Patent ID: 7681087

Claim:
A computer readable medium comprising executable instructions to: receive a report processing request to process a report at a hierarchical report processor including a parent process and a child process executing on a processing unit, wherein said child process includes a plurality of task processors for processing a plurality of tasks in parallel; determine whether said child process is eligible to process said report processing request based on a comparison of a task processing time of at least one of said plurality of task processors to a maximum task processing time; upon determining that said child process is eligible to process said additional report processing request, send said report processing request from said parent process to said child process; process said report processing request as a task that results from said report processing request and that executes on said child process; wherein said report includes information automatically retrieved from a data source, where said information is structured in accordance with a report schema specifying the form in which said information is presented; and wherein said parent process executes concurrently with each child process included in said hierarchical report processor.