Trading information managing system and software including a community management function
View Patent ↗A trading information exchange system includes a gateway allowing access of suppliers and retailer workstations and retailer systems to a backbone sub-system. An application layer interacts with a work flow engine via a supporting framework and a commerce platform. The latter have direct access to the gateway for monitoring supplier and retailer accesses and to the database for logging purposes. Collaborative applications comprise a timer program interacting with a work queue in the work flow engine. The timer program operates on a test-and-wait or a test-and-return basis. A community management function interacts with the work flow engine to define roles and the roles are linked with activities in process nodes. Each process node comprises an activity, case packet item variables, and rules defining routing of the activities to the work queues.
1. A trading information exchange system comprising:
an application layer comprising applications;
a supporting framework of services for the application for handling trading information;
a database;
a collaborative work flow engine accessible by the applications; and
a gateway configured to allow supplier and retailer access to the applications,
wherein the supporting framework is configured to allow access of the applications to the work flow engine for work flow processing related to the trading information,
wherein the supporting framework is configured for accessing the gateway for monitoring supplier and retailer access to the applications, and
wherein the supporting framework comprises a community management function for interacting with a commerce platform to relate users to roles, wherein users belonging to external suppliers and retailers are associated with roles, for directly accessing the trading information exchange system that integrates the workflow across a supply chain that generates the trading information exchanged,
wherein the applications and the work flow engine are configured for interfacing to control work flow with process nodes, each node comprising an activity, a variable, and rules defining routing of an activity to a work queue,
further comprising a timer for controlling exit from a process node or entry to a process node according to activity status,
wherein said timer comprises a timer program in an application and a work queue in the work flow engine, said timer program programmed for accessing the work queue to determining activity status.
2. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the gateway comprises a firewall for security of accesses.
3. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the gateway comprises a proxy server for handling retailer and supplier accesses and for routing access requests through a selected application.
4. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the gateway comprises a router for allowing import of data from a retailer to the database in a structured manner.
5. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the applications, the database, and the work flow engine reside on separate servers interconnected in a network.
6. A system as claimed in claim 5 , wherein the gateway is linked to the application server.
7. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the supporting framework comprises a remote data transfer function for accessing the gateway to monitor transfer of data from retailer and supplier systems and for reporting to an application.
8. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the supporting platform comprises error handling, audit log, and exception handling functions for accessing the database, processing retrieved data, and for reporting to an application.
9. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the community management function associates roles with activities.
10. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the system further comprises an applications server is configured for dynamically distributing load across hardware resources.
11. A system as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the applications server resides between the commerce platform on one side and the database and the work flow engine on the other.
12. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said timer program is configured for:
opening an activity in the work queue,
obtaining status data from the activity,
performing a time comparison,
setting a value indicating the result of the comparison, and
submitting the activity for completion of the process node if the time comparison fulfils a condition.
13. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said timer program is configured for performing a test and return operation in which it accesses a work queue and waits for completion of an activity before activating a next process node.
14. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein said timer program is configured for performing a test and return operation in which it accesses a work queue and immediately checks the activity status.
15. A system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the supporting framework community management function is configured for defining for the work flow engine service users, an application view of the service users, containment of each service user in a team, and a role for a service user.
16. A system as claimed in claim 15 , wherein the community management function is configured for defining a flavour for each team, each flavour being a collection of roles.
17. A system as claimed in claim 16 , wherein roles are variants of role types.
18. A system as claimed in claim 17 , wherein the community management function is configured for defining role types in both the work flow engine and in an application.
19. A system as claimed in claim 18 , wherein the community management is configured for defining activities for each role and each activity has an associated code.
20. A trading information exchange system comprising:
an application layer comprising applications for handling trading information;
a supporting framework of services for the application;
a collaborative work flow engine accessible by the applications;
a gateway configured to allow suppliers and retailers access to the applications;
wherein the supporting framework is configured to allow access of the applications to the work flow engine for work flow processing related to the trading information,
wherein the supporting framework is configured for accessing the gateway for monitoring supplier and retailer access to the applications; and
wherein the supporting framework comprises a community management function that interacts with a commerce platform to relate users to roles, and wherein users belonging to external suppliers and retailers are associated with roles, for directly accessing the trading information exchange system that integrates the workflow across a supply chain that generates the trading information exchanged,
wherein the applications and the work flow engine are configured for interfacing to control work flow with process nodes, each node comprising an activity, a variable, and rules defining routing of an activity to a work queue,
further comprising a timer for controlling exit from a process node or entry to a process node according to activity status,
wherein said timer comprises a timer program in an application and a work queue in the work flow engine, said timer program programmed for accessing the work queue to determine activity status.
21. A computer readable data medium having program code recorded thereon for providing a trading information exchange system, the program code configured to interact with computer systems to perform the following steps:
providing an application layer comprising applications for handling trading information;
providing a supporting framework of services; and
providing a collaborative work flow engine accessible by the applications;
wherein the supporting framework is configured to allow access of the applications to the work flow engine for work flow processing related to the trading information,
wherein the supporting framework is configured for accessing a gateway that controls access to the applications by suppliers and retailers, and
wherein the supporting framework comprises a community management function that relates users to roles, wherein users belonging to external suppliers and retailers are associated with roles, for directly accessing the trading information exchange system that integrates the workflow across a supply chain that generates the trading information exchanged,
wherein the applications and the work flow engine are configured for interfacing to control work flow with process nodes, each node comprising an activity, a variable, and rules defining routing of an activity to a work queue,
further comprising providing a timer for controlling exit from a process node or entry to a process node according to activity status,
wherein said timer comprises a timer program in an application and a work queue in the work flow engine, said timer program programmed for accessing the work queue to determine activity status.