Patent Application
20100131889
The invention generally relates to the field of computer generated user interfaces. More particularly the invention relates to an user interface for exploring data objects and their related supplementary data objects.
The user interfaces currently available typically do not allow a user to explore data objects in an intuitive way. The amount of information presented to the user is also limited to immediate context of the data object being presented. If the user wishes to explore the data objects further, he may have to leave his current use context to log on to a different application or a system or another user interface to access other information related to the data object he is currently viewing. For example, conventional user interfaces are limited to displaying customer information such as a customer name, address, contact person, customer identification, and sales orders related to the customer. If the user wishes to explore further details such as details of each of the sales order of the customer or the materials in the sales order, the user has to typically log into a different application or refer to another user interface to see the details. This is not very convenient because the user may have to switch between various user interfaces to comprehend all the details of a particular data object, and in that process, may lose the context of the information. The user may face this problem often since the contextual information of a data object is typically not presented in a single user interface.
Described herein is a user interface for interactively exploring data objects associated with a business context. The user interface includes a business data explorer having an object navigation panel and a side panel. The object navigation panel is operable for displaying a first one of the data objects as a data object of current interest to a user for further exploration. The side panel is operable for displaying a second one of the data objects as a supplementary data object, based at least in part on the business context defined at least in part by an application having the data objects. The business data explorer is operable for displaying the second one of the data objects in the object navigation panel as the data object of current interest to the user for further exploration and in response to a second user selection of a portion of the second one of the data objects, presenting at least one additional supplementary data object based at least in part on the business context defined by the user selected portion of the second one of the data objects.
The following description includes discussion of figures having illustrations given by way of example of implementations of embodiments of the invention. The drawings should be understood by way of example, and not by way of limitation. As used herein, references to one or more “embodiments” are to be understood as describing a particular feature, structure, or characteristic included in at least one implementation of the invention. Thus, phrases such as “in one embodiment” or “in an alternate embodiment” appearing herein describe various embodiments and implementations of the invention, and do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment. However, they are also not necessarily mutually exclusive.
For example, in a product lifecycle management application when a user is exploring a material object 110, the supplementary data objects related to the material object 110 include, but are not limited to, a list of customers to whom the material object 110 is sold, analytics about the history of the quality notifications received for the material object 110, various quality notifications received for the material object 110, a bill of material in which the material object 110 is used, a list of changes made to the material object 110, and a list of customers to whom the material object 110 is sold. All or a subset of the supplementary data objects are displayed in the side panel 115.
As illustrated in the business data explorer 100, the material object 110, which is the object of current interest to the user, is presented in the object navigation panel 105. The object navigation panel 105 presents details of material object 110 such as a material number, material name, material description, a picture of a material, a unit of measure, and dimensions of the material. The side panel 115 presents the supplementary data objects such as analytics about the quality notifications history 120 for the material object 110, quality notifications 125 received for the material object 110, a bill of materials 130 in which the material object 110 is used, and a list of changes 135 done to the material object 110.
The supplementary data objects may be displayed in various formats that include but are not limited to, a chart, a picture, a table and a text. For example, the quality notifications history 120 is displayed as a line chart and the bill of materials 130 in which the material object 110 is used is displayed as a table in the side panel 115. Furthermore, the display of each of the supplementary data objects may be customized. The customization options include but are not limited to, changing the order in which the supplementary data objects are displayed, changing a format, minimizing, hiding, adding, and removing the supplementary data objects. Furthermore, the business data explorer 100 may be configured to change position of the side panel 115 on either left side or right side of the business data explorer 100. The side panel also has a query view 140 and a dashboard view 145 that display various additional supplementary data objects as explained further below with reference to
The quality notification history 225 displayed in the object navigation panel 205 may be further explored in various ways using data object settings 220. For example, format of quality notification history 225 may be changed from chart to any other format such as a table, the chart type may be changed to a bar chart, the X-axis and Y-axis values may be changed and the X-axis and Y-axis may be swapped. In an embodiment, the X-axis of the chart which is scaled on Month/Year basis may be scaled down to Week/Month or Day/Week to explore the quality notifications received on a daily or weekly basis. Similarly, the X-axis may also be scaled up to Quarter/Year or Half/Year. In another embodiment, the Y-axis value may be changed from Complaint quantity to say, for example, average time taken to solve the complaint. Furthermore, the period for which the quality notifications are shown may also be changed.
For example, the user may select a data point 310 on the quality notification history 305 chart and obtain a list of queries 315 that in turn is operable for obtaining additional supplementary objects related to the chosen data point 310. In an embodiment, the list of queries 315 is generated in the business data explorer 300 when the data point 310 is selected via a mouse click. Queries in the list of queries 315 are related to the data point 310 based on a business context of the data point 310. In one embodiment, the business context can be determined my matching the attributes of the data point 310 with queries that take data values of these attributes as input. For example, attributes of the data point 310 such as a material number of material object 110, an X co-ordinate and Y co-ordinate attribute names (e.g., quantity of complaints and months, respectively) are used to find queries that take these attributes as input. After the list of queries 315 is generated, the user may choose a query from the list of queries 315 to obtain the additional supplementary data object that is related to the data point 310. On choosing the query, the additional supplementary data object is displayed in the business data explorer.
For example, on choosing a query “Quality Issue Analysis by Damage Code” 320, the business data explorer 400 presents the additional supplementary data object 405 that displays all damages reported for the material in the month “May 2008” as illustrated in
The business data explorer as explained in figures
In an embodiment, the query view 520 retrieves a list of all available supplementary data objects that are related to the material object 110 if no keyword is entered in the query view.
Further the user may customize the dashboard view 600 in various ways that include but are not limited to, changing an order of displaying the additional supplementary data objects, changing a format, minimizing, hiding, adding, and removing the additional supplementary data objects.
Embodiments of the invention may include various steps as set forth above. The steps may be embodied in machine-executable program code which causes a general-purpose or special-purpose processor to perform certain steps. Alternatively, these steps may be performed by specific hardware components that contain hardwired logic for performing the steps, or by any combination of programmed computer components and custom hardware components.
Embodiments of the present invention may also be provided as a machine-readable medium for storing the machine-executable instructions. The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, flash memory, optical disks, CD-ROMs, DVD ROMs, RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of machine-readable media suitable for tangibly storing electronic instructions. The machine readable medium can provide the instructions stored therein to a computer system comprising a processor capable of reading and executing the instructions to implement the method steps described herein.
It should be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to one embodiment or an embodiment means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. These references are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined as suitable in one or more embodiments of the invention.
Throughout the foregoing description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. The detailed description as set forth above includes descriptions of method steps. However, one skilled in the art will understand that the order of the steps set forth above is meant for the purposes of illustration only and the claimed invention is not meant to be limited only to the specific order in which the steps are set forth. Accordingly, the scope and spirit of the invention should be judged in terms of the claims which follow.
