Granted Patent B2

US 8,230,329 · App. 11/688,857 · Granted Jul 24, 2012

Assignee: Rivet Software, Inc.

Abstract

Claims (37)

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

hierarchically representing financial data within a financial transaction system by way of a fact data structure, a balance data structure and a cube data structure, the fact data structure storing fact values each of which aggregate multiple transactions, the balance data structure storing balance values each of which aggregate a plurality of transactions and the cube data structure storing cube slices each of which summarize balance values for a reporting unit of a plurality of reporting units of an organizational hierarchy;

interactively updating a folio on-demand for the organizational hierarchy with aggregated information from pre-summarized balances by

responsive to user-generated folio-level queries which depend upon balance values not currently stored within the financial transaction system, dynamically creating and populating, by a balance manager, a plurality of instances of balance data structures (balances) with the new balance values based on transactions encompassed by the user-generated folio-level query;

responsive to availability of new transaction data upon which one or more of the balance values of the balances depend, maintaining, by the balance manager, clean balance values within the one or more balances by regenerating the one or more balance values; and

responsive to a user-generated folio-level query, dynamically creating and populating, by a cube manager, an instance of a cube data structure (a cube) having dimensions defined by parameters of the user-generated folio-level query and which aggregates the balance values of the balances into appropriate slices of the cube; and

wherein the balance manager and the cube manager are implemented in one or more processors of one or more computer systems and one or more computer-readable storage media of the one or more computer systems, the one or more computer-readable storage media having instructions tangibly embodied therein representing the balance manager and the cube manager that are executable by the one or more processors.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the balances are stored in an in-process memory store of the balance manager.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the in-process memory store comprises Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cube is stored in an in-process memory store of the cube manager.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the in-process memory store comprises Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein a transaction of the plurality of transactions represents a line item in a financial reporting instance document.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the financial reporting instance document comprises an Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) instance document.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the folio comprises a spreadsheet.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the spreadsheet comprises a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet including a separate worksheet for each reporting unit of the plurality of reporting units.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the user-generated folio-level queries comprise refresh data requests initiated from within a toolbar or menu option of the spreadsheet.

11. The method of claim 6 , wherein the financial transaction system comprises:

an analytical aggregation unit (AAU) computer system within which the balance manager and the cube manager are executing; and

an analytical access point (AAP) computer system operable to convey the user-generated folio-level queries to the AAU computer system.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the AAP computer system supports a plurality of users each running a spreadsheet application.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the AAP computer system is logically interposed between a plurality of client computer systems each running a spreadsheet application, and the AAU computer system.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the AAP computer is located remote from the AAU computer system.

15. A non-transitory program storage device readable by a computer system, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by one or more processors of the computer system to perform a method of interactively updating a folio on-demand for an organizational hierarchy, said method comprising:

hierarchically representing financial data within a financial transaction system by way of a fact data structure, a balance data structure and a cube data structure, the fact data structure storing fact values each of which aggregate multiple transactions, the balance data structure storing balance values each of which aggregate a plurality of transactions and the cube data structure storing cube slices each of which summarize balance values for a reporting unit of a plurality of reporting units of the organizational hierarchy;

interactively updating the folio on-demand for the organizational hierarchy with aggregated information from pre-summarized balances by

responsive to user-generated folio-level queries which depend upon balance values not currently stored within the financial transaction system, dynamically creating and populating, by a balance manager, a plurality of instances of balance data structures (balances) with the new balance values based on transactions encompassed by the user-generated folio-level query;

responsive to availability of new transaction data upon which one or more of the balance values of the balances depend, maintaining, by the balance manager, clean balance values within the one or more balances by regenerating the one or more balance values; and

responsive to a user-generated folio-level query, dynamically creating and populating, by a cube manager, an instance of a cube data structure (a cube) having dimensions defined by parameters of the user-generated folio-level query and which aggregates the balance values of the balances into appropriate slices of the cube.

16. The program storage device of claim 15 , wherein the balances are stored in an in-process memory store of the balance manager.

17. The program storage device of claim 16 , wherein the in-process memory store comprises Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory.

18. The program storage device of claim 15 , wherein the cube is stored in an in-process memory store of the cube manager.

19. The program storage device of claim 18 , wherein the in-process memory store comprises Address Windowing Extensions (AWE) memory.

20. The program storage device of claim 15 , wherein a transaction of the plurality of transactions represents a line item in a financial reporting instance document.

21. The program storage device of claim 20 , wherein the financial reporting instance document comprises an Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) instance document.

22. The program storage device of claim 20 , wherein the folio comprises a spreadsheet.

23. The program storage device of claim 20 , wherein the spreadsheet comprises a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet including a separate worksheet for each reporting unit of the plurality of reporting units.

24. The program storage device of claim 22 , wherein the user-generated folio-level queries comprise refresh data requests initiated from within a toolbar or menu option of the spreadsheet.

Assignments (9)

Continuity (2)