Patent ID: 6212530
Filing Date: 2001-04-03
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method for generating and maintaining a structured collection of documents, the method comprising the steps of:providing a conceptual model of a desired document system in terms of its interdependent entities, the model including (i) a plurality of entities of different entity classes, and (ii) relationships among the entities, said entities and relationships being charted in an entity-relationship diagram;categorizing each document in the structured collection of documents into one of the entity classes from the conceptual model, such that each document is an instance of a respective entity class;based on the entity-relationship diagram, automatically generating and updating each document according to respective entity class, such that the structured collection of documents is automatically generated and maintained;forming a relational database based on the conceptual model and entity-relationship diagram, such that the database holds actual information contents needed to automatically generate and format each document and hence the structured collection of documents;the step of generating and updating includes automatically generating the documents in complete formatted printable and compilable form from the contents stored in the database, enabling post processing into an on-line hypertext documentation; andwherein the step of providing a conceptual model includes charting and analyzing dynamic exchange among entities in a hierarchy of process-message matrices.