Patent ID: 7689616

Claim:
A method of controlling data aggregation implemented on a computing device comprising: receiving an individual data record that includes multiple input fields, upon receiving the individual data record, selecting a subset of the multiple input fields within the individual data record as a resultant key according to a user defined aggregation parameter set, the user defined aggregation parameter set including: (i) a key control previously defined by the user to specify one or more of the multiple input fields as key components within the individual data record; and (ii) an aggregation control previously defined by the user to specify a function or an action to be applied to the specified one or more multiple input fields, the resultant key specified by the user defined aggregation parameter set including: (i) a concatenation of unmapped, mapped, and composite keys, wherein key values for the unmapped key are unmodified, a mapped key operates to perform a look-up for its corresponding key value, and a new key is created for the composite key by combining other keys with the same composite specification; and (ii) an identifier of a unique record to which the individual data record contributes data; computing data aggregations of the multiple input fields according to the resultant key specified by the user defined aggregation parameter set; and producing collections of aggregations populated as specified by the aggregation parameter set defined by the user, wherein the collections of aggregations are made available to the user.