Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-30
2003-12-23
Mizrahi, Diane D. (Department: 2175)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
active
06668253
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to enterprise information management (“EIM”), and, more particularly, to enterprise information management systems and associated methods. The term “enterprise” refers to the corporate headquarters, the management company, and the individual stores.
2. Background
Consolidations in the automotive retail channel have brought about new financial complexities for the management companies. Acquiring dealerships which operate on a variety of dealer management systems, has made it difficult for the acquiring enterprise to get a consolidated view of the financial position of and of inventories throughout the enterprise. Additionally, a trend has appeared in the automotive industry to become publicly held in order to raise capital for further expansion. Financial statements report the results of performance and the financial position of an automotive retail enterprise.
The task of consolidation is currently a time and labor intensive task. It has been determined that customers want to maximize the profitability of the enterprise by identifing key drivers of business success and leveraging the knowledge throughout the enterprise.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Providing the ability for customizable, consolidated financial, operating and inventory reporting from multiple sources will allow the enterprise and store managers to achieve increased bottom-line gains by out performing existing manual data extraction and manipulation process. Additionally, the easier, timely reporting provides better mechanisms for identifying operation inefficiencies, savings or opportunities.
The consolidation process starts with extracting data from the operational systems. The data is then combined to provide an overall view of the conditions and performance of the enterprise. The process of combining the data requires that a common chart of accounts is developed for financials, accounts are summarized and adjustments are made. For other data, mapping occurs to get a consistent view of the data Adjustments are made for inter-company transactions, foreign currency conversions, deferred taxes, goodwill, etc.
Financial consolidation encompasses three primary statements: balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. The balance sheet is a statement of the resources of the enterprise (assets) and the claims on those assets (liabilities and owners' equity) at some point in time. The income statement provides information about the operating performance of an enterprise for a particular period of time. The cash flow statement reports the amount of cash flow from an enterprisers operating, investing, and financing activities. It also shows the primary sources and uses of cash from these activities.
In one aspect, this invention, EIM, provides a commercial data warehouse product. EIM is a novel combination of vendor purchased software and customized software development. EIM includes data extraction and movement, data transformation and cleansing, database update and tuning, and database access.
Thus, in one aspect, this invention is a system for enterprise information management (“EIM”). The system includes a data warehouse server and a transformation and staging server connected to the data warehouse server for providing transformed and cleansed data to the data warehouse server. The EIM system also includes a data source application connected to the transformation and staging server to provide data to the transformation and staging server, wherein the transformation and staging server obtains data from the data source application via requests and places the data into temporary staging tables to prepare for the transformation and cleansing process prior to movement of the data to the data warehouse server. A financial consolidation application is connected to the transformation and staging server for performing consolidation and reporting of financial data. A web server is connected to the data warehouse server. A plurality of clients are connectable to the web server for accessing data from the data warehouse server via the web server.
In some preferred embodiments, the transformation and staging server itself comprises four physical disk drives and wherein the physical disk drives are separated by individual logical drives, wherein the disk drives serve separate purposes and functionality of the system has been separated by drive so as to minimize disk contention during the various process that run on the transformation and staging server. In some preferred embodiments, the transformation and staging server includes the following databases and files: a master database that contains all system tables; a model database template for the creation of all new databases; a staging database which contains all data from systems that is being or has been cleansed, transformed, denormalized, summarized; an error database which contains source information that could not automatically be cleansed or transformed; a financial database used by the financial consolidation application and containing consolidated and summarized financial information; at least one flat file for loads; a repository database used by the transformation tool and containing information regarding the transformation procedures and automation plans; and a temporary work area for the creation of temporary tables and information. In some of the preferred embodiments of the present invention, the data warehouse server includes the following databases and files: a master database that contains all of the system tables on the data warehouse server; a model database template for the creation of all new databases on the data warehouse server; a temporary database used as a temporary work area for the creation of temporary tables and information on the data warehouse server; a meta-view database that contains all of the metadata, views, and stored procedures that are to be used by the users of the system; and a database that contains some normalized data, but mostly denormalized and summarized data that has been cleansed, transformed on the transformation and staging server, wherein the meta-view database is the sole access method for users to the information in the database.
In some embodiments of the present invention, the system for EIM has a data warehouse server; a transformation and staging server connected to the data warehouse server for providing transformed and cleansed data to the data warehouse server; a data source application connected to the transformation and staging server to provide data to the transformation and staging server; a financial consolidation application connected to the transformation and staging server for performing consolidation and reporting of financial data; a web server connected to the data warehouse server; and a plurality of clients connectable to the web server for accessing data from the data warehouse server via the web server.
Sometimes the transformation and staging server obtains data from the data source application via requests and places the data into temporary staging tables to prepare for the transformation and cleansing process prior to movement of the data to the data warehouse server.
The transformation and staging server may include the following databases and files: a master database that contains all system tables; a model database template for the creation of all new databases; a staging database which contains all data from systems that is being or has been cleansed, transformed, denormalized, summarized; an error database which contains source information that could not automatically be cleansed or transformed; a financial database used by the financial consolidation application and containing consolidated and summarized financial information; at least one flat file for loads; a repository database used by the transformation tool and containing information regarding the transformation procedures and automation plans; and a temporary work area for the creation of temporary tables and information.
The transformation and staging serv
Burkhart Tal D.
Campbell-Kaminski Elizabeth E.
Datla Rayapa S.
Hergenrather Carol M.
Horan Julie L.
Glazier Stephen C.
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP
Mizrahi Diane D.
Reynolds & Reynolds Holdings, Inc.
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