Patent ID: 8151056

Claim:
An apparatus for updating data within a business planning tool, the apparatus comprising: a computer memory arranged to store operational data in a plurality of line items, each line item being arranged to represent operational data in data cells, the data cells occupying space in a plurality of dimensions and being arranged to store either primary data sourced externally from the apparatus or secondary data derived from other data cells within the apparatus, and each line item having data cells in a first dimension configured to represent the operational data in at least one hierarchy level which consists of data cells arranged to store either primary data or secondary data, and each line item having data cells in a second dimension arranged to represent the respective operational data over at least one time period; and a processor arranged to: (i) partition each line item into data blocks comprising one or more data cells by identifying and grouping data cells which belong to a common hierarchy level within the first dimension and a single time period within the second dimension so that each data block either contains primary data or secondary data derived from data cells in one or more other data blocks; (ii) create a directed acyclic dependency graph having a node for each data block and which is arranged to represent the inter-dependency of the data blocks; and (iii) update the data blocks based on the directed acyclic dependency graph when at least one data cell is changed.