these people may, however, belong to the same family or household. Therefore, even though data sources 34, 3638 comprise data records corresponding to a particular type of entity (e.g. a “person” entity) it may be desirable to associate, or manage, distinct records within the data sources 34, 36, 38 in conjunction with one another under another type of entity (e.g. a “household” entity).
From the above description it will be apparent therefore, that the entities with which MEI 32 associates data records in data sources 34, 36, 38 may correspond exactly to the entities on which data records in data sources 34, 36, 38 comprise data or may be an arbitrarily complex representation of any other real world, logical or physical phenomena or item with which it is desired to associate or group these data records. Consequently, the entities tracked using the MEI may include almost any desired entity, the definition of which will be explained in more detail below.
Returning to
In particular the MEI may provide an application programming interface (API) such that various functionality of the MEI may be accessed or utilized through this API. In one embodiment, one or more interfaces may be implemented in conjunction with the computers of one or more users 40, 42, 44 such that these interfaces may be used by a user to query, configure or otherwise interact or perform operations associated with the MEI through the API provided by the MEI. These interfaces may, for example, include a graphical user interface (GUI), a command line interface, or one or more web pages which may be accessed through a web browser. These web pages may for example be in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. These web pages may be retrieved by a user (e.g. using Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP) from a local computer or from a remote web server where the server may restrict access only to a private network (e.g. a corporate intranet) or it may publish pages on the World Wide Web. Embodiments of interfaces such as these will be discussed in more detail subsequently, while embodiments of such an API for use with such interfaces may be better understood with reference to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/900,769 entitled “Implementation Defined Segments for Relational Database Systems”, by Scott Ellard et al, filed on Sep. 13, 2007, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,356,009 fully incorporated herein by reference.
The MEI may, in addition, have its own database that stores the complete data records in the MEI, but the MEI may also only contain sufficient data to identify a data record (e.g., an address in a particular information source) or any portion of the data fields that comprise a complete data record so that the MEI retrieves the entire data record from an information source when needed. The MEI may link data records together containing information about an entity utilizing an entity identifier or associative database, as described below, separate from the actual data record. Thus, the MEI may maintain links between data records in one or more information sources, but does not necessarily maintain a single uniform data record for an entity. The MEI may, however, maintain one or more attribute values to be utilized in association with an entity. These values may be referred to as the entity most current attributes (EMCA) and may be values for one or more attributes which may, for example, be attribute values corresponding to one or more data records associated with the entity, where attribute values may be selected based upon a priority associated with the data records based upon the information source 34, 36, 38 comprising the data record.
Moving now to
As data records from the information sources are fed into the MEI, the MEI may attempt to match the incoming data record to one or more data records already located in the MEI database according to a matching algorithm configured in association with each entity type (these matching methods are set forth in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,758). If an incoming data record matches an existing data record according to a matching algorithm corresponding to a particular entity type, a link between the incoming data record and the matching data record may be generated such that both the incoming data record and the existing data record are associated with the same entity of that entity type. If the incoming data record does not match any of the existing data records in the MEI according to a particular matching algorithm corresponding to a particular entity type, a new entity identifier corresponding to that entity type may be generated and associated with the incoming data record. In both cases, the incoming data record may be stored in the MEI. As additional data records are received from the information sources, these data records are matched to existing data records (e.g. and thus entities) and the MEI database of data records is increased.
The query unit permits a user of the master entity index system to query the MEI about information in the data records or information in the control databases of the MEI and the MEI will return a response to the query including any relevant data records or information. The configuration unit may allow a user or administrator to configure various portions of MEI, including without limitations the types of entities, relationships, algorithms or threshold values utilized by MEI. While the various functionality of each of these units will be explained in more detail below it should be noted that the functionality described with respect to each of the units is exemplary only and more or less functionality may be implemented in conjunction with certain embodiments. Furthermore, this functionality need not be separated into multiple units and any desired functionality may be incorporated into a single unit or multiple units according to the embodiment desired. Similarly, as discussed above one or more interfaces may be utilized in conjunction with the MEI, these interfaces may allow access to all or a portion of the functionality of these units, where one interface may be used for all units, each unit may have its own interface or some combination, depending on the embodiment desired.
Now the data store 54 of the master entity index system will be described in more detail. The data store 54 may include an entity database 56, a relationship database 60 and one or more control databases 56 or exception occurrence databases 90 as described in more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,758. The entity database 56 may comprise entity identifiers, each entity identifier associated with one or more associated data records and corresponding to a particular entity type. Thus, entity identifiers may associate or “link” those data records which reference the same entity. In this example, the data records are represented as an alphabetic identifier and the entity identifier is shown as the base part followed by a period followed by a version number followed by a period and an entity type. For example, “100.1.person” indicates an entity identifier with 100 as the base part and 1 as the version number corresponds to the “person” entity type.
The relationship database 60 may similarly comprise relationship identifiers, each relationship identifier associated with one or more associated entities and corresponding to a particular relationship type. Thus, relationship identifiers may denote a relationship of the corresponding relationship type between the associated entities. In this example, the entities are represented with their entity identifiers and the relationship identifier is shown as a base number followed by a period followed by a relationship type. For example, “200.owns: 100.1, 101.1” indicates a relationship identifier of 200 corresponds to the relationship type “owns” and designates a relationship of this type between the entities represented by entity identifiers 100.1 and 101.1.
These entity types and relationship types may better understood with respect to
At step 540 a data source 34, 36, 38 may be specified for data records of the member type. More specifically, it may be the case that attributes associated with a particular member type may be stored in multiple data sources 34, 36, 38 thus, in one embodiment, it may be possible to associate a particular data source with each attribute of the member type. After the member type is defined then, at step 550 an entity type may be defined based upon the defined member type. The definition of the entity type may denote that a user wishes to define an entity type based upon the member type. In other words, the entity type may represent a particular type of association of those member data records and it may thus be desired by a user to match, index, link or otherwise associate data records of that member type as entities according to that entity type. In association with this entity type then, a corresponding algorithm may be defined at step 560. The algorithm corresponding to the entity type may be utilized for a match operation between data records of the member type associated with the that entity type such that member data records of that member type may be associated with one another as an entity of that entity type through a match operation performed according to the algorithm corresponding to that entity type. The configuration of such an algorithm may be better understood with reference to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/702,410, entitled “Method and System for a Graphical User Interface for the Configuration of an Algorithm for the Matching of Data Records” by Schumacher et al filed on Feb. 5, 2007 and fully incorporated herein by reference.
Moving now to
After selecting the directionality of the relationship type, then, the user may define the multiplicity of the relationship at step 630. The multiplicity of a relationship may designate the number of entities which may correspond to the relationship. This multiplicity may designate, for example, a one to one, a many to one, a one to many or a many to many relationship type, indicating, respectively, that one entity may be related to one entity according to the relationship type, many entities may be related to one entity according to the relationship type, etc.
At step 640, the type(s) of entities which may be associated with the relationship type are defined. Here, the entity types to which the relationship type being defined may apply are specified. In other words, the relationship type may pertain, or have semantic meaning only with respect to certain entity types. These entity types may specified such that a relationship of the relationship type being defined may only designate a relationship between entities of the entity types specified. For example, a “employs” relationship type may be designated to apply to an “organization” entity type and a “person” entity type (e.g. an organization “employs” a person).
It may be useful here to illustrate the definition of an example entity type and relationship type in conjunction with the configuration of the MEI utilizing one embodiment of an interface which may be provided for such a purpose, as discussed above. Therefore attention is first directed to
Utilizing the interface as shown in
The user then selects the “Sources” tab in
The user next selects the “Algorithms” tab in
Moving now to
After a thorough review of the above description of the functioning of the MEI and the configuration of entity relationship type with respect to the MEI it will be understood that during operation the MEI may be configured with an arbitrary number of entity types or relationship types representing almost any manner of logical or physical phenomena and logical or physical relationships between these phenomena. The establishment of entities or relationships in conjunction with these entity types may better understood with respect to
Once the member type corresponding to the incoming data record is determined the data record may be validated and standardized at step 3220. Validation may include examining the lengths of the fields or the syntax or character format of the fields, for example, as numeric fields may be required to contain digits in specified formats. Validation may also involve validating codes in the new data record, for example, valid state abbreviations or diagnostic codes. Standardization of the data record may involve processing the incoming data record to compute standard representations of the values of attributes associated with the incoming data record, such as standard representation of names, street addresses or other geographic locations, social security numbers, etc.
The MEI may then, in step 3230, add the standardized data record to the data store as a data record of the member type determined at step 3210. Each entity type corresponding to the member type of the data record may then be determined at step 3240. As discussed above, when defining an entity type the type of member data records which may be associated with entities of that entity type may be defined. Thus, here it may be the case that each entity type which defines an association of data records of the member type determined at step 3210 may be identified. For each of the entity types identified then, a match operation may be performed at step 3250 between the new data record and other data records of that member type in the MEI based upon a comparison of attribute values according to the algorithm corresponding to that entity type (e.g. configured in conjunction with that entity type). This match operation may involve the generation of a set of candidate data records based upon a comparison of the new data record and the other data records of that member type. A confidence level may then be generated for each of the candidate data record with respect to the new data record.
If, at step 3260 the confidence level for all of the candidate data records is below a certain threshold (called a clerical review or softlink threshold) a new entity of the entity type may be established for the new data record at step 3262 (e.g. a new entity identifier generated and associated with the entity type and the new data record in the entity database). If, however, the score associated with a candidate data record is above another threshold (referred to as an autolink or hardlink threshold) at step 3264 the new data record may be associated or linked with the candidate data record. This association may involve associating the two records with a single entity identifier corresponding to the entity type in the entity database. If the confidence level associated with a candidate data record is above the clerical review threshold but below the autolink threshold at step 3268 the new data record may be associated or linked with the candidate data record and the association or link of the new data record to the candidate data record may be flagged or otherwise marked for review by a user of MEI such that a determination may be made whether this association or link should be maintained. Thus, when a new data record of a certain member type is added to MEI, for each of the entity types which correspond to that member type a new entity may be established and associated with the new data record or the new data record is associated with an existing entity of that type.
Moving on to
This embodiment for establishing a relationship between entities may be better illustrated with a specific example. Suppose that a user wishes to establish a relationship of type “owns” (as defined above) with respect to two entities. The user may be presented with a set of relationship types from which a user may select the “owns” relationship type. The user may then be presented with, or search for a first entity and select this entity. For purposes of this example suppose that this entity is an entity type of “id” representing a person named “Patty Countryman”. The user may then select a second entity, which for purposes of this example is supposed to be of entity type of “Vehicle” and corresponds to one or more data records representing a particular 1974 Ferrari Dino. In this case, as the relationship type of “owns” has been defined in conjunction with an entity type of “id” and an entity type of “Vehicle” the two selected entities are of the defined entity type a relationship of the type “owns” may be established between the first entity representing “Patty Countryman” and the second entity representing that particular 1974 Ferrari Dino where the established relationship may represent that Patty Countryman owns that 1974 Ferrari Dino.
From the above description it will also be noted that with respect to certain relationship types, such as one to many, many to many, or many to one relationships multiple entities may be selected with respect to certain relationships and these entities selected and associated with the relationship as well, where all the entities may be selected at once or at differing time periods. For example, suppose that in the future Patty Countryman purchases a 2007 Lotus Elise and an entity corresponding to the Lotus Elise is subsequently added to the MEI as discussed above. Here it may be possible to select the “owns” relationship established between Patty Countryman and the 1974 Ferrari Dino and add the 2007 Lotus Elise to that relationship as the relationship type “owns” is a one to many relationship. Thus, the same relationship may now represent that Patty Countryman owns both a 1974 Ferrari Dino and a 2007 Lotus Elise.
After reading this far it may occur to the reader that the combination of multiple data sources, multiple entity types and multiple relationship types may create a complex network of entities and relationships which may be managed or indexed with respect to an MEI. Consequently, in one embodiment, an interface may be provided for use in conjunction with an embodiment of a master entity index system such that the various entities and relationships utilized in conjunction with the MEI may be better established manipulated, visualized or otherwise managed. In particular the MEI may provide an application programming interface (API) such that various functionality of the MEI may be accessed or utilized through this API. In one embodiment, one or more interfaces may be implemented in conjunction with the computers of one or more users 40, 42, 44 such that these interfaces may be used by a user to query, configure or otherwise interact or perform operations associated with the MEI through the API provided by the MEI. These interfaces may, for example, include a graphical user interface (GUI) comprising one or more web pages which may be accessed through a web browser by a user. These web pages may be provided from an application executing on a local computer or from a remote web server where the server may restrict access only to a private network (e.g. a corporate intranet) or it may publish pages on the World Wide Web. Such an interface may allow a user to obtain a wide variety of information or accomplish a whole host of tasks with respect to the entities and relationships maintained by the MEI. Embodiments of such interfaces will be described in more detail below, but are also discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/901,040 entitled “Hierarchy Global Management System and User Interface”, by Sean Stephens et al., filed on Sep. 14, 2007, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,620,647 fully incorporated herein by reference.
The various functionalities of such an interface may be better described with reference to
Thus, MEI will now perform a search for member data records which correspond to the name “patty countryman” (e.g. which score above a certain threshold). As can be seen with reference to
The user may then select one the data records to view. In particular, a user may utilize the drop down menu to select a type of view to be presented in conjunction with a selected data record. These actions may include such actions as inspect relationships in association with the data record, or to view other information or associations corresponding to the data record. In
A selection of this sort may result in a graphical representation of the selected entity being presented to a user. More specifically, in one embodiment a new tab with the an identification of the data record selected may be created where the tab corresponds to a visual representation of the selected entity along with visual representations of all entities related to the selected entity and visual representations of the relationships between the selected entity and each corresponding related entity. The selected entity may be highlighted in some manner such that it is clear that the entity is currently the focus of the visual representation (referred to as the navigational focus point) while each of the graphical representations of a relationship may comprise a descriptor of the type of relationship represented (e.g. corresponding to a relationship name defined during definition of relationship type) and the directionality of the relationship. In many cases a selected entity may have a myriad number of relationships such that it may not be desired to represent each of these relationships in the visual representation to avoid clutter of the visual representation. In one embodiment, therefore, if the number of relationships of a certain relationship types is above a certain threshold (which may configurable) a type of icon such as a cloud or the like may be used to represent this set of relationships, where the cloud comprise a relationship descriptor corresponding to the relationship type and a number corresponding to the number of entities which are related to the navigational focus point according to that relationship type. A user may click on this cloud to obtain a more detailed visual representation of these entities (e.g. to display all the entities represented by this cloud or a portion thereof).
The user may interact with the graphical interface utilizing graphical representation 3700 to view information associated with each of the represented entities or relationships (e.g. the EMCA for the entity), manipulate the represented entities or relationships or resolve tasks associated with the represented entities or relationships (e.g. review established links). Additionally, the user may select another represented entity as the navigation pivot point. When another entity representation is selected as the navigation pivot point this entity may be highlighted to denote it as the navigation pivot point and any representations for any entities related to the entity represented by the new pivot point not currently represented in the graphical representation may also be displayed along with representations for those corresponding relationships. In addition, the representations of the entities and relationships may be shifted such that the new navigation pivot point is substantially centered in the display or may be shifted based upon the number, configuration or position of entity representations already displayed, or to be displayed, in conjunction with the new navigational pivot point. As may be imagined as the user interact with the graphical representation any number of representation may be displayed at any one instance and the layout of such representation may grow quire complex, therefore only a portion of the graphical representation may be displayed at any one time, however the graphical representation may offer scrolling capabilities as are known in the art such that a user may scroll to display various portions of the graphical representation.
Referring to
The user now interacts with graphical representation 3700 to select entity representation 3710h (“Jennifer Carnese”) resulting in the graphical representation 3700 of
A user may also interact with the graphical interface to establish relationships in the MEI. More specifically, in one embodiment, a user may select a first entity representation and a second entity representation. Based upon the types of the entities which correspond to the selected entity representations a menu of possible relationships to establish may be presented to the user. This set of possible relationships may be determined based on the entities selected. For example, the types of the possible relationships presented may conform to those relationship types which have been defined for use with entity types which correspond to the type of entities associated with the selected entity representation. Furthermore, the possible relationships presented may take into account the directionality of the relationship types on which they are based, for example if a relationship is a directional relationship type, the possible relationships presented may comprise two relationships of that relationship type, one where the first entity has that relationship to the second entity and another where the second entity has that relationship to the first entity. Once a user selects one of the presented set of possible relationship the relationship may be represented on the graphical representation and established with respect to the MEI (e.g. in the relationship database).
With reference now to
As shown in
Suppose that the user then select to create a relationship where the entity represented by entity representation 3710h (“Jennifer Carnese”) is the “boss of” the entity represented by entity representation 3710b (“Durenda Fuchs”) using the “select” button associated with that option in dialogue box 4210. This action may result in the graphical representation depicted in
A user may also interact with the graphical interface to delete relationships in the MEI. More specifically, in one embodiment, a user may select a representation of a relationship using the graphical representation and choose to delete the relationship represented. Once a user selects to delete this relationship the represented relationship may be deleted with respect to the MEI (e.g. in the relationship database).
This may be illustrated with respect to
As shown in
As noted above, the number of relationship representation 3720 and entity relationships 3710 displayed and the configuration of the various entities and relationship represented by these representations (e.g. how the entities are related to one another) may be utilized to determine the layout of the various representation with respect to graphical representation 3700. Thus, the deletion of a relationship may affect the layout of the remaining entity and relationship representations. This is better depicted with reference to the difference between graphical representation 3700 in
In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific embodiments. However, one of ordinary skill in the art appreciates that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the claims below. Accordingly, the specification and figures are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense, and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of invention.
Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have been described above with regard to specific embodiments. However, the benefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any component(s) that may cause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become more pronounced are not to be construed as a critical, required, or essential feature or component of any or all the claims.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/025,294, entitled “Method and System for Indexing, Relating and Managing Information About Entities” and filed Feb. 11, 2011, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/904,750, entitled “Indexing, Relating and Managing Information About Entities” and filed Sep. 28, 2007, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20160147869 A1 | May 2016 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 13025294 | Feb 2011 | US |
Child | 15010150 | US | |
Parent | 11904750 | Sep 2007 | US |
Child | 13025294 | US |