KR20070083786A - Business process management system and method - Google Patents

Abstract

Disclosed are a business process management system and method that uses multiple products or business applications. The business process management system includes a process designer interactive portion configured to receive information designing a business process and a process formation portion configured to create or modify a business process based on information received by the process designer interactive portion. The process forming portion is configured to select a plurality of products or business applications to create or modify a business process. Business process management systems and methods provide an interface for handling multiple versions of a product.

Description

BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD}

This PCT application relies on the priority of U.S. Regular Application No. 11 / 141,710 filed June 1, 2005 and U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 612,615 filed September 24, 2004. The contents of both applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

United States Regular Application No. 11 / 141,710, filed on June 1, 2005, is part of the ongoing application of Application Serial No. 10 / 396,134, filed on March 25, 2003, now registered with US Patent No. 6,920,474, which is incorporated herein by reference. Priority is claimed to US Provisional Application No. 60 / 366,547, filed March 25, 2002, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. This PCT application is currently a U.S. Pat. Does not depend on

This entry contains copyrighted information. The copyright owner does not object to any reproduction of any patent in the description of the patent or in any patent appearing in any US Patent Office file or record. However, the owner has all the remaining copyrights associated with the invention described herein, including all copyrights in the screen displays provided herein for the purpose of understanding the invention.

Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to business process management, and in particular, to systems and methods for computer-based business process management.

Automated processing of information has been a tremendous benefit to the business because it has significantly reduced the cost of certain tasks. Every enterprise has an operational need to manage information, regardless of government, commercial business or nonprofit.

This information can, for example, in the case of a commercial business, obtain customers, enter orders, ship products, bill customers, collect invoices, employees and suppliers. ), To order products, to audit listings, and to keep records of transactions between employees, customers and suppliers.

In a general course of events, information is obtained and processed according to the internal working model of each organization and consolidated using software, computer hardware and digital networks.

Also unfortunately, the automated processing of information has caused some problems for businesses, especially if the information in the company's data storage is wrong. Automated processing of wrong information is itself a high cost for businesses. In addition, the time, effort, and cost required to correct unwanted results can significantly impact an organization's resources.

Typical examples of the effects of errors in an organization include:

(1) Recipients receive multiple copies of the same offer in the mail, which:

(a) the sender consumes postage and printing paper, and (b) the recipient is negatively impacted by waste, thus preventing ordering products;

(2) The postal system and other messages and parcel shippers cannot deliver a significant proportion of the materials to the intended recipients, which:

(a) the incorrect address ensures that the product is returned to the consignor without being delivered on time; (b) the determination of the correct address, repackaging and re-shipping the product, and (c) invoices Returned, not paid in time or not paid at all, (d) it takes a lot of effort to determine the correct address and resend the invoice, (e) the customer is annoyed by poor service and, if possible, switches to another supplier (f) customer service, billing, collection, and shipping may all require additional resources to perform their functions;

(3) In addition, personal work units contain inaccurate information about the customer, which:

(a) Ensuring that corporate efforts are insufficient, costly, and sustained for a long time in consolidated information; and (b) compounding overall error rates when errors in individual work units are consolidated, and have meaningful analytical capabilities. Can inhibit;

(4) Insufficient and inaccurate information about CRM, ERP, SCM, and other central processes is contained within the data warehouse, data mart, work data storage, customer information files, and central data storage. Integrated, which:

(a) marketing cannot accurately predict the value and potential of individual customers and client segments, and loses valuable market opportunities; (b) prevents customer service from providing adequate services; This could lead to loss of customers due to service dissatisfaction, and (c) failure to detect fraud on time, causing the company to be scammed;

(5) Work units cannot determine the correct tax jurisdiction and tax assignment, which:

(a) the entity does not charge its customers a fair tax and does not pay the right authority to the right authority; (b) it prevents the taxing authorities from collecting all appropriate taxes; c) allow consumers to pay more taxes than they have to pay, and (d) cause the company to worry about tax jurisdiction and liability to customers;

(6) Customers are dissatisfied and move to competitive services.

The impact of misinformation on a company's revenue is easily illustrated using typical mass mailing as an example. Naturally, this is one example but the list presented above identifies a number of other potential effects on the company's profits.

Companies generate customer lists in several ways. Information gathered by one part of the enterprise is often used by all parts of the organization that perform their functions. If a company has a retail component and a catalog component, customer information can be entered in the company's data storage at the retail location, at the catalog location, or even over the Internet. Each of these three input locations represents a place where the information may overlap or go wrong with previously existing information. Any error in the accuracy of the information that is collected, processed and consolidated can affect the effectiveness of multiple functions within the enterprise.

It is possible for a customer to have customer information entered correctly at the retail level. Subsequently, the customer can buy the goods through the catalog division. At that time, the data entry specialist may incorrectly enter the customer's name, for example, by spelling the person's last name into the data storage device. In another case, the same customer can buy things over the Internet. Then, the customer will be asked a third time to fill in his or her last name. In this situation, suppose the customer has typed his or her last name incorrectly. Therefore, in this scenario, customer information was entered three times, two of which were incorrect.

Relying on the stored data, the company prints the updated catalog and sends it to its customers. Because the customer has three separate entries in the business data store, the customer receives three copies of the same catalog. As can be easily understood, the cost of printing and mailing a catalog has tripled, just because of errors in the company's data storage.

Problems with data quality exist with many businesses. In the prior art, there have been several approaches provided to minimize data quality problems.

Previous approaches to data quality include providing the business with various provider-specific or application-specific functions. Data quality features are specifically designed to automatically review company data, identify errors, and in some cases correct those errors. To do this in a flexible manner to different businesses, data quality functions typically provide some setup that can be adjusted by businesses to meet their individual needs.

Typically, businesses select a standardized set of settings for a particular data quality function that the business finds most advantageous. The settings can eliminate errors in the data storage, for example, to "clean" the data storage to a point where the data (which is considered a very good result) is 95% accurate.

The problem of data quality is exacerbated when a company has a number of units, each of which has a separate data storage device containing overlapping information, and the company tries to create a consolidated data storage device. .

In the example presented above, the company had three business components, a retail component, a catalog component and an internet component, each of which included a separate customer information data storage device. Typically, if each component wants to "clean" its data, each component will purchase a data quality solution and apply the solution internally. If each component produces 95% accurate data storage, the result will be considered very good.

If a company attempts to create a consolidated data storage device, another problem arises where the errors in each data storage device are exacerbated. In the case presented, each data storage device has the same error. The combined data storage device will have an error rate of 0.95 x 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.857375. This means that the resulting data storage device has an error rate of about 15%, three times higher than the respective data storage devices combined. As can be appreciated, this problem is especially noticeable when four or more data storage devices are combined together.

In addition, since supplier-specific data quality functions and application-specific data quality functions have unique strengths and weaknesses in detecting and / or correcting errors, the errors are inadvertent throughout the enterprise when applications pass data around. Can be rippled. This may have the undesirable consequence of causing a multiplicative increase in the overall error rate for the enterprise as a whole.

Data quality solutions are advantageous for the work of the business, while the ability is limited, particularly if the company wants to create central data storage devices for multiple business entities or groups of entities in the enterprise.

In addition, if a business wants to develop a program that "cleans up" its central data storage device, the current view indicates that the business must have a firm to develop the appropriate software. The development of software usually involves what is referred to as the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

For example, known SDLCs adhered to by developers of business processes, such as data quality processes, lead to a lock-step sequential step approach that is time consuming and resource intensive. For example, a known SDLC may be a series of following steps: requirements definition, overall design, detailed design, development, testing, quality assurance checking, trial, implementation and maintenance / Includes modifications. In addition, different personnel or service providers with different skills may be needed as the project moves from step to step. For example, a system engineer or business analyst may be needed during the requirements analysis / definition and test phases, while a software engineer may be needed for the design phase. Project handoffs between stages introduce errors into the final product and add cost due to increased project time, increased overhead, and higher project headcount.

In addition, because the requirements definition phase can be arbitrarily stopped (ie, "frozen" of requirements) to begin design activities, the known SDLC is a customer's evolving needs for software products. It is not flexible and flexible to evolving needs.

In addition, another disadvantage of the prior art is consistent with the ability to manage different software upgrades within the business. Currently, when software is upgraded, the business simply installs the upgrade.

This upgrade can be problematic for more than one level. First, upgrades can only occur in part of a business's network. Thus, some business units may be advantageous to upgrade while others are not. Second, it is not uncommon for upgrades to be undesirable and to have time catastrophic effects.

The disadvantages identified above for the prior art are in great need of a solution.

Therefore, it is one embodiment of the present invention to provide a method and business process management system that resolves a number of deficiencies in the prior art.

The enterprise business process management system may include an enterprise business process server, a router, and an interface module coupled to one or more clients. In particular, one or more embodiments of an enterprise business process management system according to the present invention comprise an enterprise business process server capable of receiving data from one or more clients, one or more routers accessible by the enterprise business process server, and one or more routers. It may include one or more business processes accessible by. The enterprise business process server may be configured to access one or more business processes through a router, execute one or more business processes as part or all of the client data, and generate business process output data as a function of the one or more business processes. In addition, the enterprise business process management system may operate with the enterprise business process server to output a process designer interactive page and include an interface accessible by the enterprise business process server. The process designer interactive page may be configured to accept instructions regarding one or more business processes, generate process information data, and provide the process information data to an enterprise business process server. In addition, the enterprise business process server may form an instruction set for the business process based on the process information data.

In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, an enterprise data quality management system that determines, analyzes, enhances, and records application data and business data of qualitative and quantitative aspects existing within an enterprise. management systems) and methods are provided.

According to other embodiments of the present invention, error reports may be provided at various levels of data processing to identify when data errors occur.

Also provided are systems and methods for various graphical views that present information about when errors occur so that a business can avoid and correct (or at least minimize) such errors in the future.

In addition, embodiments of the present invention are provided for a shortened SDLC and simplified process in which some of the known SDLC steps are combined to shorten project development time, thereby significantly reducing time and cost.

For example, in one embodiment the requirements definition, overall design, detailed design and development steps can be accomplished simultaneously in a single step using an interactive process designer.

In addition, in one embodiment of the present invention, by applying test data to a business process defined and implemented as described herein, known SDLC test, quality assurance and enforcement steps can be accomplished in a single step.

In addition, in one embodiment of the present invention, each of the SDLC activities may be accomplished through user interaction with one process designer interface provided by a single product.

In addition, in one embodiment of the present invention, a software engineer may not be required to code in a project.

In addition, embodiments of the present invention may not only allow reuse of functions from multiple software applications, but also allow a user to provide the capability to define new or modified functionality of a business process. In one or more embodiments, each of these functions is maintained in a function registry or function library and used by the business process server for subsequent use in defining additional or modified business processes. It can possibly be done.

Embodiments of the present invention also provide an enterprise to use "best of breed" business processes in combination to achieve increased effectiveness over the entire process. The parts of the different multiple business applications can be combined to form a new or modified business process in which the parts are selected for a particular effect that increases the overall effectiveness or for such other criteria. For example, some data quality processes, each of which may be obtained from the same business applications or from a number of different business applications, may have higher overall data accuracy than would be possible by applying each of the multiple data quality business applications alone. It can be defined to include a single data quality business process that achieves a percentage.

Yet another embodiment of embodiments of the present invention is a version graphic that facilitates management of the interface, release and implementation of specific vendors' products, individual functions, and system and user settings. This is the version graphical display.

Other embodiments of the invention will appear from the description which follows and the figures appended hereto.

In view of the following detailed description of one or more exemplary embodiments of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, the advantages of the present invention will be readily understood and appreciated:

1 is an exemplary diagram of a system adopted or implemented by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more illustrative embodiments of the present invention;

2 is a schematic block diagram of equipment that may be used to implement a server designed according to one or more embodiments of the present invention;

3 is a functional block diagram of an enterprise data quality application of an enterprise business process server in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

4 is a functional block diagram illustrating the relationship between data source / destination, product, and processes in one embodiment of the present invention;

5 is a functional block diagram illustrating equipment that may be used to implement a system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

6 is a flow diagram illustrating a method used by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more illustrative embodiments of the invention.

7 is an illustration of an error report for an executive view in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

8 is an example of an error report for a customer support view in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

9 is an illustration of an error report for an individual view in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

10 is an illustration of an error report for a manager view in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

11 is a flowchart of a method for establishing a business process for an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more illustrative embodiments of the present invention.

12 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface for creating a business process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

13 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface adding a data transmitter for a process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

14 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface defining an input packet for a process according to one or more embodiments of the present invention;

15 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface defining an output packet for a process according to one or more embodiments of the present invention;

16 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface for selecting a product for a process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 17 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface for adding a process and a product for use in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention; FIG.

18 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface for selecting a data destination for a process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

19 is an exemplary user interaction page of a graphical user interface for establishing a process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

20 is an exemplary process designer interface interactive display for a graphical user interface provided in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 21 illustrates a series of build files used in one embodiment of the present invention by an enterprise business process server to form a code implementation of a business process; FIG.

FIG. 22 illustrates a method of forming a new router dynamic link library in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

23A-23D are flowcharts illustrating a method of implementing a business process in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 24 is a functional block diagram illustrating relationships between functions, processes, and products (eg, tools) related to a business process in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 25 illustrates an example of a functions overview interactive page provided in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 26 illustrates an example of a process definition area portion of a process designer interactive page provided in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 27 illustrates an example of an interactive page illustrated by adding elements of a process step from a functional library in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 28 illustrates an example of an interactive page illustrated by linking process steps in a process definition area of a process designer interactive page in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 29 illustrates an example of an interactive page in which conditional statements may be defined for elements of a process step according to one or more embodiments of the present invention; FIG.

30 illustrates an example of a product defined interactive page provided in an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 31 illustrates an example of a data destination definition interactive page provided in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

32 illustrates an example of a product selection interactive page provided in an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 33 illustrates an example of content of a function template file page provided in an embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

34 illustrates an example of a function setting interactive page provided in an embodiment of the present invention;

35 illustrates an example of a process tester interactive page according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 36 illustrates a data-populated design area occupied by data in a process tester interactive page in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

FIG. 37 illustrates an example of a connection definition interactive page according to one or more embodiments of the present invention; FIG.

38 illustrates a comparative business process according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 39 illustrates a relationship between an interface module, an enterprise business process server, and a router in one embodiment of the present invention; FIG.

40 is a block diagram of an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

41 is a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple products by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

42 is a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple business applications by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

43 illustrates an example of a version display page in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention;

44 illustrates another example of a version display page in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention; And

45 is a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple products with different versions by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention.

This application claims priority to US Provisional Application No. 60 / 366,547, filed March 25, 2002, entitled "Method and System for Enterprise Data Quality Management," the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety. As incorporated herein by reference.

The present invention will be described in connection with the exemplary embodiments, but the exemplary embodiments are not intended to limit the present invention. On the contrary, alternatives, modifications, and equivalent examples of the described examples are intended to be included within the spirit and scope of the present invention, which is defined in part by the claims appended hereto.

In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, an enterprise business process management system and method are provided. While one or more embodiments are presented herein in the form of one embodiment of an enterprise data quality management system, what is taught herein is more general to any enterprise business process management system by including or adding business processes related to data quality management. It should be understood that it can be applied to. The system and method provide for a switchable router and server that defines, forms, and executes steps in business processes, including, for example, detecting, correcting, and reporting data errors presented to various applications throughout the enterprise. It is available. An enterprise may include multiple computing nodes located within different geographic or physical locations that include a business organization. The various compute nodes are connected to each other for inter-node communication across the enterprise using networks such as, but not limited to, the Internet, leased telephones or data lines, wireless networks, or any combination thereof. Can be connected. Connected in any of these ways, inter alia, users associated with the enterprise are virtually transparent to the enterprise applications, processes and functions, regardless of the node or nodes where the applications, processes and functions reside. You can get virtual access.

1 is an exemplary diagram of a system adopted or implemented by an enterprise business process management system in accordance with one or more illustrative embodiments of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, an enterprise business process management system 100 includes an extract transform transform (ETL) client 102, an enterprise application integration (EAI) client 103, and enterprise resource management. Includes an enterprise business process server 101 coupled to one or more additional clients, such as, but not limited to, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) client 104 and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) client 105 can do. In addition, corporate business process server 101 may be coupled to another additional client, such as a Supply Chain Manager (SCM) client (not shown). Each of the additional clients may include one or more business applications. In addition, corporate business process server 101 may be coupled to information data storage 106 and flat files data store 107, one or more mainframes 108, and the Internet 109. It may be. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may comprise a call center terminal 110 (s), data entry terminals 111, local user terminal 112 ( And one or more terminals, such as remote user terminal 113 (s). In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may be an enterprise business process server or an enterprise data quality server configured to allow definition and execution of enterprise data quality management.

The enterprise business process server 101 may be connected to the Internet, a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), an internet including any of these, and / or a PSTN. Additional clients 102-105, data storage devices 106 and 107, mainframes, using various communication networks, including but not limited to a network of interconnected networks, a wireless network, or any combination thereof. Communications with enterprise nodes, including 108, the Internet 109, and terminals 110-113. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may communicate with one or more of these enterprise nodes that receive and transmit error reports, as well as transaction related data.

In general, clients 102-105 may be any data transmitter capable of transmitting or receiving data such as, but not limited to, the server or client portion of a client-server application. For example, a client may be a host, one or more business application processes or functions of an enterprise. Clients can be located inside or outside the corporate firewall.

ETL client 102 allows an organization to extract data sets from one data sender, map the data to another data sender, convert the data as needed, consolidate the data senders, and send the destination sender. Or may be configured to allow the transmitter to load the data. This ETL client 102 may be primarily batch processing oriented and may use a hub architecture where transformations and mappings are performed when the data is passed from its transmitter to its destination.

The EAI client 103 may be configured to allow corporate transactions to pass from one application to another application within an organization / enterprise and from one organization to a partner organization residing on the EAI network. Such an EAI client 103 may use a hub structure and may include entitlements to map and transform data associated with enterprise transactions.

ERP client 104 may be configured to integrate multiple facets of a business or enterprise, including planning, manufacturing, sales, and marketing activities. Such ERP client 104 may use a hub structure and may include entitlements to map and transform data associated with these activities.

The CRM client 105 utilizes several electronic-based tools, including help-desk software, sales, marketing, email organizers, and web development applications, to enable various aspects of interaction between the organization / entity and its customers. Can be configured to manage them. Such CRM client 104 may use a hub structure and may include entitlements to map and transform data associated therewith.

Additional enterprise clients, including ETL client 102, EAI client 103, ERP client 104, and CRM client 105 each include a provider-specific application quality checking process that operates internally in each of the individual server applications. can do. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 transfer control to exchange information with additional enterprise servers, including ETL client 102, EAI client 103, ERP client 104, and CRM client 105. It may include a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) / Internet Protocol (IP) interface. The information exchanged between the enterprise business process server 101 and additional clients may, for example, perform an enterprise business process server to perform the functions of one or more specific processes or processes (or processes), such as processes for checking data quality. It may include a command or request from 101. In addition, the exchanged information may include data output by application quality checking processes or functions. The TCP / IP communication interface may allow the enterprise business process server 101 to connect directly to any application on the enterprise network. Alternatively, the TCP / IP communication interface may allow an enterprise business process server to connect to external applications, for example using the Internet.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may obtain information from information data storage 106 and tomographic file data storage 107. In particular, the enterprise business process server 101 may be capable of accessing, storing, or selectively retrieving information contained within the information data storage 106 and the fault file data storage 107, such as data storage scripts. May include application instructions. Data storage scripts can be implemented in the form of programming statements provided according to Transact® SQL (according to ColdFusion® data storage management system), as well as, for example, the SQL version 7.0 data storage management system query language. have. Other data storage implementations are possible, including but not limited to those available from Oracle® or IBM DB2®.

In an alternative embodiment, the enterprise business process management system 100 couples to the enterprise business process server 101 and the information data storage 106 and the tom file file storage 107 for accessing information stored therein. Corporate database server (not shown). The information data storage 106 may include transactional data or enterprise applications arranged in accordance with a hierarchical data storage management system format such as, for example, SQL. The flat file data storage device 107 may include enterprise application or transactional non-hierarchical data.

In addition, corporate business process server 101 may be coupled to one or more mainframes 108 within an enterprise. Main frame (s) 108 may include organizational or corporate applications, such as, for example, legacy payroll or accounting system. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 communicates with mainframe (s) 108 using a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a dedicated landline, or a combination thereof, among others. can do.

Further, in one or more embodiments, the enterprise business process server 101 may include call center terminal (s) 110 and data input terminals 111 via a LAN, WAN, dedicated telephone line, internetwork, internet, wireless network, or a combination thereof. May be coupled to one or more terminals, such as local user terminal (s) 112 and remote user terminal (s) 113. As such, corporate business process server 101 may receive transaction data from one or more of terminals 110-113.

In addition, corporate business process server 101 may communicate with users at one or more remote terminals 113, for example, using the Internet 109. Also for this purpose, in one or more embodiments the enterprise business process server 101 may comprise a web browser or a thin client. The web browser displays the data and can communicate with other computers via a network such as the Internet or an internetwork, for example. The web browser may provide a way for the user to navigate through a hyperlink that is inserted by, for example, typed by the user or selected by a pointing device (such as a computer mouse). . The web browser may, for example, transmit data of various contents, such as an HTML formatted document, plain text document, graphic image and XML documents, to present to the user on a display. For example, protocols such as HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) can be used.

2 illustrates a computing platform that may be used to implement an enterprise business process server 101 in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention. As illustrated in FIG. 2, the equipment 200 couples the processor 210, the memory 220, the system interface 230, the user interface 240, and the elements 210-240 together and the elements thereof. Communication / data / control bus 250 to facilitate cooperation and communication between the two.

The memory 220 may be implemented using alternative configurations in accordance with the needs of a user or system associated with an enterprise business process management system. System interface 230 includes both hardware and software that allows equipment 200 to communicate with components that provide data used by an enterprise business process management system, such as transactional data supplies from additional enterprise servers. can do.

The processor 210 controls the operation of the other elements 220-250 based on instructions fetched from the memory 220. The instructions may include or be implemented as software code that directs some or all of the operations of the enterprise business process management system 100 and methods described herein. The memory 220 may include this code and may include storage area for data generated or used by the enterprise business process management system 100. The processor 210 operates in combination with the system interface 230 or the user interface 240, for example to transfer data to or from the memory 220 (eg, to input or output information), or the like. Can retrieve instructions, decode them, and act on or command other elements 120-150.

Processor 210 may actually be implemented as one or more processors. The processor 210 may operate to control the operation of the other elements 220-250 based on instructions fetched from the memory 220. It is to be understood that the control may be implemented with the processor 210, for example, in a central processing unit or other similar device. Similarly, processor 210 and memory 220 may have a user interface 240 implemented in a user terminal, such as local terminal 112 and remote terminal 113, and on a terminal screen. GUI) can be implemented via one or more servers coupled to the network.

User interface 240 may include, for example, hardware and software that works with a terminal display, keyboard and mouse, printer, and the like. In addition, the user interface 240 may include a speaker and a microphone (not shown) for outputting information to and inputting information from the user. User interface 240 may operate in conjunction with processor 210 to allow a user to interact with software programs stored in memory 220 and used by processor 210 to perform the tasks described below. .

Corporate business process server 101 may be implemented, for example, as parts of a suitably programmed general purpose computer. The system can be implemented, for example, as physically separate hardware circuits within an ASIC. Accordingly, it should be understood that the specific form of system 100 may differ from the embodiment (s) described herein. For example, although enterprise business management system 100 has been described as implementable on a general purpose computer, for example a personal computer, it may be implemented in a network environment in which the software implementing the system is stored on one or more subs. You can expect that. In one or more embodiments, corporate business process server 101 may allow a user (eg, an administrative user) to add, modify or delete business processes or steps without taking down server 101. In addition, the enterprise business process server 101 may be scalable to easily function within server array or cluster environments and for processing of large amounts of data. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may include, for example, a Microsoft Windows ™ NT enabled personal computing platform.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may include one or more application programs including a series of programmed instructions that cause enterprise business process server 101 to be configured to perform business process tasks described herein. Can be. In particular, in one or more embodiments, FIG. 3 illustrates a functional block diagram of an enterprise data quality application 300 of an enterprise business process server 101. Referring to FIG. 3, enterprise data quality application 300 includes a core architecure 301, a set of predefined view tools 302, a developer's kit 303 and an interface. Module 304, which may be a business analyst interface. The core structure 301 obtains application data or transaction data from one or more data transmitters according to the particular view required, analyzes the data obtained for errors, logs detected errors, and reports one or more error reports. It may include a series of programmed instructions to generate. The enterprise data quality application 300 may include one or more functions designed to analyze a particular type of application data obtainable from one or more data transmitters for the occurrence of one or more types of errors present in the application data. In addition, enterprise data quality application 300 may require the execution of a specific set of functions of internal quality checking processes of a particular application or internal processes of one or more applications, such that ETL server 102, EAI server 103, ERP server. Instructions can be sent to one or more additional enterprise servers, including 104 and CRM server 105. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may send commands / requests (eg, function calls or procedure calls / Remote Procedure Calls), and TCP / A response can be received from the associated server via the IP interface. The core structure 301 may include a multi-threaded management layer that automatically converts any legacy application that is not multi-threaded into a multi-threaded entitlement.

In one embodiment, business analyst module 304 may include a sequence of programmed instructions that implement the interface module (eg, business analyst interface or BAI) described herein. These instructions may, during execution by the enterprise business process management server 101, cause the enterprise business process management server 101 to provide the enterprise business process management system 100 to interactive means that facilitate user interaction. have. In particular, the business analyst module 304 allows the process steps to be graphically represented using a display, for example, and allows the interaction of certain operations to be accomplished by the enterprise business process server when executing one or more process steps of the business process. It may include operable instructions. As such, business analyst module 304 may be an overlay application to developer's kit 303. In addition, the business analyst module 304 may include instructions for implementing a business process defined by a user whose corporate business process server 101 interacts with an interface module from a data storage device, such as, for example, the data storage device 106. It may include instructions operable to retrieve, form, and compile the sequence.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process system 100 may output error information in the form of one or more error reports. Error reports can be presented according to various views. The predefined view tool 302 may include programming instructions associated with one or more error reports provided according to a predefined set of views. For example, the predefined view tools may provide instructions that cause the enterprise business process server 101 to output an error report including a numeric count of errors in the data transmission for the manager's view. . Also, example views and reports are described below herein.

The developer's kit 303 is for creating and using custom view tools that analyze specific data, sources, error syndromes, or provide custom reports in addition to a set of predefined view tools 302. It may include an application programming interface (API) useful to users of the enterprise business process system 100 or its designated third party. The number of views supported by the enterprise business process management system 100 is not limited.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may be implemented in accordance with a client-server architecture. Programmed instructions including enterprise data quality application 300 may be implemented in portable source code, such as, but not limited to, general Microsoft®C. Enterprise business process server 101 may be implemented according to a server design encapsulated to support clusters and server arrays. In addition, the enterprise business process server 101 is a stateless architecture approach that allows the use of third party technologies for load balancing and high availability to provide measurability and reliability for handling large amounts of data. It can be implemented according to a stateless architecture approach. In addition, the enterprise business process server 101 is a " sandbox device " to allow fast and reliable addition of legacy technology that was not multi-threaded or thread-safe to real-time, parallel processing environments. A "sandbox technology" (ie, the use of a combination of process synchronization and isolation techniques, such as, for example, handling each session through a separate thread).

4 is a functional block diagram illustrating one observed relationship between data transmitters / destinations, products, and processes in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, enterprise business process server 101 may receive corporate application or transactional data from one or more data transmitters / destinations 305 and transmit to one or more data transmitters / destinations 305. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 provides corrected data after detecting an error for data sender / destination 305 (eg, data sender / destination 1 through K). can do. In addition, corporate business process server 101 may receive process input from one or more products 315 (eg, products 1 through M). Product 315 may comprise a function or set of functions. In one or more embodiments, the function may be a routine in a library that returns a value or set of values. In addition, corporate business process server 101 may include or access one or more processes 310, for example, to perform data quality assurance functions (eg, processes 1 through N) described herein. Can be. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may provide a separate error log 325 for each process 310. The results from each process 310, including any error log 325 generated, are stored using log data storage 320 (which may be data storage 160 described with respect to FIG. 5). Can be maintained.

The enterprise business process management system 100 may include a structure designed to use an unlimited number of products from different suppliers in a unique process for each application (data transmitter) or data set within the application. In particular, enterprise business process management system 100 is unique to creating, executing, managing, and reporting individual process steps in a business process that uses products from different suppliers on various platforms and makes these products available across the enterprise. You can provide a framework for your process. The enterprise business process management system 100 may provide for archiving or logging the quality of data processed at each stage in a multi-provider environment. The enterprise business process management system 100 may consider managing, tracking and reporting the use of products from multiple suppliers in a unique process for any application (data transmitter) or data set within the application. have. The enterprise business process management system 100 may be provided to use the same functions from the same provider or multiple suppliers using different settings within the process. Corporate business process management system 100 may provide different views of individual performance, business units or particular constituency within an enterprise and organization with respect to certain aspects of the business process, such as, for example, data quality. have. The enterprise business process management system 100 may be provided to compare the effectiveness of various functions and settings from different suppliers for the selection of the most effective functions and settings for dealing with a particular corporate issue such as, for example, a data quality issue. Can be. The enterprise business process management system 100 may be provided for the fastest implementation of multi-vendor applications such as data quality tools and data quality processes.

In particular, enterprise business process server 101 may utilize a vendor independent architecture that allows business process tools to be used on their current computer platform or the same platform that is a host of enterprise business process server 101. In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process management system 100 is provided for reusing functions of multiple business applications in system 100 in which a business process is defined.

5 illustrates equipment that may be used to implement a system in accordance with one or more embodiments. In particular, the enterprise business process system 100 may include not only the enterprise business process server 101 but also a data storage device 160 and a view engine 170. The data storage device 160 does not need to be a single data storage device, but may include several data storage devices together. For example, the data storage device 160 may be, but is not limited to, an On-Line Analytical Processing Database (OLAP) or a Summary Database. Data storage device 160 may include, but is not limited to, formatting instructions and rules used by view engine 170 to generate an error report in accordance with one of several views 400. Does not. For example, the view engine 170 may obtain a sequence of formatted instructions from the data storage device 160 and apply the resulting instructions to generating an error report according to the associated view 400. have. In one or more embodiments, each view 400 may be associated with a particular set of formatted instructions. The formatted instructions may be a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or Extensible Generation Language (HTML) designed to allow the view engine 170 to render an interactive page containing the requested error report according to the desired view. Extensible Markup Language (XML) may be implemented in the form of instructions. The interactive page may be, for example, a world wide web page or a page that can be displayed on the terminal 112 or 113 using a web browser application.

As can be seen in FIG. 5, enterprise business process management system 100 can provide several different views 400, including, but not limited to, end user views, developer views, administrator views, and executive views. In the following, exemplary views 400 are described in more detail with respect to FIGS. 7 to 10.

The enterprise business process management system 100 provides the ability to create different views 400 of the results of each step in the process for different levels of the organization to permit measurement and management of the effectiveness of the organization's business processes. . Corporate business process management system 100 may include visualization software that generates graphical information for different views 400. This graphical information may include analytical tools, statistical information, data tracking, cost analysis, and an indication of the impact of the results of different levels of organization on reducing errors in data quality in one or more embodiments. .

To support the generation of error reports according to the various views 400, the data storage device 160 (which may be an online application processing database or a summary database) may include a data transmitter / destination 305, a product 315. Or regardless of the process 310 from which data was obtained, the information contained within the data storage device 160 is formatted in a manner that is equally accessible by the view engine 170 for the creation of any view 400. And maintain error report information according to a "single view".

The enterprise business process management system 100 may log the results of each step in the process from all data transmitters. This log can provide information about who sent the data, what happened during each step of the process, and where the data was sent after the process was completed. This log can be fed directly to view engine 170, which can be a graphical reporting system for rendering multiple views.

In one or more embodiments, view engine 170 may provide graphical reports to a variety of users, including executives, managers, end users, and process developers who communicate information about how they, their departments, organizations, or processes perform. have. In particular, in one or more embodiments, view engine 170 may provide the following views 400, for example, views for executives, managers, users, and developers. Executive views provide graphical reports on the quality of the data for the entire organization. Executives can drill down to the performance of every segment in the organization to compare the causes and capabilities of data quality issues. In addition, executives have access to administrator and user reporting modules. The manager view provides graphical reports on the quality of the data in the manager's organization (s) and department (s). Managers can roll down to the performance of their business units and departments and compare the causes and capabilities of issues such as, for example, data quality. The user view provides graphical reports on the quality of the data entered into the system by the user. Users can further develop specific problems and review the input and output data and result codes of each step in the process. The developer view provides graphical reports of the results of all processes and steps so that developers can transform them into a process of analyzing and improving the results. Developers can rearrange the sequence of features, remove features, use features from other providers, add new features from different providers, and create new features by themselves.

View engine 170 may include statistical modeling packages that may be used to add a financial impact of data that is validated / corrected and not verified / corrected. In one or more embodiments, view engine 170 may be implemented using, for example, graphical modeling techniques available from Illumitek ™ Corp. of Dulles, Virginia.

6 provides another detailed description of an implementation of an analysis that may be performed by an enterprise business process management system 100. The enterprise data quality management system 100 is adapted from each application or data set to an application using all or a subset of the functions and settings that are available and externally available within all business process products residing within the enterprise network. Can be provided to create a unique process. Each application or data set in an application may use all the functions and settings in the sequence appropriate to meet unique needs. These business processes can consist of any number of steps. Each step may correspond to a function and setting, or a series of functions and settings from a particular provider. The enterprise business process management system 100 may preserve and log the results of all steps in the multi-provider process. Log files can be automatically logged to a text file or data storage device. In particular, errors can be determined and logged at the process level.

Enterprise business process management system 100 may include the ability to compare strengths and weaknesses of each of a multi-supplier, supplier functions and settings in a multi-step process. In addition, enterprise business process management system 100 may be provided quickly and easily to use a methodology of installing products and functions from multiple suppliers to advance the implementation of business process projects. Thus, in one or more embodiments the enterprise business process management system 100 may be supplier independent, while all functions contained within an additional enterprise server or application, including existing business process provider products, customer codes or services. Allow user access to. Through the use of the feature-oriented approach described herein, a user can use a business process function, such as data quality functions from different suppliers, within any order determined to suit the needs of each data set and data transmitter. You can sequence them. In addition, the user may establish a unique process 310 and steps for each data set within the data transmitter described with respect to FIG. 11.

The supplier may, for example, have the ability to identify elements of business and customer names and separate them into distinct fields; Functionality to identify, separate, verify, and correct each element of an address; Functionality to identify, separate, verify, correct, and change non-name and address information for online transactions and batches; Functionality to organize data from different records and from different data transmitters; Functionality to augment the source data with additional data; And software companies that provide the functionality to create a single record or view of an individual or client.

The enterprise business process management system 100 may include a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a user to create a process for an application or data set from an application. The user can specify the format for the data and create individual steps within the process by invoking specific function (s) and setting (s) from the tools available for each step. The GUI can be implemented using Java® commands, for example. The user can repeat the execution of the steps created until the business process process is fully defined and completed. Processes can be represented, shown, and navigated in a hierarchical manner, where a single step can represent a multi-step subprocess. Process descriptions and descriptions may be presented on other output devices, such as printers. Process descriptions and descriptions can be exported for viewing and manipulation by external applications such as word processors, flowchart applications or web browsers. The user can then identify the destination (s) for the results of the process and determine what information will be sent to each destination. The results of each step in the process can be logged to a text file or data storage device. The data stored in a text file or data storage device can be used by a view engine that can include visualization software to generate graphical reports, which can be used for analysis information, statistical information, data tracking, cost analysis and different levels within an organization. Include the impact of the data. This information can be used to measure and monitor the effectiveness of corporate business processes such as, for example, data quality programs.

39 illustrates a relationship between an interface module 304, an enterprise business process server 101, and a router 3905 in one embodiment. Referring to FIG. 39, input data 605 from a data transmitter, such as, for example, a business application, may be received by the enterprise business process server 101. In one embodiment, input data 605 may include a process identifier that specifies a particular business process to which input data 605 is to be applied. The enterprise business process server 101 may be configured to delete the input data 605 process identifier and provide the input data 605 to the designated business process of the router 3905. In one embodiment, the router 3905 may include an integrated instruction set that implements one or more business processes (eg, processes 1, 2, and 3 are shown in FIG. 39). Instructions for each business process are obtained from business applications external to the router 3905, as well as tools 3910 (ie, functions) external to the router 3905 that perform the process steps, but the router 3905. May include calls to tools 3910 on the.

In one or more embodiments, the router 3905 is replaced with the current router 3905 version and placed in service without a new version or loads of the router 3905 having to unload (ie, out of service) the server 101. It may be an interchangeable router capable of handling data traffic. Router 3905 may include a set of instructions for currently active business processes provided by enterprise business process management system 100. The new router 3905 version may be formed and deployed into a service to begin handling data traffic according to a new or modified business process. In one embodiment, the interface module 304 may generate a set of instructions for implementing a new or modified business process in response to user input function information. A user may enter function information using, for example, a process designer interactive page provided by interface module 304. After replacing the current router version with a new router version, the input data 605 can be handled according to the new router version. Also described herein with reference to FIGS. 23A-23D are detailed descriptions of replacing the current router version with a new router version.

Referring to FIG. 6, the method 600 may begin with an enterprise business process server 101 receiving input data at 605. The input data 605 may be received from the data transmitter / destination 305.

Control may then proceed at 610 where input data may be passed to the process router. Based on the process identifier, the process router may direct the input data to a particular process 310 (eg, process X). In one or more embodiments, the process router may allow processes and steps to be easily and quickly modified (ie compatible or hot swappable router) without having to lower the server 101.

Control may then proceed at 615 where process 310 (eg, process X) may receive input data and pass it to each step in the multistep process. One example of a business process is that transaction data (obtained from a data sender / destination 305 associated with a particular enterprise application) is compared to a trusted source such as, for example, the United States Postal Service database. This is a data quality process such as address verification. Thereafter, after the control proceeds to the second step of 620, control may proceed to subsequent steps (eg, step N) at 635. After each step in process 310, the results of the step can be entered into a log 630, such as, for example, error log 325, and the data passed to the next step. The results of each step of the process 310 and the error log 325 may be stored in a data storage device 625 such as data storage device 160. As mentioned above, data storage device 625 (and data storage device 160) may be, but is not limited to, an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing Database) or summary database. Logging can be used for server logging (eg, logging of all transactions received by the server, logging of server statistics) as well as process logging (eg for analysis of transaction data and product capabilities). Detailed logging of each step in the process).

After the last step in process 310 is complete, control may proceed to 640 where the process results may be applied to the output data structure. The output data may then be provided to the data transmitter / destination 305, whereby processing may end for method 600.

In one or more embodiments, process 310 may include, but is not limited to, fields such as ROME_ID, ROME_TIME, SECT_CODE, SOURCE_DEST, SUB_SOURCE_DEST, RETURN_CODE, and INPUT COMPONENT 1-N. Each step within process 310 may include, but is not limited to, fields such as ROME_UID, ROME_TIME, PRODUCT_ID, PRODUCT_RC, STEP_ID, and OUTPUT COMPONENT 1-M. Each data packet may have a unique identifier (eg, "ROME_ID") that can be used to track the results of multiple submissions of the same data packet.

As previously mentioned herein with reference to FIG. 5, for example, in an embodiment on ID, enterprise business process server 101 may provide error reports according to one or more views 400. 7 is an illustration of an error report for an executive view in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 7, executive view 700 may include one or more error reports that provide data error information for various departments 705 of the enterprise. For example, the example executive view 700 depicted in FIG. 7 provides visibility to users (eg, corporate executives) that require aspects of the enterprise, such as data quality, for example so that correct actions can be performed. Provide error reports for departments 705 including marketing, finance, sales, development, web and customer support departments. In one or more embodiments, inaccurate and erroneous records are marked to indicate that they are incorrect and for this reason.

In particular, error reports are provided in graphical as well as numerical form, using tools such as charts 715 and 720, ranking, or statistical analysis of errors detected in a given set of enterprise application data or transaction data. can do. For example, in one or more embodiments, the enterprise business process management system 100 may include a ranking 720 of data errors detected for applications in different departments 705, data transactions flowing into and out of department 705. Traffic strength indicators, productivity charts 715 showing changes in productivity for each department 705 over time, and process error classification of strengths, weaknesses, costs, and benefits associated with data quality for departments 705. As in 725, an analysis process may be provided that provides the user with the information request.

Similarly, FIGS. 8-10 are examples of error reports for customer support view 800, personal view 900, and administrator view 1000, respectively, according to one or more embodiments. Items containing the same reference signs as those shown in FIG. 7 are as previously described for it.

In particular, for personal view 900, enterprise business process management system 100 may provide visibility to a user who requires, for example, data errors that are attributed to a particular individual. For example, FIG. 9 is due to the process error classification 725 of the strengths, weaknesses, costs, and benefits associated with a particular person 905, as well as the error type 910 and person 905 committed by the person 905. It represents the number of errors distributed over time. An exemplary error classification 725 of the error report of FIG. 9 is that an individual 905 is strong at entering address information (i.e., seldom makes an error), weak at entering a name (i.e., has many errors), 80, 74, and 22 errors were committed in different time periods, causing the company to spend $ 800 as a result of data errors.

In addition, for the manager view 1000, the enterprise business process management system 100 provides visibility to data requests due to individuals as a group of individuals (905) and a group to the requesting user (eg, a corporate administrator). Can provide. For example, FIG. 10 illustrates the process error classification 725 of strengths, weaknesses, costs, and benefits associated with multiple individuals 905, as well as the type of error 910 and group each individual 905 has committed. Represents the number 915 of errors distributed over time (eg, current time) attributable. In addition, a cost per time period chart 1005 may be provided that represents the daily cost incurred by the enterprise for data errors caused by each individual 905.

In one or more embodiments, corporate business process management system 100 provides a user (eg, an administrative user) with the ability to create and establish a business process 310 that is executed by corporate business process server 101. can do. 11 is a flowchart of a method 1100 of establishing an exemplary data quality process for an enterprise business process management system 100 in accordance with one or more embodiments. The method 1100 may begin at 1105 for an enterprise business process server 101 that receives a user request to create a process 310. The user inputs a request to create a process 310, for example by using a pointing device to select the associated hyperlink included on the interactive page provided by the graphical user interface portion of the enterprise data quality application 300. can do.

Control may then proceed to 1110 where the enterprise business process server 101 allows the user to create a process name and select a data transmitter for process 310. 12 is an example of an interactive page 1200 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 through which a user may enter a process name, description, and associated data transmitter 305.

Control may then proceed to 1115 where the enterprise business process server 101 allows the user to enter a new data transmitter 305 as needed. If the user responds by requesting to add a new data sender 305, control may proceed to 1120, where the enterprise business process server 101 provides an interactive page 1300 for the user to add a data sender 305. You can create and print FIG. 13 illustrates an enterprise business process server, in which a user may add a data transmitter 305 by inputting information such as, but not limited to, a data transmitter name, description, IP address, port number, and platform identifier. An example of the interactive page 1300 provided by 101 is an example.

Control may then proceed to 1125 where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to generate an input packet for the process 310. 14 shows an interactive page 1400 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 where a user generates an input packet by entering attribute information such as, but not limited to, input element name, type, length, and description. Is one example. Input element types are boolean, character, double character, wide character (UNICODE), floating point, decimal, integer, long integer You can specify the data type for an input packet, such as, but not limited to, long integer or short integer.

Control may then proceed to 1130 where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to generate an output packet for the process 310. 15 illustrates an interactive page 1500 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 that allows a user to generate an output packet by inputting attribute information such as, but not limited to, output element name, type, length, and description. One example. The output element type can specify data types for output packets, such as, but not limited to, Boolean, character, double character, extended character (UNICODE), floating point, decimal, integer, long integer, or short integer.

Control may then proceed to 1135 where the enterprise business process server 101 allows the user to select the product 315 (or function or set of functions at that time) to be associated with the process 310. can do. Product 315 may comprise a function or set of functions. FIG. 16 illustrates, as minimum, an enterprise business process server 101 that allows a user to select a product 315 by entering a product description and selection of a product 315 from a pull-down list, for example. One example of an interactive page 1600 provided by.

Control may then proceed to 1140 where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to add product 315 as needed. If the user responds by requesting to add product 315, control may proceed to 1145, where enterprise business process server 101 generates interactive page 1700 for the user to add product 315 and You can print 17 illustrates an interactive page 1700 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 through which a user may add a product 315 by entering information such as, but not limited to, product name, product type, version, and product template. Is one example. APPENDIX A herein provides an exemplary sequence of pseudocode instructions for generating a product template.

Control may then proceed to 1150, where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to select a data destination 305 for the process 310. 18 is an example of an interactive page 1800 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 through which a user may enter a data destination name and description.

Control may then proceed to 1155 where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to enter a new data destination 305 as needed. If the user responds by requesting to add a new data destination 305, control may proceed to 1160 where the enterprise business process server 101 is the same as the data destination name, IP address, port number, and description. By inputting information that is not limited thereto, an interactive page (not shown) may be generated and output for the user to add a data destination 305. In one or more embodiments, all or part of the data output by enterprise business process server 101 may be directed to one or more data destinations 305.

Control may then proceed to 1165, where the enterprise business process server 101 may allow the user to establish a process 310. 19 is an example of an interactive page 1900 provided by an enterprise business process server 101 through which a user can review and confirm information associated with the process 310 described above. The summary process information by page 1900 includes the process name, its data transmitter 305, input / output data specification, associated product 315 list, and data destination (s) 305 for process output. You can, but are not limited to that. After process 310 is created, it can be edited (ie, source code editing). In one or more embodiments, the instructions may be source code instructions.

Processing for the method 1100 may end at 1170.

It should be noted that data output from the described systems and methods may be provided in whole or in part to one or more destinations 305. In other words, all output data can be directed to a single destination 305. Alternatively, portions of the output data may be sent to multiple destinations 305.

FIG. 24 provides a functional block diagram illustrating a relationship between functions, processes, and products (eg, a tool) with respect to a destination of data quality business processes in one embodiment.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process management system 100 may include an interface module, one example of which is described in more detail below. In addition, the interface module may include aspects of the user interface previously described herein. In one embodiment, the interface module 304 may be implemented as a component of the enterprise data quality application 300 shown in FIG. 3. The interface module may use the enterprise business process management system 100 to provide a user with the ability to define, create, modify, test, and execute a sequence of functional steps for a business process. In particular, the interface module allows the user to define a business process, for example by selecting and moving symbols (e.g., dragging and dropping) about process functions at a display location representing a particular process step. It may include an interactive graphically-oriented process specification tool for making modifications. Each process step may be represented, for example, as one or more functional icons grouped together, as shown in FIG. 20. 20 illustrates an example process designer interface interactive display 2000 provided in accordance with one or more embodiments. Thus, the interface module process designer can be used to define or specify a business process to be performed by the enterprise business process management system 100. As an overlay application for the developer's toolkit 303, the interface module 304 may provide an interactive page similar to or in addition to FIGS. 12-19 previously described herein.

Functions may be named sections of a program that perform a particular task. In this sense, the function may be in the form of a procedure or routine. Some programming languages make a clear distinction between a function that returns a value and a procedure that does some work but does not return a value. Most programming languages involve a set of prewritten functions that are maintained in a library. In addition, custom functions may be developed that perform specialized tasks. For example, in the C language and certain other programming languages, a function is a named procedure for performing a separate service. Language statements that require the function are called function calls.

Referring to FIG. 20, the process designer interactive display 2000 may include a function library 2005, a process input area 2010, a process step definition area 2015, and a process output area 2020. Each process step 2025 may be represented within process step definition area 2015 as, for example, one or a group of function input 2030, function output 2040, and function identifier 2035. Each functional input 2030 may be linked (not linked) to an input element 2075 in the process input area 2010 using, for example, a link 2045. Link 2045 may also be referred to as a connection or “road”. Similarly, each functional output 2040 may be linked (not linked) to an output element 2080 in the process output region 2020, for example using a link 2045. In one embodiment, links 2045 may be used to indicate the direction of flow of information from a transmitter to a destination, such as, for example, from input element 2075 to function input 2030. The flow of information may be controlled by one or more routers using packet header information and routing tables to determine a destination or target. In addition, process steps 2025 may be linked, for example, to form a chain of continuous process steps 2025 to be substantially accomplished in a business process.

25 illustrates an example of a functional overview interactive page provided in an embodiment. Referring to FIG. 25, the function overview page 2500 may provide a list of all functions currently included in the function library 2005. The functions therein can be ordered according to various criteria, for example chronologically by means of a creation command.

FIG. 26 illustrates an example of a process definition area portion of the process designer interactive page 2000 provided in one embodiment.

Each process step 2025 may represent a particular task to be accomplished by an enterprise business process server when executing that process step 2025. In particular, process step 2025 may include one or more function inputs 2030 and function outputs 2040. In addition, the function identifier 2035 may indicate a particular task to be performed using the function input (s) 2030 to generate the function output (s) 2040. In one embodiment, enterprise business process management system 100 may perform many different process steps 2025 obtained from multiple application providers within a single business process. In one or more embodiments, the function identifier 2035 helps to specify the functions and functional elements of the particular application provider for which the application (s) are used by the enterprise. In addition, multiple business processes may be supported by the enterprise business process management system 100.

In one or more embodiments, a user of enterprise business process management system 10 may interact with process designer interactive display 2000 to create and modify process steps 2025 that make up a business process. In particular, the user can use the pointing device of the terminals 110-113, for example, to function inputs 2030, function outputs 2040, function identifier 2035, input elements 2075, output elements. Manipulate, move, and link display icons or symbols representing the 2020 and the links 2045. Alternatively, a keyboard device can be used for this. For example, the new function input 2030 can be dragged and dropped (eg, selected) from the function library 2005 to the desired process step 2025 in the process step definition area 2015. May be added to process step 2025. FIG. 27 illustrates an exemplary interactive page of the process designer 2000 illustrated by adding elements of process step 2025 from the functional library 2005 in one embodiment. If the new function input 2030 requires an input element 2075, the user may drag and drop the desired input element 2075 from the function library 2005 to the input area 2010, for example, and the new input element ( Link 2045 may be added from 2075 to a new input function input 2030. 28 illustrates an example interactive page of process designer 2000 illustrating a link of process steps 2025 within a process definition area of a process designer interactive page in one embodiment.

In one embodiment, the function input 2030 may include conditional statements that specify alternative actions to be performed on the occurrence (whether occurrence) of the specified event. 29 illustrates an example interactive page portion 2900 where conditional statements may be defined for elements of process steps in accordance with one or more embodiments.

30 illustrates an example of a product definition interactive page 3000 provided within one embodiment, similar to FIG. 17. FIG. 31 illustrates an example of a data destination definition interactive page 3100 provided within one embodiment, similar to FIG. 18. FIG. 32 illustrates an example of a product selection interactive page 3200 provided within one embodiment, similar to FIG. 16.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process management system 100 retrieves a sequence of instructions for implementing a business process defined by an interface module process designer, for example, from a data storage device, such as data storage device 106. You can build, build, and compile. In one embodiment, the interface module 304 of the enterprise business process server 101 is defined from the data storage device 106 for execution by the enterprise business process server 101, for example using an interface module. A sequence of instructions for implementing the above business process can be obtained.

In one or more embodiments, the interface module 304 may assemble (ie, form) a sequence of instructions that implements the interface module process designer defined process steps 2025 within a series of formation steps using multiple build files. have. 21 illustrates a series of build files used in one embodiment by an enterprise business process server to form a code implementation of a business process. Referring to FIG. 21, one set of build files for a business process is, in one embodiment, one or more temporary step build file (s) 2050, process step file 2055, one or more functional property files ( S) 2060, one or more associated functional temporary file (s) 2065, and process file 2070. The enterprise business process management system 100 may use these files in one embodiment to implement a business process defined by a business analyst, for example using an interface module process designer in the following manner.

In one embodiment, all the functions added to the enterprise business process management system may appear in the functional library 2005 (FIG. 20). For example, each function may be identified within the function library 2005 by the function name and icon. The function property file 2060 is placed on the interface module process designer 2000 with the correct number of function inputs 2030, function outputs 2040, for example, if this function is added as a step in the process. It may contain all of the necessary information in an XML format so that it may have associated settings defined by the content parameters of the data fields that are displayed at and used or generated by the function. In one embodiment, every function in enterprise business process management system 100 has its own function attribute file 2060. Function step 2025 represents an example of a function that appears using interface module process designer 2000 when added to a business process as a step. When a function is added to a business process, the interface module 304 first reads a function attribute file 2060 for that function. After reading the function attribute file 2060, the interface module 304 forms the input / output elements required for that function since the function is defined within the function attribute file 2060.

In one embodiment, the interface module 304 is a function wizard that provides the user with a sequence of interactive pages that is operable to assist the user in importing pre-formed functions into the library and modifying existing functions. ) May be included. The function wizard may include interactive fields of one or more interactive pages where a user may enter a function name, select a function icon, enter an associated product name, enter a function type, and add a description of the function. The function wizard may provide a function template in response to user input information. Functional templates may be maintained using, for example, functional template files 2065. The function template may include a sequence of instructions (eg, variables) that define various aspects of the function. Actual values for each function variable may be determined by function settings corresponding to the respective function variable. 33 illustrates an example of content of a function template file page 3300 provided in an embodiment.

After the functionality is added to the business process, a temporary step file 2050 may be created. In one embodiment, the temporary step file 2050 may be provided in XML format. The temporary step file 2050 may contain all the information about the function when it is contained in this step within the business process. It is important to note that temporary steps files may be different for all steps, even if they originate from the same function.

In addition, as illustrated in FIG. 21, the interface module 304 may generate a process step file 2005 when a business process is formed. In one embodiment, process step file 2055 may be a joined group of temporary step file (s) 2050 associated with this business process.

Finally, interface module 304 can generate a process instruction set file 2070 as follows. First, the interface module 304 can read the process step file 2055. Since each step may correspond to a function in the function library, the interface module retrieves the function attribute file 2060 for each step in the process step file 2055, and then the corresponding field in the function attribute file 2060. To the data in process step file 2055. Then, after the information from the process step file 2055 is linked to the corresponding fields in the function attribute file 2055, the interface module 304 adds each function attribute file 2060 to a function template file ( 2065). In one embodiment, the function template file 2065 may include source code instructions (eg, 'C' source code) to be added to the sequence of instructions implementing the process. Further, in one or more embodiments, the function template file 2065 may include XML tags corresponding to the fields in the associated function attribute file 2060. As the function template file source code is added to the source code in the process instruction set file 2070, the interface module 304 uses the XML tags in the function template file 2065 as data that was provided from the process step file 2055. It may be replaced with data provided in the property file 2060.

In one embodiment, following the formation of a new process instruction set file 2070, the enterprise data quality application 300 may form a new router DLL including the new process source code file 2070 shown in FIG. 22. In one or more embodiments, the instruction set file 2070 may include source code instructions. Referring to FIG. 22, the enterprise data quality application 300 may include a new process instruction set file 2070 (eg, process file 1) along with other process instruction set files (eg, process files 2 through K). It is possible to form a new router DLL (2071) including. Thereafter, the new router DLL 2071 is arranged to be loaded and serviced by the enterprise business process server 101, at which time the new process can be executed.

23A-23D provide flow diagrams illustrating in more detail a method of implementing a business process in accordance with one or more embodiments. Referring to FIG. 23, the method starts at 2300 and proceeds to 2302. At 2302, a user may send a request to enterprise business process server 101 to create or modify a business process. In one embodiment, user requests may be output by terminal 110, 111, 112 or 113 to enterprise business process server 101 using a network such as, for example, a packet based network. One example of a packet-based network is the Internet. For example, the user may be a business analyst. In one embodiment, the request may be provided as an XML-formatted request. In response, corporate business process server 101 may output an interactive page, such as, for example, interface module process designer interactive display 2000, to the requesting terminal 110, 111, 112, or 113. In one embodiment, the interface module process designer interactive display 2000 may be provided in the form of an XML-formatted interactive page suitable for display on a terminal using a web browser application of the terminal.

Control may then proceed to 2304, where the user may wish to add a process step to the business process or modify the process step of the business process (see FIG. 20). Control may then proceed to 2306, where the user can determine whether the functionality to be added to the process step or to which a new process step needs to be added needs to be added to the functional library. In such case, control may proceed to 2308. Otherwise control may proceed to 2312.

At 2308, the user can enter information defining the new function into the function library. Such information may include, but is not limited to, function names and function icons. The function name may provide a brief description of the task provided by the function. The function icon may be a symbol representing a provider or a provider of an application on which a function is performed. In one embodiment, all the functions used in the process steps will be included in the functional library.

Thereafter, control may proceed to 2310, where the user may define a specific function property using a function property file. The function properties file is XML such that when this function is added as a step in a business process, the function is displayed on the interface module process designer using the correct number of function inputs and function outputs as well as the function settings associated with it. It may contain all the information needed to define the functional information in a format. In one embodiment, the functional properties file may be provided according to the XML format. In addition, in one embodiment all of the functions in the function library may have a corresponding function attribute file. 34 illustrates an example of a function setting interactive page 3400 provided in one embodiment.

Control may then proceed to 2312, where a temporary step file may be generated as follows. When a function is added to a business process, the interface module can first read the function properties file for that function. After reading the function property file, the interface module may form the input / output elements required for that function defined in the function property file. In one embodiment, the temporary step file may be provided in XML format. A temporary step file can contain all the information about a function if it is attached to this step within a business process. It is important to note that temporary step files may be different for all steps, even if they originate from the same function.

Control may then proceed to 2314 where the interface module may generate a process step file. In one embodiment, the process step file may be a combined or assembled group of temporary step file (s) associated with this business process.

Control may then proceed to 2316, where the interface module may retrieve the function attribute files for each step in the process step file. Control may then proceed to 2318, where the interface module may map data in the process step file to corresponding fields in the function attribute file. Control may then proceed to 2320 where the interface module may map each function attribute file to a function template file. In one embodiment, the function template file may include source code instructions (eg, 'C' source code) to be added to the sequence of instructions implementing the process. In addition, in one or more embodiments, the function template file may include XML tags corresponding to fields in the associated function attribute file.

Control may then proceed to 2322, where the interface module may replace the XML tags in the function template file with the data provided in the function attribute file, which was the data provided from the process step file.

Control may then proceed to 2324, where the interface module may assemble the function template files occupied by the data into a process instruction set file containing a sequence of program instructions that implement the process. Control may then proceed to 2326, where the interface module may store the process instruction set file in the data storage device. The instruction set file may be a source code file, but is not limited thereto.

Control may then proceed to 2328, where the enterprise data quality application core application may determine whether the user has designated the business process as a test process or a production process. In one embodiment, business analyst module 304 may provide an interactive page (not shown) that specifies whether the user will perform a test build of the router or a build build. In the case of a test process, control may proceed to 2330 of FIG. 23C.

At 2330 of FIG. 23C following the formation of a new test process instruction set file, the enterprise data quality application core application may form a new router DLL including the new test process instruction set file (see FIG. 22). The test process instruction set can be optimized for production.

Control may then proceed to 2332, where the interface module may inform the enterprise business process server that the new router is ready to be loaded. Control may then proceed to 2334, where the enterprise business process server stops, stops any transactions currently entering the router, causes all transactions in the current router to complete processing, and Can be unloaded.

Control may then proceed to 2336, where the enterprise business process server may inform the interface module that the current router is unloaded.

Control may then proceed to 2338 where a notification is received that the current router is unloaded, so that the interface module preserves the current (ie, "old") router, replaces it with a newly formed router, You can tell the process server to load a new router.

Control may then proceed to 2340, where the enterprise business process server may load and initialize a new router and allow transactions to enter the new router.

Control may then proceed to 2342 where the enterprise business process server may inform the interface module that a new router has been loaded.

Control may then proceed to 2344 where a notification is received that a new router has been loaded, and the interface module may output a process tester interactive page to the user's terminal. 35 illustrates an example process tester interactive page 3500 according to one embodiment. The process tester interactive page 3500 may include a process test step list output 3505.

Control may then proceed to 2346, where the terminal may output a process tester interactive page to the user, for example, via a display of a web browser application. FIG. 36 illustrates an example of a process definition area 3500 occupied by data in a process tester interactive page where the interface module, in one embodiment, replaced the XML tags in the function template file with data provided in the function attribute file.

Control may then shift to 2348 where the method may end.

At 2350 of FIG. 23D, following the formation of a new production process instruction set file, the enterprise data quality application core application may form a new router DLL including the new production process instruction set file (see FIG. 22). The production process instruction set can be optimized for production.

Control may then proceed to 2352, where the interface module may inform the enterprise business process server that a new router is ready to be loaded. Control can then proceed to 2354, where the enterprise business process server can be aborted, stop transactions entering the current router, allow all transactions within the current router to complete processing, and unload the current router. have.

Control may then proceed to 2356, where the enterprise business process server may inform the interface module that the current router is unloaded.

Control may then proceed to 2358 where, upon receiving a notification that the current router is unloaded, the interface module preserves the current (ie, "old") router, replaces it with a newly formed router, and the corporate business You can tell the process server to load a new router.

Control can then proceed to 2360, where the enterprise business process server can load and initialize a new router and allow transactions to enter the new router.

Control may then proceed to 2362, where the enterprise business process server may inform the interface module that the current router is unloaded.

Control may then proceed to 2364 where the notification that the new router has been loaded may result in the interface module outputting the main process interactive page to the user's terminal.

Control may then proceed to 2366, where the terminal may output the main process interactive page to the user, for example, via a display of a web browser application.

Control may then proceed to 2368, where the method may end.

In one or more embodiments, enterprise business process server 101 may receive a packet of input elements associated with the business process via a connection from a data transmitter to retrieve and execute a particular business process. In one or more embodiments, this linking may be a compiled dynamic linking library (DLL) file that maps business application function input data and output data to corresponding information fields of the functions of the associated business process. 37 illustrates an example of a connection definition interactive page 3700 that allows a user to define a connection according to one or more embodiments. Each enterprise application may have a corresponding connection maintained using data storage 106, for example, whose functions map to one or more business processes executed by enterprise business processor server 101. . Receiving an associated packet of input elements, enterprise business process server 101 may retrieve and execute the associated business process, and generate the resulting output elements. In one embodiment, enterprise business process server 101 may send a packet containing output elements to a data destination via a connection to further processing. The connection can encapsulate data routing information specifying the path between enterprise nodes. In one embodiment, the connection may be a socket connection to a packet based network, for example TCP / IP.

Thus, an interface module can be used by users such as business analysts, using enterprise business process management systems, without having to undertake the very long requirements definition, overall design, detailed design, coding and testing cycles associated with software engineering or programming personnel. For example, you can define, create, modify, implement, test, and qualify business processes. The enterprise business process management system presented herein allows for rapid iterative development and implementation of business processes that not only reduce development costs and time, but also reduce the need to freeze functional requirements periodically.

Accordingly, an enterprise business process management system has described embodiments that provide an integrated data quality management system capable of collecting, analyzing, and reporting information about the qualitative and quantitative aspects of application or transactional data throughout an enterprise. It should be understood that the enterprise data quality management system described herein is merely one aspect of the enterprise business process management system of the present invention. Those skilled in the art will be able to determine other embodiments of the present invention based on the description herein. In particular, corporate business process server 101 may be described more generally as a server capable of providing or operating in connection with many different corporate business process applications. In general, such enterprise business process management systems are entitled to collect, analyze, and report information on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of application or transactional data across the enterprise across some or all of the compute nodes of the entire enterprise network. It can provide and process the application data output by the heterogeneous computing platform and applications. As a result, an enterprise business process management system can provide several integrated views of the data that exists throughout the enterprise. These views may range from data associated with the entire enterprise to individual departments or business functions / business units, to individuals.

For example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system may include defining, forming, and executing a business process that includes functions from business applications relating to fingerprint analysis, retinal imaging / scanning, voice identification, and image matching and comparison. It can be directed to the same biometric and homeland security applications, but is not limited thereto. In a particular example of such a business process, an employee of a company may be required to pass a fingerprint identification scan to enter a company facility. When an employee places their fingerprint on a fingerprint pad or scanner, data representing a unique fingerprint scan may be sent to the process maintained by the enterprise business process management system. This process may include comparing the scanned fingerprint data to a set of valid fingerprints, for example using one or more functions from different fingerprint software matching tools that attempt to verify the employee against a company employee fingerprint database. Can be. If the employee is verified as an employee, a door may be opened and a signal may be sent from the enterprise business process management system to the door access control device to allow employee entry access.

In another example of such a business process, photographic image data may be entered into a multi-step business process that attempts to match photographic imaging data over a multi-image database to search for matching features. If a match is found, a signal may be sent to another process maintained by the enterprise business process management system to output image coordinates to the targeting or reporting system.

In another example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system may be directed to compliance assurance, for example, business compliance with applicable government regulations. These applications are myriad. In particular, one example is directed to ensuring that health care companies work in compliance with the rules and regulations of government mandates, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ("HIPAA"). It can be a business process. In a particular example of such a business process, business rules that apply HIPAA requirements may be maintained within a business process that is defined and executed, including a functional library and a series of business rules that apply to specific patient information based on government HIPAA requirements. Can be. In one embodiment, this process may be a multi-step process with each step representing different HIPAA requirements. This configuration can be provided to easily modify these rules based on changing government requirements. In other words, after loads for business applications for HIPAA compliance are established, the corresponding functions used to represent requirements as process steps, for example as described herein using the interface module process designer, are described. Can be modified.

As another example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system may be directed to ensuring that government data quality regulations face for a data set. For example, data on child welfare provided to the federal government may be required to comply with specified data accuracy greater than 90% accuracy.

As another example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system is directed to a tax allocation application as defined, formed, and executed a business process that includes functions from a business application relating to graphical coding software and tax allocation software. May be, but is not limited to. In a particular example of such a business process, an organization may need to accurately allocate appropriate taxes on their customers' bills during the billing process. Incorrect tax allocations during the billing process can lead to loss of customers. Therefore, in one embodiment, a business process where customer information, such as address information, is accurately checked by multiple functions from different tax allocation business applications (e.g., soft packages) prior to final processing and billing the customers. (Or alternatively a sequence of process steps within the billing process) can be generated and executed. The results of the functions can then be compared against each other, for example, and the correct tax can be assigned based on the results. In addition, after the correct tax has been determined, for example, after receiving the tax assignment and customer identifier as input, the correct tax assignment into another business process where each step can perform multiple steps to perform SQL queries against different databases. And a customer identifier can be sent as input. In one embodiment, each step may perform a customer's data storage lookup via the customer identifier, and update the customer's tax allocation so that the customer has the same tax across multiple data storage devices.

As another example, an embodiment of an enterprise business process management system may be directed to, but is not limited to, a product comparison application that defines, forms, and executes business processes that include functions from business applications related to address verification. Does not. In a particular example of such a business process, a business process can be created and executed that receives a person's address as input and then performs a multi-step process. In one embodiment, each step in a business process may include, for example, address coders from different software providers. Each step may receive the address as input and then attempt to verify the address against the postal database itself. In one embodiment, a comparison of each supplier's capabilities may be performed, and statistics may be generated to know exactly which product performs best for certain data conditions. 38 illustrates a comparison business process according to one embodiment.

More generally, when an organization wants to determine which software application or provider provides the best functionality, the products can be integrated and tested against an enterprise business process management system. In addition, any business process that compares different software provider API calls can be included within this process.

As another example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system may be directed to a data mapping or transformation application that defines, forms, and executes a business process that includes functions from a business application relating to data storage conversion software. However, it is not limited thereto. In a particular example of such a business process, input data is received in a first format associated with one data storage device (eg, a first database), and in another storage device (eg, a second database) format. A business process for which output data is provided can be created and performed. In one embodiment, each process step may be, for example, a mapping from one field type to another field type.

Finally, as another example, one embodiment of an enterprise business process management system defines a software-based mapping that defines, forms, and executes a business process that includes functions from business applications related to information matching and database retrieval software. It may be directed to an application, but is not limited thereto. In a particular example of such a business process, the business process may include information mapping and data storage lookup for information about call center tasks. In particular, the call center operator may receive a call from the customer where the customer provides the call center operator name and address information. The call center operator may initiate a search request, for example after entering information using an interactive page. The search request may cause name and address information to be sent to a business process maintained by an enterprise business process management system, for example, which may perform the following steps:

a. Normalize Name and Address Data

b. Create Match Key

c. Perform a series of database lookups using the match key generated in step b

d. Each database lookup returns some information that will be used to form a temporary record.

e. After all database lookups have been performed, output is sent to the call center screen.

Different levels of visibility may be provided to enterprise level issues, such as, but not limited to, data quality issues, so that appropriate correction actions may be performed to users of an enterprise business process management system, including management and executive users. In one or more embodiments, the enterprise business process management system may automatically correct for incorrect or erroneous data based on reliable transmission of the data. The integrated view provided by the enterprise business process management system of the present invention minimizes the disadvantages of data provider-specific approaches, such as, for example, application-specific inspection processes. In addition, because the need to acquire and maintain many individual independent data quality applications is reduced, the overall acquisition cost for the data quality tool can be minimized for the enterprise, for example, through the use of the integrated approach described herein. .

Further, in one or more embodiments the business process server may be configured to select and execute a set of desirable functions, with each desired function being obtained from one of a number of different business applications. The business process server may select one function from a number of similar functions provided by the business application, for example based on a selection heuristic. One example of such a selective heuristic method may be the ratio of errors detected by a comparison of a number of similar functions applied to a given set of business application output data. Each business application may or may not be a product from a different supplier. Alternatively, the function selection criteria may be specified by the user through the interactive page of the interface module. In this way, the enterprise business process management system may select a set of desirable or "using the best software" functions among those provided by different business applications.

40 shows a block diagram of an enterprise business process management system 100 as an example of a business process management system. The enterprise business process management system 100 includes a process forming portion 4001 and a process designer interactive portion 4002. The process formation portion 4001 is a portion for creating or modifying a business process. Process designer interactive portion 4002 is the portion that interacts with process designer 4003. Process designer 4003 may be a human who designs business processes. Process designer 4003 may also be a non-human entity capable of designing business processes. For example, the process designer may be a separate corporate business process management system 100 or some other system or software that may or may not interact with it.

Process designer interactive portion 4002 interacts with process designer 4003 in a variety of ways, such as, but not limited to, through the screen display and keyboard or through the screen display and mouse. One example of a relatively sophisticated interaction is that the process designer interactive portion 4002 shows the process designer interactive page 2000 shown in FIG. 20, which interacts with the process designer 4003. Process designer 4003 enters information designing the business process used in process designer interactive portion 4002. Here, the information designing a business process is defined as any information used to design the business process. One example of information designing a business process is for the process designer to place a function identifier 2035 on the process designer interactive page 2000 shown in FIG. 20. The process forming portion 4001 creates or modifies a business process based on the information received by the process designer interactive portion 4002.

41 shows a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple products by the enterprise business process management system 100. Process forming portion 4001 can utilize any number of products. In FIG. 41, process forming portion 4001 utilizes three products 4100, 4101, and 4102 (eg, illustrated by way of example so that the process forming portion is not limited). Typically, a product has a plurality of functions, but a product may have only one function. In addition, the function itself may be a product. In addition, a business process that integrates multiple functions and / or products may construct a function when the business process is used as a function. The business process created by the business process management system can be used repeatedly as a function. In addition, the business process created by the business process management system may be used repeatedly as a product.

In FIG. 41, product 4100 has functions 4110 and 4113. Product 4101 has a function 4111. Product 4102 has functions 4112 and 4114. 41 shows an example in which process forming portion 4001 selects functions 4111, 4112, and 4113 between functions 4110, 4111, 4112, 4113, and 4114 to create or modify business process 4150. . Products 4100, 4101 and 4102 may be products of the same or different suppliers. In addition, process forming portion 4001 may select settings and allow selection of settings. Typically, the functions provide several settings that can be adjusted by the business to meet the needs of the individual. Some functions may provide only one fixed setting that is not coordinated by the business (or process designer 4003). Some functions may not have settings at all. In FIG. 41, function 4110 has three settings: setting A, setting B and setting C. FIG. Function 4111 has only one fixed setting D. Functions 4112, 4113 and 4114 do not have a setting. FIG. 41 illustrates an example in which process forming portion 4001 selects setting B of function 4113 between settings A, B, and C to create or modify business process 4150. Business process 4150 uses setting D of function 4111, setting 4112, and setting B of function 4113. Business process 4150 may physically include functions and settings within business process 4150 and may be physically functional (such as when the functions are physically located in different locations but are accessible through a wired or wireless connection). Functions and settings may be accessed outside of the physical location of the business process 4150. Process forming portion 4001 may select the same functions from the same provider or multiple suppliers with different settings in one business process.

The selection of functions and settings in process formation portion 4001 may be based on information received from process designer interactive portion 4002. In addition, the selection of the functions and settings in process forming portion 4001 may be based on a comparison of the functions and / or selections. In FIG. 41, process forming portion 4001 includes a validity comparison portion 4120. The validity comparison portion 4120 is the portion that compares the validity of the functions and / or settings in one observed embodiment. Process forming portion 4001 selects functions based on information received from process designer interactive portion 4002.

One example of information received from the process designer interactive portion 4002 is the selection of three function identifiers 2035 on the process step definition area 2015 shown in FIG. 20 (for illustrative purposes, the three function identifiers are function X). Subjects as represented by, Y and Z). Function X is realized by function 4111 or 4114. Function Y is realized by function 4112. Function Z is realized by function 4113. Process forming portion 4001 selects functions 4112 and 4113 as functions Y and Z. The validity comparison portion 4120 compares the validity of the function 4111 and the function 4114 to select the function 4111 as the function X. Further, the validity comparison portion 4120 compares the validity of the settings A, B, and C of the function 4113 and selects the setting B of the function 4113. Process forming portion 4001 generates business process 4150 using setting D of function 4111, setting 4112, and setting B of function 4113.

There may be various ways for the validity comparison portion 4120 to compare the validity. For example, the validity comparison portion 4120 can evaluate the validity of the functions and settings by computer simulation. Alternatively, the validity comparison portion 4120 may evaluate the validity of the functions and settings by obtaining information from the information contained within the supplier's product. The validity comparison portion 4120 may compare the strengths and weaknesses of the respective provider functions and settings. The validity comparison portion 4120 allows for comparison of the validity of various functions and settings from different suppliers for the selection of the most effective functions and settings, for example to address a particular corporate issue such as a data quality issue. Can be provided.

It should also be noted that the validity comparison portion 4120 may evaluate the validity of overlapping functions and settings, in addition to evaluating the validity of different functions or settings. This comparison may be performed for overlapping functions and / or settings that exist on the same system or platform or on different systems or platforms. For example, the same function (or duplications of functions) may exist on different operating platforms, and the overlapping functions may be performed differently when executed on different platforms. In one case, if a feature is on a Windows-based platform, that feature may run at a slower speed than the duplicated feature that works on a Linux-based platform. The validity comparison portion 4120 may then evaluate the validity of the functions (ie, identical overlapping functions) with respect to the platform on which they exist to properly select among the duplicates.

Effectiveness comparison portion 4120 may evaluate the effectiveness of the functions and settings by comparing the speed and efficiency of the functions and settings among other factors. For example, if a setting or function is operating at an unsatisfactory slow speed, the function or setting can lead to the creation of a process that cannot return results within a preselected time limit. Thus, the validity comparison portion 4120 may select different settings or functions to process data within a preselected time limit. Alternatively, the validity comparison portion 4120 may select between different settings and functions based on the trustworthiness, accuracy, etc. of the processed data. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a validity comparison can assess both the timeliness and the accuracy of the results returned between many different factors to compare the overall performance of a particular process, function or setup.

42 shows a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple business applications by the enterprise business process management system 100. In the example shown in FIG. 41, business application 4200 has functions 4210, 4213 and 4216. Business application 4201 has functions 4211, 4214, and 4217. Business application 4202 has functions 4212 and 4215. 41 illustrates an example in which process forming portion 4001 selects and combines functions 4212, 4213, and 4217 to create or modify business process 4250. All or part of the functions 4210, 4211, 4212, 4213, 4214, 4215, 4216, and 4217 may include settings. The enterprise business process management system 100 may provide an enterprise using business processes "using the best software" in combination to achieve increased effectiveness for the overall corporate business. The functions of many different business applications can be combined to form a new or modified business process in which the functions are selected for other criteria that drive a particular effect or increased overall effectiveness. For example, several data quality processes, each of which may be obtained from the same business application or many different business applications, may be applied to each of the multiple data quality business applications alone to achieve a higher overall data accuracy rate than is possible. It can be defined to include data quality business processes. Each business application may or may not be generated from different providers. The enterprise business process management system 100 may select a set of desirable or "using the best software" functions among those provided by different business applications.

Enterprise business process management system 100 allows process designer 4003 (or, alternatively, a user) to add a product by entering information such as, but not limited to, product name, product type, version, and product template. To enter a version, enterprise business process management system 100 may have a version input portion. The version input part is for inputting information about the version. 17 shows an example of a version input part. 30 shows another example of a version input part.

The enterprise business process management system 100 may allow the process designer 4003 (and / or the user) to enter the platform of the product. A typical example of a platform is an operating system. The enterprise business process management system 100 may have a platform input portion. The platform input part is for inputting information about the platform. 32 illustrates an example of a platform input portion. Products 4100, 4101, and 4102 may be on the same or different platforms. Business applications 4200, 4201, and 4202 may be on the same or different platforms.

The enterprise business process management system 100 may have a version graphical display portion. The version graphic display section shows graphic information about the version. 43 shows version page 4300 as an example of a version graphics display portion. Version page 4300 shows a tree structure as shown in FIG. 43. Interface 4301 is the first level of the tree structure. One interface 4301 can have one or more releases 4302, which is the second level of the tree structure. One release 4302 can have one or more implementations 4303, which is the third level of the tree structure. 43 shows that interface 4301 and release 4302 are combined to form a version number. For example, interface 4301 with number "1" and release 4302 with number ".1" form version number "1.1". In this embodiment, implementation 4303 does not constitute a version number. The name of the operating system is assigned at implementation 4303. Implementation 4303 is typically an operating system, but may be any entity on which a product or business application is implemented. For example, if two word processor products having the same version number 1.1 are developed for two specific machines, the implementation may be a machine.

44 shows another example of a version graphics display portion. In this embodiment, a number is assigned to implementation 4403, which implements a version number. For example, if interface 4401 has number "1", release 4402 has number ".1", and implementation 4403 has number ".1", the version number is "1.1.1". Becomes

All or part of the interfaces 4301, 4401, releases 4302, 4402, and implementations 4403, 4403 may be represented by an icon. 43 and 44, they are represented by icons having the same shape. However, each icon may have a different shape, color, design, or the like. In addition, other indicators (eg, simple dots or characters) may be used instead of the icon. The icon or other indicators can be folders. The folder is, in one observed embodiment, an indicator of opening and closing according to the click action, among others. If the folder is clicked to open, the bottom level of the tree is visible on the screen. If the folder is cleaned to close, the lower level of the tree is hidden on the screen.

Process designer 4003 and / or the user may select a product used to create or modify a business process by selecting one or more of the indicators. For example, process designer 4003 clicks icon 4304 with a mouse cursor to select a product with version number 1.1 implemented on a particular operating system. This allows the user to use the appropriate version for the business process.

45 shows a block diagram illustrating the use of multiple products with different versions by the enterprise business process management system 100. In this specification, products having different versions constitute different products even if the names of the products are the same. Also, products with different platforms herein constitute different products even if the names of the products are the same. The enterprise business process management system 100 may select functions and settings from products with different versions and / or platforms to create or modify a business process. In addition, process designer 4003 and / or user may select a product with a particular version and / or platform used to create or modify a business process.

In FIG. 45, product 4500 has the product name "Data Quality", the version is 1.0, and the platform is UNIX. Product 4501 has the product name "Data Quality", its version is 1.1 and the platform is UNIX. Product 4502 has the product name "Data Quality", its version is 2.0 and the platform is LINUX. Product 4503 has a product name "Search Name", its version is 1.0, and its platform is UNIX. Product 4500 has features 4510 and 4512. Product 4501 has functions 4510 and 4512. Product 4502 has functions 4511 and 4514. Product 4503 has a feature 4515. Function 4512 has settings A, B, C and D. Function 4513 has settings E, F and G. Function 4514 has settings H, I and J. In FIG. 45, process forming portion 4001 selects function 4511, setting C of function 4112, and function 4515 to create or modify business process 4550.

Products 4500, 4501 and 4502 have the same product name. Function 4511 is enhanced from function 4510, but function 4511 is only available on the platform of LINUX. Process formation portion 4001 may improve performance by selecting function 4511 to interact with the functions on different platforms. Considering compatibility with product 4501, function 4512 is selected with configuration C. Function 4515 is selected using a combination of function 4511 and 4512. In this way, different versions or platforms of products with the same product name can be combined to create or modify business process 4550. By mixing the functions of different versions and platforms, enterprise business management system 100 can create or modify business processes that are more effective than when only products with one version and one platform are used.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the ability to effectively organize and use different interfaces 4301, releases 4302, and implementations 4304 in a particular environment is a significant concern for many businesses today. Using the structure described above, and using the enterprise business process management system 100 described herein, this can be accomplished.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, and in view of the foregoing, different implementations, releases, and versions are simply functions that can be utilized. For example, there are two or more ways in which enterprise business process management system 100 can be used. First, if different implementations 4203 are employed on different portions of system 100, enterprise business process management system 100 may be used to replace the previous implementation 4303 with a more recent implementation 4303. have. Second, enterprise business process management system 100 may be configured to allow this work if it wishes to have different implementations 4403 that proceed concurrently.

Over time, if the implementation 4303, release 4302, and interface 4301 are upgraded and replaced, the enterprise business process management system 100 may be configured to automatically find older versions and replace them with newer versions, The overall upgrade can be made simple and effective.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the implementation fulfills the requirements of the interface. An implementation can be developed on one or more machines, systems, or platforms that can execute the implementation. This means that an implementation can be developed across M machines while representing a single version. The version also represents a scale factor in the system.

For example, when process designer 4003 creates a process, the version and the particular embodiment of the version represent a range of machines on which the version can be run across the system regardless of whether it is an interface, release or implementation. The manner in which the system is scaled and the determination by which scaling is achieved are described below.

As indicated above, in the described embodiment the interface exhibits the highest level of abstraction for the version and also the highest level of scalability. When an interface is used within a process, the system is known to have a complete range of releases and implementations to choose from when the process runs. Potentially, this represents a huge scale on which the system can execute a process.

In one example, when the interface is used within a process, interface Too1.1 has N releases, represented by Tool.1.1, Tool.1.2 through Tool.1.N, each release being Tool.1.1.P (1). , With P implementations represented from Tool.1.2.P (2) to Tool.1.NP (3), the system is responsible for all machines (M) in which the implementation has been developed if the process designer 4003 determines so. You can use all implementations (P) within all releases (N) across. In essence, it is possible that all machines are involved in the execution of a process. For process designers, the use of the interface represents a single version. For a system, the use of the interface corresponds to instructions on how many systems can be scaled to meet the needs of the process.

The release is very similar to the interface. However, releases are more restrictive on how the system scales its work to maximize usage. One difference between an interface and a release is that a release can be scaled to use implementations that are covered only by a particular release (eg, "children" of the release) and not other releases. Also in this case, for process designers, the use of a release represents a single version. For a system, the use of a release corresponds to instructions that indicate how the system should limit its scale so that implementations (which are children of a release) are only implementations used to execute selected steps of the process.

In one observed embodiment, the implementation provides the smallest scale in the system because the system represents up to M potential machines that are likely to be used to execute a particular process. When a version is used within a process, it should be noted that the version represents a single step that may or may not be executed in successive instructions, depending on whether the step is dependent on any previous steps. However, the version for a system does not represent a single step that is executable only on one machine, but may represent any number of machines that can be used to perform this step.

The following example provides one example described above. Assume that the total T transactions should be processed on the total M machines available for the interface. When executed on M machines in parallel, one step of the business process will require processing time (t). The processing time t is the total transaction T divided by the total machines M and multiplied by the average time required to process each transaction. As can be seen, the greater the number of machines available for an interface, the faster the business process can run regardless of the processing time required by the individual machines.

As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, each machine may not execute a step at the same speed in a business process. Thus, assuming that each machine handles the same number of transactions, the total processing time required to execute the step will be the processing time of the slowest machines available for the interface. In order to further reduce the overall processing time, the interface may require certain faster machines to process a larger number of transactions than slower machines. Therefore, the interface can be set up to balance these factors in order to establish the most efficient processing for the various machines available to it.

In the simplest example, 100 transactions must be processed by the same process, the process comprising presenting an interface, the interface representing 100 potential machines, each including an implementation, and then each Assume that a transaction can be executed at the same time (in parallel). If the process itself is represented as a single step, the system is scaled to all potential implementations. In this example, each machine may be the processing of cotton, assuming that the transaction process is completed, a transaction with the same speed with potentially 1/100 ^th of the time required when only a single machine is who depends to execute a single step have.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to certain illustrated embodiments, the words used herein are words of description rather than of limitation. In the embodiments, modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Although the present invention has been described herein with respect to specific structures, operations, and materials, the invention is not limited to the specific details disclosed, and may be extended to all equivalent structures, operations, and materials within the scope of the claims herein. Can be.

APPENDIX A

product template  layout

Compile link type

Section headings: / * Link Type * /

Run-time: Linking to .DLL without using headers or .lib files

Compile-time: The calling product has headers and .lib files

File location

Section headings: / * File Locations * /

Header =: provide the location of the header file

Lib =: Provide the location of the Lib file

Global definition

Section headings: / * Global Definitions * /

This is the case when you define any global variables to be used by all processes.

See example

Global initialization variables

Section headings: / * Global Initialization Variables * /

This section is used when you need to define any initialization variables to be used by all processes.

See example

Global initialization function (s)

Section headings: / * Global Initialization Function (s) * /

Invoke functions for products used by all processes

See example

Global exit variable

Section headings: / * Global Termination Variables * /

This section is used to define any variables needed for global termination functions.

Global shutdown function (s)

Section headings: / * Global Termination Function (s) * /

Function calls for products used by all processes

Header

Section headings: / * Headers * /

This is the case when header names are defined.

Example: #include "Header.h"

See example

variable

Section headings: / * Variables * /

This is the case when defining variables to be used by this product.

Memory allocation

Section headings: / * Memory Allocation * /

If you need to allocate memory for a variable or data structure, add code here

For function calls set up

Section headings: / * Input * /

This is the case when setting up the parameters to be passed to the product.

Product call

Section headings: / * Function (s) * /

This is the case when a function call to the product is working.

See example

Output of function call

Section headings: / * Output * /

This is the case for copying the results of a function call on the output packet as needed.

See example

Return memory

Section headings: / * Memory Deallocation * /

If you previously allocated memory for any of the data structures, return them here.

Claims (22)

In a business process management system: A process designer interactive portion configured to receive information designing a business process; And A process forming portion configured to create or modify the business process based on the information received by the process designer interactive portion, The process forming portion is configured to select one or more of the functions and settings from one or more of the plurality of products to create or modify the business process. The method of claim 1, And wherein said process forming portion comprises an effectiveness comparison portion for comparing the validity of at least one of said functions and settings with the validity of others of said functions and settings. . The method of claim 1, And a version input portion configured to input a version of at least one of the products. The method of claim 1, And said products are on a plurality of platforms. The method of claim 1, And a platform input portion configured to input one or more platforms of the products. The method of claim 1, A business process management system further comprising a version display portion that shows graphical information about the version. The method of claim 6, And the graphic information comprises information about a platform. The method of claim 6, And wherein said graphical information is a tree structure having a plurality of indicators. The method of claim 8, The plurality of indicators are: An interface indicator indicating an interface of the products; A release indicator indicating a release of the products; And And an implementation indicator indicating implementations of the products. The method of claim 8, And the plurality of indicators are icons. The method of claim 8, And the plurality of indicators are folders. The method of claim 8, And the version display portion accepts input of a selection of one or more of the plurality of indicators to select a product used to create or modify the business process. The method of claim 1, And said functions comprise at least one of an interface, a release and an implementation. The method of claim 13, Wherein said release comprises a subset of interfaces and said implementation comprises a subset of releases. The method of claim 13, And wherein said process forming portion comprises a validity comparison portion for comparing one or more validities of said interface, release, and implementation with the validity of others of said interface, release, and implementation. The method of claim 13, Old process, release and implementation may be replaced with new interface, release and implementation. The method of claim 13, At least one of the interface, release, and implementation causes the business process to be scaled. The method of claim 17, To scale the business process, the interface directs a portion of the total number of transactions to the total number of available machines, each of which processes a portion of the total number of transactions in parallel. Business process management system. The method of claim 17, In order to scale the business process, the release directs a portion of the total number of transactions to the total number of available machines, each processing a portion of the total number of transactions in parallel. The method of claim 17, To scale the business process, an implementation directs a portion of the total number of transactions to the total number of available machines, each processing a portion of the total number of transactions in parallel. In a business process management system: A process designer interactive portion configured to receive information designing a business process from the process designer; And A process forming portion configured to create or modify the business process based on the information received by the process designer interactive portion, The process forming portion combines the functions of a plurality of different business applications to create or modify the business process, wherein the functions are selected to increase the overall effectiveness of the business process management system. Business process management system. The method of claim 21, The business process management system of claim 1, wherein the business process can be divided into smaller business processes based on the machines available to implement the interface.

Images