Patent Application
20140026045
The present disclosure relates to a system and method for authoring guided procedures, and in an embodiment, but not by way of limitation, a system and method for providing a user interface for authoring guided procedures.
Software systems normally include documentation such as a user's guide, a system guide, and/or an operator's guide. This documentation can be electronic and/or paper based. The documentation normally outlines the general structure of the system, the usage of the system, and the handling of problems in the system. The documentation normally includes a topical index to assist a user in locating topics of interest to the user.
In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention. It is to be understood that the various embodiments of the invention, although different, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Furthermore, a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described herein in connection with one embodiment may be implemented within other embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention. In addition, it is to be understood that the location or arrangement of individual elements within each disclosed embodiment may be modified without departing from the scope of the invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims, appropriately interpreted, along with the full range of equivalents to which the claims are entitled. In the drawings, like numerals refer to the same or similar functionality throughout the several views.
In an embodiment, a software system is part of an infrastructure. The infrastructure includes many business processes, and the infrastructure can also include guided procedures that assist a user of the system in many different aspects of the use, maintenance, and trouble shooting of the system. The guided procedures assist the user by providing step by step instructions that the user can follow to address many different issues in the system. Such guided procedures can be created or authored by a software developer, the provider of the software, a customer of the software provider, or a user of the system. A software tool provided via a user interface (such as a web page) permits such developers, software providers, customers, and users to create (author) a guided procedure, to activate a guided procedure, and to publish the availability of a guided procedure.
When the software tool publishes the availability of a guided procedure, the software tool orchestrates the places in the software infrastructure wherein the guided procedures are placed, and thereby orchestrates which entity or entities can have access to such guided procedures. However, the rapid growth in the size of software systems can make the process of placing these guided procedures increasingly difficult. Consequently, in an embodiment, a more automatic process of placing these guided procedures in the proper places in the infrastructure is available. Also, in such a more automated process, exceptions that occur during the placement of guided procedures, the production life time of the guided procedures, and the domains in the infrastructure in which the guided procedures are placed (e.g., database domain, system domain, and connections domain) are automatically documented.
The issues involved in directing guided procedures to the proper places in the software infrastructure become even more pronounced when the software system is a complex system provided by a rather large software company, and further wherein a customer is given the ability to add guided procedures to the infrastructure on the customer side. In such situations, the software tool is provided to the customer so that the customer can maintain and/or create (author) such guided procedures. The software tool can be used in connection with any guided procedure delivered to the customer by the software company, and any guided procedure the customer itself creates. The software tool can handle and manage all issues that can arise from the placement of the guided procedures such as managing exceptions that occur during the placement of the guided procedures, comparing the different databases in the system that are affected by the placement of the guided procedures (cross-database comparison), and administering technical issues that occur in connection with the placement of the guided procedures.
In an embodiment, the software tool is implemented via a browser, and it permits the authoring of the guided procedures and the placement of the guided procedures in the software infrastructure. The browser-based software tool can also be used to search for guided procedures in the infrastructure, execute the steps of a guided procedure, display which guided procedures are in what portions of the infrastructure, and remove guided procedures from the infrastructure. The software tool also includes a maintenance ability that permits the creation of custom guided procedures in different contexts with different add-ons,
An advantage of such a software tool embodiment is that it permits a software customer to build its own guided procedure(s) that offer a guided solution for assisting others in using, maintaining, and trouble shooting the system. Moreover, such a guided procedure for a guided solution for fixing problems can be either automatic, manual, or customized in nature. In another embodiment, the software providing business organization that developed the system can pre-deliver a guided procedure template (before the delivery of the guided software). Then, the template can be used later on in different portions of the software system such as in business processes, technical operations, and data volume management. The tool can also include a versioning concept, and a manner is which to import or export any guided procedure with or without a delivery of a support package. Versioning, as the name implies, keeps track of the different versions of a guided procedure such as who is permitted to access which version of the guided procedure.
At 120, the author enters the properties of the steps being added such as the step title and the step type (manual, automatic, custom). The author can also create a help section for this step at 130 by providing information about the step such as what needs to be done to carry out the step and what will happen as a result of the step being carried out. The activities section 140 allows the author to add the activities that are required to carry out the step. Once again, the author can list whether each step is manual, automatic, or custom in nature. The author can also indicate a link to a process for an automatic step and/or documentation for each activity. The help section 150 is used by the author to provide detailed information about each activity. In an embodiment, an author can select steps from a standard library or list of available steps (and the steps associated activities), thereby permitting the reuse of steps and making easier the authoring of new guided procedures.
The tool bar 360 permits a customer or user of the software applications to author a guided procedure, so that the guided procedures available on a system include guided procedures 331, 332 that originate from the software provider, and those that are authored and created by a customer or user of the system. For a user to author a guided procedure, the user specifies a solution at 361, which means that an author identifies an issue to which the guided procedure will relate. At 362, the author specifies the users for whom the guided procedure will be available, and the manner with which these users will be connected to the guided procedure. At 363, the author specifies the landscape of the framework and infrastructure which the guided procedure will occupy. At 364 and 365, the author can specify particular steps of the guided procedure as either manual or automatic. In other example embodiments, the author may also specify certain steps as being customized. At 366, the author indicates that he or she has completed the creation of the guided procedure.
Referring to
At 705, the software tool is configured to publish the availability of a particular guided procedure to particular entities, such that only the particular entities are permitted to access the particular guided procedure. At 710, the publication of the availability of the particular guided procedure includes building a link between the particular guided procedure and the particular entities.
At 715, the software tool is configured to assign attributes to the procedures, receive search criteria from the user, compare the search criteria and the attributes, and report to the user relevant procedures as a function of the attributes and search criteria. This feature permits a user to search for guided procedures that may assist the user in a particular issue that that the user is dealing with on the system. At 720, the software tool is configured to maintain a versioning system for the guided procedures. This feature permits a particular version of a guided procedure to be associated with a particular sub-system, a particular group or entity, or a particular issue on the system or sub-system.
At 725, the software tool is configured to provide a manual option. The manual option relates to a step in a guided procedure that requires some manual or physical action by the user of the guided procedure. For example, as noted above, there may be a problem with a disk or a disk drive, and such disk or disk drive would have to be physically replaced. At 730, the software tool is configured to provide an automatic option that automatically executes the steps in a guided procedure. This feature is most typically taken care of by the software provider or a technology provided by the software provider, and can be implemented via the use of software processes, such as invoking an application program interface (API) for use in the infrastructure. At 735, the software tool is configured to provide a customization option. The customization option relates to a step in a guided procedure that the software provider could do or could provide a process to do, but the software provider still needs some information from the customer. For example, the software provider could have code in a guided procedure to access a web site, but the software provider still may need a user name and password from the user.
At 740, the software tool is used at the design time of a system to create the guided procedure, to activate the guided procedure, and to publish the guided procedure. At 745, the system is configured such that the software tool is made available to a business entity, software developer, or software company that created the system and infrastructure. The software tool can also be made available to a customer that uses the system and infrastructure. In this manner, while it is most typical that the software company provides the guided procedures, the customer can also author guided procedures using the software tool. At 750, the software tool is configured such that the business entity or customer can create procedures for technical administration, exception management, and cross database comparison. At 755, the exception management is handled by the software tool, and the exception management includes defining the scope of systems and scenarios handled by the exception management, defining the configuration of extractors for the exception management, defining a schedule for the selected extractors, and reviewing the steps of the execution management setup.
At 760, the software tool is part of a browser, and the browser-based software tool includes predefined reusable graphical user interface elements including at least one of standard steps and sub-steps for use in the guided procedures, a plug-in step for use in the guided procedures, nested guided procedures for use in the guided procedures, and a completion step for use in the guided procedures. At 765, the software tool is configured to create a new version of a guided procedure, store different versions of the guided procedure, switch among versions of the guided procedure, and compare versions of the guided procedure; wherein versions of the guided procedure comprise different steps and activities. At 770, the software tool is configured to permit a user to search for the guided procedures, display the guided procedures, create the guided procedures, execute the guided procedures, and remove the guided procedures.
Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may also be practiced in distributed computer environments where tasks are performed by I/O remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
In the embodiment shown in
As shown in
The system bus 23 can be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. The system memory can also be referred to as simply the memory, and, in some embodiments, includes read-only memory (ROM) 24 and random-access memory (RAM) 25. A basic input/output system (BIOS) program 26, containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements within the computer 20, such as during start-up, may be stored in ROM 24. The computer 20 further includes a hard disk drive 27 for reading from and writing to a hard disk, not shown, a magnetic disk drive 28 for reading from or writing to a removable magnetic disk 29, and an optical disk drive 30 for reading from or writing to a removable optical disk 31 such as a CD ROM or other optical media.
The hard disk drive 27, magnetic disk drive 28, and optical disk drive 30 couple with a hard disk drive interface 32, a magnetic disk drive interface 33, and an optical disk drive interface 34, respectively. The drives and their associated computer-readable media provide non volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for the computer 20. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that any type of computer-readable media which can store data that is accessible by a computer, such as magnetic cassettes, flash memory cards, digital video disks, Bernoulli cartridges, random access memories (RAMS), read only memories (ROMs), redundant arrays of independent disks (e.g., RAID storage devices) and the like, can be used in the exemplary operating environment.
A plurality of program modules can be stored on the hard disk, magnetic disk 29, optical disk 31, ROM 24, or RAM 25, including an operating system 35, one or more application programs 36, other program modules 37, and program data 38. A plug in containing a security transmission engine for the present invention can be resident on any one or number of these computer-readable media.
A user may enter commands and information into computer 20 through input devices such as a keyboard 40 and pointing device 42. Other input devices (not shown) can include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus 23, but can be connected by other interfaces, such as a parallel port, game port, or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 47 or other type of display device can also be connected to the system bus 23 via an interface, such as a video adapter 48. The monitor 47 can display a graphical user interface for the user. In addition to the monitor 47, computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers and printers.
The computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers or servers, such as remote computer 49. These logical connections are achieved by a communication device coupled to or a part of the computer 20; the invention is not limited to a particular type of communications device. The remote computer 49 can be another computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a client, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above I/O relative to the computer 20, although only a memory storage device 50 has been illustrated. The logical connections depicted in
When used in a LAN-networking environment, the computer 20 is connected to the LAN 51 through a network interface or adapter 53, which is one type of communications device. In some embodiments, when used in a WAN-networking environment, the computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 (another type of communications device) or any other type of communications device, e.g., a wireless transceiver, for establishing communications over the wide-area network 52, such as the internet. The modem 54, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the computer 20 can be stored in the remote memory storage device 50 of remote computer, or server 49. It is appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of, and communications devices for, establishing a communications link between the computers may be used including hybrid fiber-coax connections, T1-T3 lines, DSL's, OC-3 and/or OC-12, TCP/IP, microwave, wireless application protocol, and any other electronic media through any suitable switches, routers, outlets and power lines, as the same are known and understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
The Abstract is provided to comply with 37 C.F.R. ยง1.72(b) and will allow the reader to quickly ascertain the nature and gist of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
In the foregoing description of the embodiments, various features are grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting that the claimed embodiments have more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matter lies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thus the following claims are hereby incorporated into the Description of the Embodiments, with each claim standing on its own as a separate example embodiment.
