Social Recommendation Integration in Business Process Platforms

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Solution Overview

Problem

Business data lacks social context, which is increasingly valuable to consumers and businesses, leading to a need for integrating social data into business processes to provide a more comprehensive user experience.

Innovation Solution

A computer-implemented method that integrates business data and social data by receiving user input, determining if a social query is triggered, generating business and social queries based on user input, and displaying relevant business and social data to users through a graphical user interface, utilizing a social query model and business query model defined during design-time, and querying social networking data through APIs.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If business data is provided to users during business process execution, then users can access relevant business information, but the data lacks social context which reduces user engagement and decision-making quality

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvesocial context informationVSAvoiddata integration system
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines business data and social data into a unified data presentation system. The business data (from enterprise back-end systems) and social data (from social networking services) are merged and displayed together through a single user interface, allowing users to view both types of information simultaneously without needing separate systems.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces a mediator component that receives user input, determines whether social queries should be triggered, and coordinates between business data sources and social networking services. This mediator manages the complexity of data integration by handling query generation, data retrieval, and result synthesis, shielding users from the underlying system complexity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Adaptability or versatility

If social data is integrated into business processes, then user experience and decision-making are improved, but the system complexity increases due to multiple data sources and query types

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveuser experienceVSAvoidquery processing system
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the query processing into distinct components: business queries for retrieving business data and social queries for retrieving social networking data. Each query type is handled separately with its own processing logic, but the results are integrated in the presentation layer. This segmentation allows the system to manage complexity by treating different data sources independently while still providing unified access to users.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements dynamic query triggering based on user input analysis. The system determines whether a social query should be triggered based on the received user input, allowing the system behavior to adapt dynamically. This dynamic approach enables the system to simplify operations when social context is not needed while providing enhanced functionality when relevant, thereby managing complexity adaptively rather than statically.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #15Dynamics

3Loss of information

If multiple data sources are queried simultaneously, then comprehensive information is provided to users, but the processing time and system resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvecomprehensive dataVSAvoiddata retrieval time
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary determination of whether social queries should be triggered before executing actual data retrieval operations. By analyzing user input first and deciding on query types in advance, the system avoids unnecessary data retrieval operations, thereby reducing processing time and resource consumption while still providing comprehensive information when needed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS9361653B2Social recommendations for business process platform
Publication Date: 2016.06.07 SAP SE
  • US9361653B2 patent drawing
  • US9361653B2 patent drawing
  • US9361653B2 patent drawing

AI summary

Methods, systems, apparatus, and computer programs encoded on computer storage medium, for integrating business data and social data in execution of a business process, implementations including actions of receiving user input, the user input being associated with a task of the business process and being received during interaction with an application, determining that a social query is triggered, querying business data based on a business query, the business query being generated based on the user input, querying social networking data based on the social query, the social query being generated at least partially based on the user input, receiving business data in response to the business query, receiving social data in response to the social query, and providing at least a portion of the business data and at least a portion of the social data for display to a user that provided the user input.