(10) Patent No.: US 8,042,089 B2 (45) Date of Patent: Oct. 18, 2011
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Ousterhout et al. (54) PROCESS AUTOMATION SYSTEM AND METHOD EMPLOYING MULTI-STAGE REPORT GENERATION (75) Inventors: John Ousterhout, Palo Alto, CA (U S); Anders Wallgren, Los Gatos, CA (US); Sandeep Tamhankar, Santa Clara, CA (US); Scott Stanton, Mer1lo Park, CA (US); Usman Muzaffar, Sunnyvale, CA (U3)
(73) Assignee: Electric Cloud, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (U3)
( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of tl1is patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 1268 days.
(21) Appl.No.: 11/543,367
(22) Filed: Oct. 3, 2006
(65) Prior Publication Data US 2008/0082588 A1 Apr. 3, 2008
(51) Int. Cl.
G06F 9/44 (2006.01)
(52) U.S. Cl. ...................................... .. 717/101; 717/128 (58) Field of Classification Search ...................... .. None See application file for complete search history.
(56) References Cited
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(Continued)
FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS
EP 0 859 314 8/1998
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Internet: URL<http 1//www. springerlink.com/content/0mppp3 ecxby 633r1/ful1text.pdf>.*
Primary Examiner — Tuan Dam
Assistant Examiner — Cheneca Smith
(74) Attorney, Agent, 0rFirm — Blakely, Sokoloff, Taylor & Zafman, LLP
The embodiments of the invention described herein employ sophisticated techniques for managing distributed processes in a process automation system. Specifically, one embodiment of the invention implements a general purpose property mechanism in which arbitrary data is attached to any object in the system (e.g., projects, procedures, jobs, job steps, resources, etc), thereby providing a convenient way to configure the system without modifying the underlying program code. In addition, in one embodiment, a three-tier hierarchy of data object is employed: “projects,” “procedures,” and “steps” (or “projects,” “jobs” and “job steps” during runtime). A property may be attached to any object on any tier of the hierarchy to configure that object and (potentially) all of the objects which reference the property. The properties and property sheets may be attached both statically (before runtime) and dynamically (during runtime). Moreover, one embodiment of the invention employs a unique property substitution syntax to allow the value for a particular property to be located and substituted dynamically at runtime. In addition, advanced report generation techniques are described below in which the report generation process is logically separated into a data gathering stage and a report generation stage. The data gathering stage extracts certain specified properties and diagnostic infonnation from each j ob step. The extracted information is then stored in a highly flexible, reusable data format which is used to create different types of
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