Abstract:
A method and system for providing multilevel information about aspects of business. The method comprises the steps of generating a display, on a computer display screen, of a tree having a plurality of nodes, and embedding in the nodes information about said business aspects. For example, trees may be generated that provide information about arranging, performing, monitoring, maintaining and controlling a business. Information may be embedded with a matrix approach. As examples, matrices may be used that provide information about business models, business expansion capabilities, business short and long term predictions, business competitor data, comparison and differences, business histograms and predictors, business responsible entities, division, product, entity business plans, reporting and results, and business alarm functions.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE 
     This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/138,172, filed on Jun. 8, 1999. 
     This application is also related to the following copending applications, filed herewith, 
     Serial No. 09/590,204, “Control And Maintenance Of Multicast Distribution Employing Embedded Displays,” 
     Serial No. 09/590,205, “Controlling, Configuring, Storing, Monitoring And Maintaining Accounting Or Bookkeeping Information Employing Trees With Nodes Having Embedded Information,” 
     Serial No. 09/590,323, A Method Of Control, Maintenance And Allocation Of Computer Server Farms Resources And Other Resource Farms To Their Users,” and 
     Serial No. 09/590,203, “Video-On-Demand configuring, Controlling And Maintaining,” 
     which are all incorporated herein by reference in entirety. 
     This application is also cross referenced with application Ser. No. 09/327,708, entitled, “Representing, Configuring, Administering, Monitoring, and/or Modeling Connections Using Catalogs and Matrixes,” by E. H. Booth et al., filed Jun. 8, 1999, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in entirety; 
     The disclosure of this application is related to the disclosures of the following U.S. Patents: 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,460, “Maintenance of Message Distribution Trees in a Communications Network,” by Drake, Jr. et al., issued Feb. 22, 1994; 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,646, “Fixed video-on-demand,” by A. Ganek et al., issued Mar. 3, 1998; 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,682,597, “Hybrid Video-on-demand Based on a Near-video-on-demand System,” by A. Ganek et al., issued Oct. 28, 1997; 
     U.S. Pat. No. 5,459,725, “Reliable Multicasting over Spanning Trees in Packet Communications Networks,” by Bodner, R. A. et al., issued Oct. 17, 1995; 
     U.S. Pat. No. 4,277,837, “Personal Portable Terminal for Financial Transactions,” by Stuckert, P. E., issued Jul. 7, 1981; 
     U.S. Pat. No. 4,106,667, “Apparatus and Method for Conducting Financial Transactions,” by Lynott, J. J., issued Aug. 15, 1978; 
     which are all incorporated herein by reference in entirety. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention generally relates to business information; and, more specifically, the invention relates to the use of computer displays having business information embedded therein. 
     The many facets of a business are generally set up and performed employing a mixture of applications. Each application satisfies a particular business aspect and/or attribute. Each aspect has a unique display containing a limited amount of business information. It would be advantageous to have a single application which enables display of multiple aspects in a logical way allowing ease of use for adding, deleting and modifying products and product lines, product development cycles, schedules (critical paths), parts, customer, sales, expenditure, employee information and databases. It would be most useful if parts of these different aspects can be linked in the display. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     An aspect of this invention is to employ a plurality of tree displays having business information embedded therein. 
     Another aspect of the present invention is to employ a plurality of tree displays having business information embedded therein, and to provide linkage between trees and/or their nodes. 
     A aspect of this invention is to provide simultaneous display of a plurality of portions or entire trees that have business information embedded therein. 
     Another aspect of the present invention is to employ multidimensional matrices to show relationships of multidimensionally related business aspects. 
     These and other aspects are attained with a method and system for providing multilevel information about aspects of business. The method comprises the steps of generating a display, on a computer display screen, of a tree having a plurality of nodes, and embedding in the nodes information about said business aspects. For example, trees may be generated that provide information about arranging, performing, monitoring, maintaining and controlling a business. 
     Information may be embedded with a matrix approach. As examples, matrices may be used that provide information about business models, business expansion capabilities, business short and long term predictions, business competitor data, comparison, and differences, business histograms and predictors, business responsible entities, division, product, entity business plans, reporting and results, and business alarm functions. 
    
    
     Further benefits and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description, given with reference to the accompanying drawings, which specify and show preferred embodiments of the invention. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a flow chart outlining a preferred method embodying this invention. 
     FIGS. 2 and 3 show displays of trees having nodes with embedded information. 
     FIG. 4 illustrates a display of embedded business relationship information. 
     FIG. 5 shows a display resulting from activation of a cell of the matrix of FIG.  4 . 
     FIGS. 6 and 7 show a computer system that may be used in the invention. 
     FIG. 8 illustrates a memory medium that can be used to hold a computer program for carrying out this invention. 
     FIG. 9 shows an alternate tree display. 
     FIG. 10 illustrates an aspect of the invention in which combinatorial operations are used to form elements of a catalog. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     With reference to FIGS. 1-3, this invention employs a display  10 ,  12  showing a plurality of trees  14 ,  16 ,  20  for arranging, performing, monitoring maintaining and controlling a business employing trees with embedded information. Each tree is a representation of its nodes  14   a ,  16   a ,  20   a  for an embodiment of a business. The tree enables viewing embedded information regarding each nodes on each of the trees. Each node is provided with embedded information relevant to its embodiment or attribute. 
     Although the trees in FIGS. 2 and 3 are shown bottom up (extending upward from the root node), trees may similarly be formed and/or displayed top down (extending downward from the root node), sideways (from the root node) or in any combination of these (as known to those skilled in the art). The particular tree formation and/or display is formed as is best suited to the particular application and/or display, and in accordance with the desire of a viewer or user. In some embodiments these display variations are selectable by the user. When more than one tree is displayed (e.g. in a split screen utilization), each tree may be formed and/or displayed in a different form/shape. 
     In one embodiment, this invention provides linkage between trees and/or their nodes that display information that may be cross referenced from one tree to another. For example, linking a sales tree with a product tree and/or a regional area tree. 
     In accordance with one embodiment, as particularly shown in FIG. 3, this invention provides simultaneous display of a plurality of portions or entire trees. The simultaneous display is optionally provided as overlays in different colors, intensities, and/or line width or shape. Optionally, the trees may share different areas of the display and/or windows toggled. In a split display area option, lines of different colors, shapes and/or intensities are shown to indicate particular linkages between nodes on the different trees. In one embodiment, the invention employs multidimensional matrices to show relationships of multidimensionally related embodiments, e.g. sales, regions, products, revenue. Matrices are useable to configure, maintain, analyze, develop statistics, schedule, monitor, model, connect and administer the embodiments of a business using catalogs and matrices. 
     In one embodiment of the invention, multidimensional relationships are viewable using known techniques of multidimensional viewing, and/or viewing a particular combination of two or three of the dimensions according to a user&#39;s selection for viewing. 
     It should be noted that the above-mentioned embodiments of the invention are also usable in other technology areas to employ tree representations having nodes with embedded information. 
     In accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the processes used by the business are represented by nodes in the tree. The order of the nodes represents the order of the processes used in the business. This order relationship is used to support critical path analysis of the business as a whole. It is also used to understand information flow. This is in regard to both understanding and/or analyzing which business processes are linked via information flow, and understanding and/or analyzing the content of the information that passes between each business process. This, in turn is useful to tune the system for increased efficiency, or to display an informational model of the business itself. This informational model represented by the tree of business processes is useful to database designers in creating the best database that will support the business system, e.g., order entry/inventory/production/raw materials procurement processes have an information flow that can influence the database design. 
     One embodiment allows the display of embedded business relationship information. In FIG. 4, the matrix,  4000 , shows a catalog of products,  4001  that the business uses and a catalog of suppliers,  4002  that have a business relationship to the business for the supply or sale of the elements in the product catalog. If one were to activate the cell at a matrix intersection,  4003 , one could see, for example, FIG.  5 . In FIG. 5, the imbedded information represented by the intersection,  4101  is shown in  4102 . In this example, the business contact information is shown and the ability to indicate the exchange of certain products between the business. 
     A similar group of business information includes matrixes and/or elements of information regarding and/or representing: business model; business expansion capabilities; business short and long term predictions; business competitor data; comparisons and differences; business histograms and predictors; business responsible parties/entities; division, product, entity business plan, reporting and results; business alarm functions; etc. 
     As will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, any suitable processor, computer or computer network may be used in the practice of the present invention. For example, software for performing the invention may be embedded in a processor. Alternately, dedicated hardware may be used to practice the invention. 
     A computer or computer network may also be used to in the practice of this invention; and FIG. 6 illustrates, as an example, a computer of a type that may be used in the practice of this invention. Viewed externally in FIG. 6, a computer system has a central processing unit  42  having disk drives  44 A and  44 B. Disk drive indications  44 A and  44 B are merely symbolic of a number of disk drives that might be accommodated by the computer system. Typically, these would include a floppy disk drive such as  44 A, a hard disk drive (not shown externally) and a CD ROM drive indicated by slot  44 B. The number and type of drives vary, usually, with different computer configurations. The computer has the display  46  upon which information is displayed. A keyboard  50  and a mouse  52  are normally also available as input devices. 
     FIG. 7 shows a block diagram of the internal hardware of the computer of FIG. 6. A bus  54  serves as the main information highway, interconnecting the other components of the computer. CPU  56  is the central processing unit of the system, performing calculations and logic operations required to execute programs. Read only memory  60  and random access memory  62  constitute the main memory of the computer. Disk controller  64  interfaces one or more disk drives to the system bus  54 . These disk drives may be floppy disk drives, such as  66 , internal or external hard drives, such as  70 , or CD ROM or DVD (Digital Video Disks) drives, such as  72 . A display interface  74  interfaces a display  76  and permits information from the bus to be viewed on the display. Communications with external devices can occur over communications port  78 . 
     FIG. 8 shows a memory medium  80  that may be used to hold a computer program for implementing the present invention, and this medium may be used in any suitable way with any appropriate computer to carry out the invention. Typically, memory media such as a floppy disk, or a CD ROM, or a Digital Video Disk will contain the program information for controlling the computer to enable the computer to perform its functions in accordance with the invention. 
     In some embodiments a tree may have more than one so called root node, as shown in FIG.  9 . The elements/nodes emanating from each of the plurality of roots  910  and  920  may be common and be ultimately connected to each root at any subsequent tree level as appropriate to the application. Thus node  930  is shown to be ultimately connected to root-A  910  and root-B  920 . An example of this occurs when root-A  910  represents corporate division-A and root-B  920  represents corporate division-B, and node  930  represent the costs of a shared legal department. 
     Some embodiments provide for any combination of the following capabilities: matrix and/or element expansion; logical set manipulation of catalog elements to form changed and/or new matrices, changed and/or new elements, and/or changed and/or new catalogs; catalog manipulation an/or combination; formation of one or more super-catalogs and/or super-elements representing a catalog of catalogs; display of a plurality of trees and/or portions of trees in a variety of tree formats and shapes; and formation and/or manipulation of sub-catalogs and/or sub-elements from one or more catalogs, matrices and/or elements. 
     Also, the present invention may be embodied in a method for representing interconnection of a plurality of elements of a system providing information of a plurality of aspects of doing business. With reference to FIG. 10, the method comprises providing a first catalog  5000  for a first subset of said elements, represented, for example at  5002   a ,  5002   b  and  5002   c , and providing a second catalog  5005  for a second subset of said elements, represented, for example, at  5006   a ,  5006   b  and  5006   c ; and creating a matrix of connection cells formed by an intersection of a pair of elements, wherein a first element of each pair is taken from the first catalog and a second element of each pair is taken from the second catalog. The method comprises the further step of forming a connection representation for at least a subset of the pairs; wherein at least a portion of one of the catalogs is formed using combinatorial operations upon elements of the other of the catalogs. 
     While it is apparent that the invention herein disclosed is well calculated to fulfill the embodiments stated above, it will be appreciated that numerous modifications and embodiments may be devised by those skilled in the art, and it is intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and embodiments as fall within the true spirit and scope of the present invention.