Abstract:
A catalog based purchasing and requisition system profile manager for a procurement services system that allows profile searching and editing features. The system provides simplified new profile creation, existing profile editing, profile grouping, customized profile copy and profile searching features.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
       [0001]    The present invention generally relates to systems and methods for the requisition of goods and services and more particularly to the requisition of goods and services from catalog vendors where purchases may be controlled and leveraged across companies and company groups. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0002]    The present invention provides a system for creating and maintaining catalog profiles in a catalog based automated method for requisitioning goods and services. The system of the present invention provides additional features to those described in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 7,155,403 (the &#39;403 patent). The &#39;403 patent is incorporated herein in its entirety. 
         [0003]    A purchaser of goods or services may purchase an item from a catalog, for example, Catalog A. In an automated requisition system a profile may be created for each unique company (user) group (e.g. country, company Enterprise Procurement Services [ERP] system) used by the requisition system (e.g., SAP) using Catalog A. In operation, a given company group might have three companies with each company using a different ERP, for an automated system to function fully three catalog profiles must be created for a given catalog (assuming this single catalog is utilized by all three companies). A limitation in prior systems is that although a given catalog may be controlled by a catalog profile and associated with more than one company within more than one company group, business rules may require a user in a particular company group to buy from a particular catalog or catalogs, and such user will only see those catalogs associated with their company group. Thus, in such prior art requisition systems, catalogs are isolated to users by company group by associating company groups with each data item that exists in the various data files and code procedures. This isolation is preferred in order to affect purchasing control. 
         [0004]    As a system is enabled to provide the necessary features to operate without a troubling level of skilled intervention, catalog profiles in such a system may become debilitatingly complex as the number of attributes and profiles for a given catalog require maintenance of, e.g., duplicate data across multiple profiles for each catalog. 
         [0005]    Administrative staff must be employed to continually update the hosting requisition and catalog system such that both (1) new profiles are created for new catalogs and (2) current catalog profiles are edited where catalog offerings have changes. 
         [0006]    Existing systems require continuing re-factoring of existing requisition and catalog systems (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,542: System for ordering items using an electronic catalogue). 
         [0007]    The present invention reduces the manual effort required to maintain and use automated catalog requisition systems. The present invention also increases efficiency without adversely effecting system control and functionality. For example, the present invention eases catalog profile maintenance without requiring programming or system level changes. 
         [0008]    The present invention allows for:
       a. Creating new profiles of a given catalog.   b. Maintaining multiple profiles of a single catalog when multiple profiles for a given catalog are needed to keep the requisition system&#39;s design intact.   c. Updating attributes of multiple profiles of the same catalog.   d. Deleting multiple profiles of the same catalog.       
 
       SUMMARY 
       [0013]    The present invention provides the following novel features:
       a. Multiple profiles of a given supplier catalog may be made without creating each profile from scratch.   b. The ability to create from one to a plurality of profiles by utilizing a “Copy profile” function (copies an existing profile for editing in creating a similar additional profile).   c. Functions:
           i. “Add to source profile&#39;s group (link)” function to add newly created profiles to a source profile so a group (link) acts as a single profile for a given catalog. In this case a source profile acts as the group owner.   ii. “Group (link) copied profiles” function to group the newly created profiles so that the new group (link) acts as a single profile for a given new catalog. In this case, a group member becomes the group owner.   iii. “Save grouped (linked) profiles data” function to propagate the changes from a single profile to a grouped (linked) profile of a given catalog (i.e. group of catalog profiles of the same catalog, the catalog id and the company group code must be the same to form a group).   iv. “Save selected profile&#39;s data” function to limit the changes to a single profile.   v. “Remove from the group” function to remove a given profile from its group (unlink from the group).   vi. “Add to group” function to add a given profile to the predefined group, based on the catalog id and the company group code, the profile is automatically added to the appropriate group (link to group).   vii. “Search the group owner profiles” function and find profiles which are the group owners. ALL profiles are initially group owners if they do not belong to a group.   viii. “Delete the grouped profiles” function to delete all the profiles of a given group.   ix. “Delete the selected profile” function to delete a single profile in a group.   
               
 
         [0026]    The present invention provides at least the following advantages over currently known systems: 
         [0027]    (1) The requisition and catalog system&#39;s original operational logic is not changed. 
         [0028]    (2) Adds additional features to the existing profile maintenance process without impacting the existing system. 
         [0029]    (3) Provides the flexibility of updating profiles in accordance with pre invention installation methodology and post-invention methodology. 
         [0030]    (4) Grouped profiles may be updated while updating a single profile. 
         [0031]    (5) Reduced manual effort to maintain multiple profiles. 
         [0032]    (6) Reduced cost and errors to maintain profiles. 
         [0033]    (7) Grouping (linking) and Ungrouping (unlinking) profiles. 
         [0034]    (8) Any number of profiles can be created in one click based on the given source catalog profile. 
         [0035]    It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not necessarily restrictive of the present disclosure. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of the specification, illustrate subject matter of the disclosure. Together, the descriptions and the drawings serve to explain the principles of the disclosure. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0036]    The numerous advantages of the disclosure may be better understood by those skilled in the art by reference to the accompanying figures in which: 
           [0037]      FIG. 1  illustrates the static connections between the components of the present invention illustrating catalog administrator (delegate) access to the Copy Profile and Grouping System (CPGS), the procurement application and the database directly; 
           [0038]      FIG. 2  is a flow diagram of a preferred embodiment of the present invention illustrating features of the present invention, including managing groups and group profiles; 
           [0039]      FIG. 3  is a process flow chart of a program designed to operate the system and apparatus of a preferred embodiment of the present invention; 
           [0040]      FIG. 4  is a flow diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention illustrating the creation of new groups and editing existing groups; 
           [0041]      FIG. 5  is a flow diagram of the group edit/remove feature of the present invention; and 
           [0042]      FIG. 6  is a flow diagram of the system of a preferred embodiment of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0043]    Reference will now be made in detail to the subject matter disclosed, which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The present invention provides an efficient and a productive system to create and maintain catalog profiles in a procurement application. 
         [0044]    The present invention provides flexibility in updating grouped profiles while updating a single profile. Additionally, the present invention provides means for specifying the attributes that need to be propagated to grouped profiles when updating a single profile while grouping (linking) and ungrouping (unlinking) profiles. In a currently preferred embodiment, the present invention may be utilized to create profiles in a single step while maintaining duplicate profile information across multiple profiles of a same catalog. 
         [0045]    The invention includes the following components in its currently preferred embodiment:
       a. Copy profile and grouping system (CPGS): guides the catalog administrator, or a delegate, through the steps (some of them conditional) necessary to transform a procurement application and to copy and group catalog profiles (reduced maintenance/administration time). The system also can update grouped profiles while updating a single profile. The system allows the attributes of a single profile to be propagated to a group, e.g., in a single GUI, an administrator can copy a source profile and create “N” number of profiles. The grouping options can be selected in that GUI also. Based on the configured rules, the grouping will be performed.   b. Procurement Application: conducts the purchasing of products and services using a workflow, often involving multiple parties. Aside from purchasing, procurement applications provide oversight, approvals, and accounting functionality. Example applications include IBM Buy on demand, Ariba, and SAP&#39;s EBP/SRM.   c. Database: a comprehensive collection of related data organized for convenient access. Example databases include DB2, Sybase, Oracle, and MySgL.       
 
         [0049]    With the CPGS of the present invention, profile creation and maintenance time is reduced. This decreases cost and manual errors in maintaining the system. 
         [0050]    The execution flow of the present invention is illustrated in the Figures. The following functions are provided and utilized in the present invention: 
         [0051]    “Copy profile” function to copy an existing profile and create multiple profiles. 
         [0052]    “Add to source profile&#39;s group (link)” function to add newly created profiles (certain restrictions apply) to the source profile so that the group (link) acts as a single profile for a given catalog. In this case the source profile is the group owner. 
         [0053]    “Group (link) copied profiles” function to group the newly created profiles so that the new group (link) acts as a single profile for a given new catalog. In this case, one of the group members will be made the group owner. 
         [0054]    “Save grouped (linked) profiles data” function to propagate the changes from single profile to the grouped (linked) profiles of a given catalog (i.e. group of catalog profiles of the same catalog, the catalog id and the company group code are preferably the same to form a group). 
         [0055]    “Save selected profile&#39;s data” function to limit the changes to the single profile. 
         [0056]    “Remove from the group” function to remove a given profile from its group (unlink from the group). 
         [0057]    “Add to group” function to add a given profile to the predefined group, based on the catalog id and the company group code, the profile will be automatically added to the appropriate group (link to the group if exists). 
         [0058]    “Search the group owner profiles” function and find profiles belonging to a group or a group owner (all profiles are initially group owners unless they belong to a group). 
         [0059]    “Delete the grouped profiles” function to delete all the profiles of a given group. “Delete the selected profile” function to delete a single profile in a group. 
         [0060]    Turning now to the Figures, the flow execution of the CPGS guides the catalog administrator or delegate through a series of steps to enhance the functionality of a procurement application to reduce the manual effort and errors while maintaining catalog profiles. 
         [0061]    Multiple profiles of a given catalog may be linked (grouped) with a “Group ID” to identify the group. To group catalogs, the catalog id and the catalog owner country must be the same. Individual catalog profiles may be added or removed from the group. All profiles of a given group can be updated when an individual profile is updated. While updating a single profile of a given group, profile attributes can be selected to publish to a group. Each profile has a “Group ID” attribute to identify its grouping id. The group owner&#39;s ERP ID and the Group ID are preferably the same. 
         [0062]    When working with the profiles, either group owners or individual profiles can be searched. Profiles may also be copied. 
         [0063]    A catalog profile may be created from scratch using the profile GUI function or it may be created by using a new GUI function to copy an existing profile. The profile attributes can be configured to allow the copy function to use only certain selectable fields when creating new profiles. There are four conditions in which the configuration can exist to describe what attributes can be copied, e.g., (1) (Source profile&#39;s catalog ID=Target Profile&#39;s catalog ID) AND (Source profile&#39;s country=Target profiles country); (2) (Source profile&#39;s catalog ID=Target Profile&#39;s catalog ID) AND (Source profile&#39;s country !=Target profiles country); (3) (Source profile&#39;s catalog ID !=Target Profile&#39;s catalog ID) AND (Source profile&#39;s country=Target profiles country); and (4) (Source profile&#39;s catalog ID !=Target Profile&#39;s catalog ID) AND (Source profile&#39;s country !=Target profiles country). Additionally, In one GUI function an administrator can copy one source profile and create “N” number of profiles. 
         [0064]    In the present disclosure, the methods disclosed may be implemented as sets of instructions or software readable by a device. Further, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods disclosed are examples of exemplary approaches. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the method can be rearranged while remaining within the disclosed subject matter. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not necessarily meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented. 
         [0065]    It is believed that the present disclosure and many of its attendant advantages will be understood by the foregoing description, and it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form, construction and arrangement of the components without departing from the disclosed subject matter or without sacrificing all of its material advantages. The form described is merely explanatory, and it is the intention of the following claims to encompass and include such changes.