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A computer program is provided for developing component based software capable of linking insurance-related information. The program includes a data component that stores, retrieves and manipulates data utilizing a plurality of functions. Also provided is a client component that includes an adapter component that transmits and receives data to/from the data component. The client component also includes a business component that serves as a data cache and includes logic for manipulating the data. A controller component is also included which is adapted to handle events generated by a user utilizing the business component to cache data and the adapter component to ultimately persist data to a data repository. In use, the client component is provided with insurance-related information concerning an individual and an event. The user is then able to input information concerning the involvement of the individual in the event. In addition, the user is able to link the individual to the event. Finally, the linked information concerning the individual, the event and the involvement of the individual in the event are displayed.
1. A system for displaying information about an insurance claim for an insured event, the system comprising:
a server component including an event processor and a task engine application program that interacts with the event processor to enable said insurance claim to be processed; and
a data component residing on the server component, the data component comprising a claim folder that decomposes a claim related to the insured event into a plurality of levels, the plurality of levels including a policy level, a claim level, a participant level and a line level,
wherein the server component is configured to generate a user interactive interface that interactively displays at least one of the plurality of levels reflecting information related to a policy, the claim, claimants and an insured person in a structured format to a plurality of users, and to allow each of the users to simultaneously interact with one of the plurality of levels to retrieve and enter data for the same insurance claim;
wherein the event processor maintains clear encapsulation of responsibilities of said system for displaying information from said event processor, wherein said responsibilities do not include functions performed by said event processor, interacts with the data component to identify a data event that affects data in the claim folder, determines a response, identifies a system component to enable said claim to be processed and transmits the data event to the identified system component;
wherein when said identified system component is the task engine, the task engine evaluates the data event, determines claim characteristics and matches the characteristics to tasks to automatically generate a list of tasks to be taken by one of the plurality of users handling said insurance claim to direct a workflow for said insurance claim to be processed.
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27. A system that displays insurance claim information about an insured event, the system comprising:
an event processor that identifies a data event, determines a response, identifies a system component to process an insurance claim and transmits information regarding the data event to the identified system component;
a task engine application program that interacts with the event processor to enable the insurance claim to be processed;
a data component comprising a claim folder that decomposes a claim related to the insured event into a plurality of levels, the plurality of levels including a policy level, a claim level, a participant level and a line level; and
a user interactive interface that is generated by a server that interactively displays information from at least one of the plurality of levels in a structured format to a plurality of users, allowing each of the users to simultaneously interact with one of the plurality of levels to retrieve and enter data for the same insurance claim, the entered data triggering the data event,
wherein when the event processor identifies the task engine as the system component to process the insurance claim, the task engine evaluates the event, determines claim characteristics for the event and matches the characteristics to tasks to automatically generate a list of tasks to be taken by one of the plurality of users handling the insurance claim to direct a workflow for the insurance claim to be processed.
28. A system that displays insurance claim information comprising:
a data component that includes a claim folder that decomposes a claim related to an insured event into a plurality of levels, the plurality of levels include a policy level, a claim level, a participant level and a line level;
a user interactive interface that is generated and interactively displays information from at least one of the plurality of levels in a structured format to a plurality of users, wherein a plurality of users via a plurality of interfaces is allowed to simultaneously interact with one of the plurality of levels to retrieve and enter data on the same insurance claim; and
an event processor that identifies the entered data as a data event, determines a response for the data event and identifies a system component to process the response and transmits information for processing the claim to the identified system component.
The present invention relates to information management and more particularly to linking information during insurance claim processing utilizing a computer system.
Computers have become a necessity in life today. They appear in nearly every office and household worldwide. A representative hardware environment is depicted in prior art
Object oriented programming (OOP) has become increasingly used to develop complex applications. As OOP moves toward the mainstream of software design Object oriented programming (OOP) has become increasingly used to develop complex applications. As OOP moves toward the mainstream of software design and development, various software solutions require adaptation to make use of the benefits of OOP. A need exists for these principles of OOP to be applied to a messaging interface of an electronic messaging system such that a set of OOP classes and objects for the messaging interface can be provided.
OOP is a process of developing computer software using objects, including the steps of analyzing the problem, designing the system, and constructing the program. An object is a software package that contains both data and a collection of related structures and procedures. Since it contains both data and a collection of structures and procedures, it can be visualized as a self-sufficient component that does not require other additional structures, procedures or data to perform its specific task. OOP, therefore, views a computer program as a collection of largely autonomous components, called objects, each of which is responsible for a specific task. This concept of packaging data, structures, and procedures together in one component or module is called encapsulation.
In general, OOP components are reusable software modules which present an interface that conforms to an object model and which are accessed at run-time through a component integration architecture. A component integration architecture is a set of architecture mechanisms which allow software modules in different process spaces to utilize each others capabilities or functions. This is generally done by assuming a common component object model on which to build the architecture. It is worthwhile to differentiate between an object and a class of objects at this point. An object is a single instance of the class of objects, which is often just called a class. A class of objects can be viewed as a blueprint, from which many objects can be formed.
OOP allows the programmer to create an object that is a part of another object. For example, the object representing a piston engine is said to have a composition-relationship with the object representing a piston. In reality, a piston engine comprises a piston, valves and many other components; the fact that a piston is an element of a piston engine can be logically and semantically represented in OOP by two objects.
OOP also allows creation of an object that "depends from" another object. If there are two objects, one representing a piston engine and the other representing a piston engine wherein the piston is made of ceramic, then the relationship between the two objects is not that of composition. A ceramic piston engine does not make up a piston engine. Rather it is merely one kind of piston engine that has one more limitation than the piston engine; its piston is made of ceramic. In this case, the object representing the ceramic piston engine is called a derived object, and it inherits all of the aspects of the object representing the piston engine and adds further limitation or detail to it. The object representing the ceramic piston engine "depends from" the object representing the piston engine. The relationship between these objects is called inheritance.
When the object or class representing the ceramic piston engine inherits all of the aspects of the objects representing the piston engine, it inherits the thermal characteristics of a standard piston defined in the piston engine class. However, the ceramic piston engine object overrides these ceramic specific thermal characteristics, which are typically different from those associated with a metal piston. It skips over the original and uses new functions related to ceramic pistons. Different kinds of piston engines have different characteristics, but may have the same underlying functions associated with it (e.g., how many pistons in the engine, ignition sequences, lubrication, etc.). To access each of these functions in any piston engine object, a programmer would call the same functions with the same names, but each type of piston engine may have different/overriding implementations of functions behind the same name. This ability to hide different implementations of a function behind the same name is called polymorphism and it greatly simplifies communication among objects.
With the concepts of composition-relationship, encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism, an object can represent just about anything in the real world. In fact, the logical perception of the reality is the only limit on determining the kinds of things that can become objects in object-oriented software. Some typical categories are as follows:
With this enormous capability of an object to represent just about any logically separable matters, OOP allows the software developer to design and implement a computer program that is a model of some aspects of reality, whether that reality is a physical entity, a process, a system, or a composition of matter. Since the object can represent anything, the software developer can create an object which can be used as a component in a larger software project in the future.
If 90% of a new OOP software program consists of proven, existing components made from preexisting reusable objects, then only the remaining 10% of the new software project has to be written and tested from scratch. Since 90% already came from an inventory of extensively tested reusable objects, the potential domain from which an error could originate is 10% of the program. As a result, OOP enables software developers to build objects out of other, previously built objects.
This process closely resembles complex machinery being built out of assemblies and sub-assemblies. OOP technology, therefore, makes software engineering more like hardware engineering in that software is built from existing components, which are available to the developer as objects. All this adds up to an improved quality of the software as well as an increased speed of its development.
A computer program is provided for developing component based software capable of linking insurance-related information. The program includes a data component that stores, retrieves and manipulates data utilizing a plurality of functions. Also provided is a client component that includes an adapter component that transmits and receives data to/from the data component. The client component also includes a business component that serves as a data cache and includes logic for manipulating the data. A controller component is also included which is adapted to handle events generated by a user utilizing the business component to cache data and the adapter component to ultimately persist data to a data repository. In use, the client component is provided with insurance-related information concerning an individual and an event. The user is then able to input information concerning the involvement of the individual in the event. In addition, the user is able to link the individual to the event. Finally, the linked information concerning the individual, the event and the involvement of the individual in the event are displayed.
The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages are better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:
Prior Art
Programming languages are beginning to fully support the OOP principles, such as encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, and composition-relationship. With the advent of the C++ language, many commercial software developers have embraced OOP. C++ is an OOP language that offers a fast, machine-executable code. Furthermore, C++ is suitable for both commercial-application and systems-programming projects. For now, C++ appears to be the most popular choice among many OOP programmers, but there is a host of other OOP languages, such as Smalltalk, Common Lisp Object System (CLOS), and Eiffel. Additionally, OOP capabilities are being added to more traditional popular computer programming languages such as Pascal.
The benefits of object classes can be summarized, as follows:
Class libraries are very flexible. As programs grow more complex, more programmers are forced to reinvent basic solutions to basic problems over and over again. A relatively new extension of the class library concept is to have a framework of class libraries. This framework is more complex and consists of significant collections of collaborating classes that capture both the small scale patterns and major mechanisms that implement the common requirements and design in a specific application domain. They were first developed to free application programmers from the chores involved in displaying menus, windows, dialog boxes, and other standard user interface elements for personal computers.
Frameworks also represent a change in the way programmers think about the interaction between the code they write and code written by others. In the early days of procedural programming, the programmer called libraries provided by the operating system to perform certain tasks, but basically the program executed down the page from start to finish, and the programmer was solely responsible for the flow of control. This was appropriate for printing out paychecks, calculating a mathematical table, or solving other problems with a program that executed in just one way.
The development of graphical user interfaces began to turn this procedural programming arrangement inside out. These interfaces allow the user, rather than program logic, to drive the program and decide when certain actions should be performed. Today, most personal computer software accomplishes this by means of an event loop which monitors the mouse, keyboard, and other sources of external events and calls the appropriate parts of the programmer's code according to actions that the user performs. The programmer no longer determines the order in which events occur. Instead, a program is divided into separate pieces that are called at unpredictable times and in an unpredictable order. By relinquishing control in this way to users, the developer creates a program that is much easier to use. Nevertheless, individual pieces of the program written by the developer still call libraries provided by the operating system to accomplish certain tasks, and the programmer must still determine the flow of control within each piece after it's called by the event loop. Application code still "sits on top of" the system.
Even event loop programs require programmers to write a lot of code that should not need to be written separately for every application. The concept of an application framework carries the event loop concept further. Instead of dealing with all the nuts and bolts of constructing basic menus, windows, and dialog boxes and then making these things all work together, programmers using application frameworks start with working application code and basic user interface elements in place. Subsequently, they build from there by replacing some of the generic capabilities of the framework with the specific capabilities of the intended application.
Application frameworks reduce the total amount of code that a programmer has to write from scratch. However, because the framework is really a generic application that displays windows, supports copy and paste, and so on, the programmer can also relinquish control to a greater degree than event loop programs permit. The framework code takes care of almost all event handling and flow of control, and the programmer's code is called only when the framework needs it (e.g., to create or manipulate a proprietary data structure).
A programmer writing a framework program not only relinquishes control to the user (as is also true for event loop programs), but also relinquishes the detailed flow of control within the program to the framework. This approach allows the creation of more complex systems that work together in interesting ways, as opposed to isolated programs, having custom code, being created over and over again for similar problems.
Thus, as is explained above, a framework basically is a collection of cooperating classes that make up a reusable design solution for a given problem domain. It typically includes objects that provide default behavior (e.g., for menus and windows), and programmers use it by inheriting some of that default behavior and overriding other behavior so that the framework calls application code at the appropriate times.
There are three main differences between frameworks and class libraries:
Thus, through the development of frameworks for solutions to various problems and programming tasks, significant reductions in the design and development effort for software can be achieved. A preferred embodiment of the invention utilizes HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to implement documents on the Internet together with a general-purpose secure communication protocol for a transport medium between the client and the Newco. HTTP or other protocols could be readily substituted for HTML without undue experimentation. Information on these products is available in T. Berners-Lee, D. Connoly, "RFC 1866: Hypertext Markup Language-2.0" (November 1995); and R. Fielding, H, Frystyk, T. Berners-Lee, J. Gettys and J. C. Mogul, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol—HTTP/1.1: HTTP Working Group Internet Draft" (May 2, 1996). HTML is a simple data format used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of domains. HTML has been in use by the World-Wide Web global information initiative since 1990. HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879; 1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
To date, Web development tools have been limited in their ability to create dynamic Web applications which span from client to server and interoperate with existing computing resources. Until recently, HTML has been the dominant technology used in development of Web-based solutions. However, HTML has proven to be inadequate in the following areas:
Sun Microsystem's Java language solves many of the client-side problems by:
With Java, developers can create robust User Interface (UI) components. Custom "widgets" (e.g., real-time stock tickers, animated icons, etc.) can be created, and client-side performance is improved. Unlike HTML, Java supports the notion of client-side validation, offloading appropriate processing onto the client for improved performance. Dynamic, real-time Web pages can be created. Using the above-mentioned custom UI components, dynamic Web pages can also be created.
Sun's Java language has emerged as an industry-recognized language for "programming the Internet." Sun defines Java as: "a simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture-neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded, dynamic, buzzword-compliant, general-purpose programming language. Java supports programming for the Internet in the form of platform-independent Java applets." Java applets are small, specialized applications that comply with Sun's Java Application Programming Interface (API) allowing developers to add "interactive content" to Web documents (e.g., simple animations, page adornments, basic games, etc.). Applets execute within a Java-compatible browser (e.g., Netscape Navigator) by copying code from the server to client. From a language standpoint, Java's core feature set is based on C++. Sun's Java literature states that Java is basically, "C++ with extensions from Objective C for more dynamic method resolution."
Another technology that provides similar function to JAVA is provided by Microsoft and ActiveX Technologies, to give developers and Web designers wherewithal to build dynamic content for the Internet and personal computers. ActiveX includes tools for developing animation, 3-D virtual reality, video and other multimedia content. The tools use Internet standards, work on multiple platforms, and are being supported by over 100 companies. The group's building blocks are called ActiveX Controls, small, fast components that enable developers to embed parts of software in hypertext markup language (HTML) pages. ActiveX Controls work with a variety of programming languages including Microsoft Visual C++, Borland Delphi, Microsoft Visual Basic programming system and, in the future, Microsoft's development tool for Java, code named "Jakarta." ActiveX Technologies also includes ActiveX Server Framework, allowing developers to create server applications. One of ordinary skill in the art readily recognizes that ActiveX could be substituted for JAVA without undue experimentation to practice the invention.
One embodiment of the present invention is a server based framework utilizing component based architecture. Referring to
In general, the components of the present invention operate as shown in
Architecture Object
The Architecture Object 200 provides an easy-to-use object model that masks the complexity of the architecture on the client. The Architecture Object 200 provides purely technical services and does not contain any business logic or functional code. It is used on the client as the single point of access to all architecture services.
On the server side, the Architecture Object 200 is supplemented by a set of global functions contained in standard VB modules
The Architecture Object 200 is responsible for providing all client architecture services (i.e., codes table access, error logging, etc.), and a single point of entry for architecture services. The Architecture Object 200 is also responsible for allowing the architecture to exist as an autonomous unit, thus allowing internal changes to be made to the architecture with minimal impact to application.
The Architecture Object 200 provides a code manager, client profile, text manager, ID manager, registry manager, log manager, error manager, and a security manager. The codes manager reads codes from a local database on the client, marshals the codes into objects, and makes them available to the application. The client profile provides information about the current logged-in user. The text manager provides various text manipulation services such as search and replace. The ID manager generates unique IDs and timestamps. The registry manager encapsulates access to the system registry. The log manager writes error or informational messages to the message log. The error manager provides an easy way to save and re-raise an error. And the security manager determines whether or not the current user is authorized to perform certain actions.
Application Object
The Application Object 202 has a method to initiate each business operation in the application. It uses late binding to instantiate target UI controllers in order to provide autonomy between windows. This allows different controllers to use the Application Object 202 without statically linking to each and every UI controller in the application.
When opening a UI controller, the Application Object 202 calls the architecture initialization, class initialization, and form initialization member functions.
The Application Object 202 keeps a list of every active window, so that it can shut down the application in the event of an error. When a window closes, it tells the Application Object 202, and is removed from the Application Object's 202 list of active windows.
The Application Object 202 is responsible for instantiating each UI Controller 206, passing data/business context to the target UI Controller 206, and invoking standard services such as initialize controller, initializing Form and Initialize Architecture. The Application Object 202 also keeps track of which windows are active so that it can coordinate the shutdown process.
UI Form
The UI form's 204 primary responsibility is to forward important events to its controller 206. It remains mostly unintelligent and contains as little logic as possible. Most event handlers on the form simply delegate the work by calling methods on the form's controller 206.
The UI form 204 never enables or disables its own controls, but ask its controller 206 to do it instead. Logic is included on the UI form 204 only when it involves very simple field masking or minor visual details.
The UI form 204 presents an easy-to-use, graphical interface to the user and informs its controller 206 of important user actions. The UI form 204 may also provide basic data validation (e.g., data type validation) through input masking. In addition, the UI form is responsible for intelligently resizing itself, launching context-sensitive help, and unload itself.
User Interface Controller
Every UI Controller 206 includes a set of standard methods for initialization, enabling and disabling controls on its UI form 204, validating data on the form, getting data from the UI form 204, and unloading the UI form 204.
UI Controllers 206 contain the majority of logic to manipulate Business Objects 207 and manage the appearance of its UI form 204. If its form is not read-only, the UI Controller 206 also tracks whether or not data on the UI form 204 has changed, so as to avoid unnecessary database writes when the user decides to save. In addition, controllers of auxiliary windows (like the File-Save dialog box in Microsoft Word), keep track of their calling UI controller 206 so that they can notify it when they are ready to close.
A UI Controller 206 defines a Logical Unit of Work (LUW). If an LUW involves more than one UI Controller 206, the LUW is implemented as a separate object.
The UI Controller 206 is responsible for handling events generated by the user interacting with the UI form 204 and providing complex field validation and cross field validation within a Logical Unit of Work. The UI Controller 206 also contains the logic to interact with business objects 207, and creates new business objects 207 when necessary. Finally, the UI Controller 206 interacts with Client Component Adapters 208 to add, retrieve, modify, or delete business objects 207, and handles all client-side errors.
Business Objects
The Business Object's (BO) 207 primary functionality is to act as a data holder, allowing data to be shared across User Interface Controllers 206 using an object-based programming model.
BOs 207 perform validation on their attributes as they are being set to maintain the integrity of the information they contain. BOs 207 also expose methods other than accessors to manipulate their data, such as methods to change the life cycle state of a BO 207 or to derive the value of a calculated attribute.
In many cases, a BO 207 will have its own table in the database and its own window for viewing or editing operations.
Business Objects 207 contain information about a single business entity and maintain the integrity of that information. The BO 207 encapsulates business rules that pertain to that single business entity and maintains relationships with other business objects (e.g., a claim contains a collection of supplements). Finally, the BO 207 provides additional properties relating to the status of the information it contains (such as whether that information has changed or not), provides validation of new data when necessary, and calculates attributes that are derived from other attributes (such as Full Name, which is derived from First Name, Middle Initial, and Last Name).
Client Component Adapters
Client Component Adapters (CCAs) 208 are responsible for retrieving, adding, updating, and deleting business objects in the database. CCAs 208 hide the storage format and location of data from the UI controller 206. The UI controller 206 does not care about where or how objects are stored, since this is taken care of by the CCA 208.
The CCA 208 marshals data contained in recordsets returned by the server into business objects 207. CCAs 208 masks all remote requests from UI Controller 206 to a specific component, and act as a "hook" for services such as data compression, and data encryption.
COM Component Interface
A COM Component Interface (CCI) 210 is a "contract" for services provided by a component. By "implementing" an interface (CCI) 210, a component is promising to provide all the services defined by the CCI 20.
The CCI 210 is not a physical entity (which is why it is depicted with a dotted line). It's only reason for existence is to define the way a component appears to other objects. It includes the signatures or headers of all the public properties or methods that a component will provide.
To implement a CCI 210, a server component exposes a set of specially named methods, one for each method defined on the interface. These methods should do nothing except delegate the request to a private method on the component which will do the real work.
The CCI 210 defines a set of related services provided by a component. The CCI allows any component to "hide" behind the interface to perform the services defined by the interface by "implementing" the interface.
Server Component
Server components 222 are course grained and transaction oriented. They are designed for maximum efficiency.
Server Components 222 encapsulate all access to the database, and define business transaction boundaries. In addition, Server Components 222 are responsible for ensuring that business rules are honored during data access operations.
A Server Component 222 performs data access operations on behalf of CCAs 208 or other components and participates in transactions spanning server components 222 by communicating with other server components 222. The Server Component 222 is accessible by multiple front end personalities (e.g., Active Server Pages), and contains business logic designed to maintain the integrity of data in the database.
The distribution of business rules across tiers of the application directly affects the robustness and performance of the system as a whole. Business rules can be categorized into the following sections: Relationships, Calculations, and Business Events.
Relationships Between Business Objects
Business Objects 207 are responsible for knowing other business objects 207 with which they are associated.
Relationships between BOs 207 are built by the CCA 208 during the marshaling process. For example, when a CCA 208 builds a claim BO 207, it will also build the collection of supplements if necessary.
Calculated Business Data
Business rules involving calculations based on business object 207 attributes are coded in the business objects 207 themselves. Participant Full Name is a good example of a calculated attribute. Rather than force the controllers to concatenate the first name, middle initial, and last name every time they wanted to display the full name, a calculated attribute that performs this logic is exposed on the business object. In this way, the code to compose the full name only has to be written once and can be used by many controllers 206.
Another example of a calculated attribute is the display date of a repeating task. When a task with a repeat rule is completed, a new display date must be determined. This display date is calculated based on the date the task was completed, and the frequency of repetition defined by the repeat rule. Putting the logic to compute the new display date into the Task BO 207 ensures that it is coded only once.
Responses to Business Events
Business rules that relate to system events and involve no user interaction are enforced on the server components.
Completion of a task is a major event in the system. When a task is completed, the system first ensures that the performer completing the task is added to the claim. Then, after the task is marked complete in the database, it is checked to see if the task has a repeat rule. If so, another task is created and added to the database. Finally, the event component is notified, because the Task Engine may need to react to the task completion.
Consider the scenario if the logic to enforce this rule were placed on the UI controller 206.
The controller 206 calls the Performer Component to see if the performer completing the task has been added to the claim. If the performer has not been added to the claim, then the controller 206 calls the performer component again to add them.
Next, the controller 206 calls the Task Component to mark the task complete in the database. If the task has a repeat rule, the controller 206 computes the date the task is to be redisplayed and calls the Task Component again to add a new task. Lastly, the controller 206 calls the Event Component to notify the Task Engine of the task completion.
The above implementation requires five network round trips in its worst case. In addition, any other controller 206 or server component 222 that wants to complete a task must code this logic all over again. Enforcing this rule in the task server component 222 reduces the number of network round trips and eliminates the need to code the logic more than once.
Responses to User Events
All responses to user events are coordinated by the controller 206. The controller 206 is responsible for actions such as enabling or disabling controls on its form, requesting authorization from the security component, or making calls to the CCA 208.
All logic for granting authorization is encapsulated inside the security component. Controllers 206 and components 222 must ask the security component if the current user is authorized to execute certain business operations in the system. The security component will answer yes or no according to some predefined security logic.
The Default Window Framework provides default window processing for each window contained within the system. This default processing aides the developer in developing robust, maintainable UIs, standardizes common processes (such as form initialization) and facilitates smooth integration with architecture services.
The Window Processing Framework 300 encompasses the following:
Window Initialization 302;
Window Save Processing 304;
Window Control State Management 306;
Window Data Validation 308;
Window Shutdown Processing 310.
Window Initialization Processing 302: After creating a controller 206 for the desired window, the App object 202 calls a set of standard initialization functions on the controller 206 before the form 204 is displayed to the user. Standardizing these functions makes the UIs more homogeneous throughout the application, while promoting good functional decomposition.
Window Save Processing 304: Any time a user updates any form text or adds an item to a ListBox, the UI Controller 206 marks the form as "dirty". This allows the UI controller 206 to determine whether data has changed when the form closes and prompt the user to commit or lose their changes.
Window Control State Management 306: Enabling and disabling controls and menu options is a very complex part of building a UI. The logic that modifies the state of controls is encapsulated in a single place for maintainability.
Window Data Validation 308: Whenever data changes on a form, validation rules can be broken. The controller is able to detect those changes, validate the data, and prompt the user to correct invalid entries.
Window Shutdown Processing 310: The Window Shutdown framework provides a clear termination path for each UI in the event of an error. This reduces the chance of memory leaks, and General Protection failures.
Standardized Processing: Standardizing the window processing increases the homogeneity of the application. This ensures that all windows within the application behave in a consistent manner for the end users, making the application easier to use. It also shortens the learning curve for developers and increases maintainability, since all windows are coded in a consistent manner.
Simplified Development: Developers can leverage the best practices documented in the window processing framework to make effective design and coding decisions. In addition, a shell provides some "canned" code that gives developers a head start during the coding effort.
Layered Architecture: Because several architecture modules provide standardized processing to each application window, the core logic can be changed for every system window by simply making modifications to a single procedure.
To open a new window, the App Object 202 creates the target window's controller 206 and calls a series of methods on the controller 206 to initialize it. The calling of these methods, ArchInitClass, InitClass, InitForm, and ShowForm, is illustrated below.
The main purpose of the ArchInitClass function is to tell the target controller 206 who is calling it. The App Object 202 "does the introductions" by passing the target controller 206 a reference to itself and a reference to the calling controller 206. In addition, it serves as a hook into the controller 206 for adding architecture functionality in the future.
This function provides a way for the App Object 202 to give the target controller 206 any data it needs to do its processing. It is at this point that the target controller 206 can determine what "mode" it is in. Typical form modes include, add mode, edit mode, and view mode. If the window is in add mode, it creates a new BO 207 of the appropriate type in this method.
The InitForm procedure of each controller 206 coordinates any initialization of the form 204 before it is displayed. Because initialization is often a multi-step process, InitForm creates the window and then delegates the majority of the initialization logic to helper methods that each have a single purpose, in order to follow the rules of good functional decomposition. For example, the logic to determine a form's 204 state based on user actions and relevant security restrictions and move to that state is encapsulated in the DetermineFormState method.
PopulateForm is a private method responsible for filling the form with data during initialization. It is called exactly once by the InitForm method. PopulateForm is used to fill combo boxes on a form 204, get the details of an object for an editing window, or display objects that have already been selected by the user, as in the following example.
The ShowForm method simply centers and displays the newly initialized form 204.
It is often necessary to enable or disable controls on a form 204 in response to user actions. This section describes the patterns employed by the Component Based Architecture for MTS (CBAM) to manage this process effectively.
Form Mode
It is helpful to distinguish between form mode and form state. Form mode indicates the reason the form 204 has been invoked. Often, forms 204 are used for more than one purpose. A common example is the use of the same form to view, add, and edit a particular type of object, such as a task or a claim. In this case, the form's modes would include View, Add, and Update.
The modes of a form 204 are also used to comply with security restrictions based on the current user's access level. For example, Task Library is a window that limits access to task templates based on the current user's role. It might have a Librarian mode and a Non-Librarian mode to reflect the fact that a non-librarian user cannot be allowed to edit task templates. In this way, modes help to enforce the requirement that certain controls on the form 204 remain disabled unless the user has a certain access level.
It is not always necessary for a form 204 to have a mode; a form might be so simple that it would have only one mode—the default mode. In this case, even though it is not immediately necessary, it may be beneficial to make the form "mode-aware" so that it can be easily extended should the need arise.
Form State
A form 204 will have a number of different states for each mode, where a state is a unique combination of enabled/disabled, visible/invisible controls. When a form 204 moves to a different state, at least one control is enabled or disabled or modified in some way.
A key difference between form mode and form state is that mode is determined when the controller 206 is initialized and remains constant until the controller 206 terminates. State is determined when the window initializes, but is constantly being reevaluated in response to user actions.
Handling UI Events
When the value of a control on the form 204 changes, it is necessary to reevaluate the state of the controls on the form (whether or not they are enabled/disabled or visible/invisible, etc.). If changing the value of one control could cause the state of a second control to change, an event handler is written for the appropriate event of the first control.
The following table lists common controls and the events that are triggered when their value changes.
The event handler calls the DetermineFormState method on the controller 206.
Setting the State of Controls
It is essential for maintainability that the process of setting the state of controls be separate from the process for setting the values of those controls. The DetermineFormState method on the controller 206 forces this separation between setting the state of controls and setting their values.
DetermineFormState is the only method that modifies the state of any of the controls on the form 204. Because control state requirements are so complex and vary so widely, this is the only restriction made by the architecture framework.
If necessary, parameters are passed to the DetermineFormState function to act as "hints" or "clues" for determining the new state of the form 204. For complex forms, it is helpful to decompose the DetermineFormState function into a number of helper functions, each handling a group of related controls on the form or moving the form 204 to a different state.
The Edit/Add/View Task Window has three modes: Edit, Add, and View. In Add mode, everything on the form is editable. Some details will stay disabled when in Edit mode, since they should be set only once when the task is added. In both Add and Edit modes, the repeat rule may be edited. Enabling editing of the repeat rule always disables the manual editing of the task's due and display dates. In View mode, only the Category combo box and Private checkbox are enabled.
Window data validation is the process by which data on the window is examined for errors, inconsistencies, and proper formatting. It is important, for the sake of consistency, to implement this process similarly or identically in all windows of the application.
Types of Validation
Input Masking
Input masking is the first line of defense. It involves screening the data (usually character by character) as it is entered, to prevent the user from even entering invalid data. Input masking may be done programmatically or via a special masked text box, however the logic is always located on the form, and is invoked whenever a masked field changes.
Single-Field Range Checking
Single-field range checking determines the validity of the value of one field on the form by comparing it with a set of valid values. Single-field range checking may be done via a combo box, spin button, or programmatically on the form, and is invoked whenever the range-checked field changes.
Cross-Field Validation
Cross-field validation compares the values of two or more fields to determine if a validation rule is met or broken, and occurs just before saving (or searching). Cross-field validation may be done on the Controller 206 or the Business Object 207, however it is preferable to place the logic on the Business Object 207 when the validation logic can be shared by multiple Controllers 206.
Invalid data is caught and rejected as early as possible during the input process. Input masking and range checking provide the first line of defense, followed by cross-field validation when the window saves (or searches).
Single-Field Validation
All single-field validation is accomplished via some sort of input masking. Masks that are attached to textboxes are used to validate the type or format of data being entered. Combo boxes and spin buttons may also be used to limit the user to valid choices. If neither of these are sufficient, a small amount of logic may be placed on the form's event handler to perform the masking functionality, such as keeping a value below a certain threshold or keeping apostrophes out of a textbox.
Cross-Field Validation
When the user clicks OK or Save, the form calls the IsFormDataValid on the controller to perform cross-field validation (e.g., verifying that a start date is less than an end date). If the business object 207 contains validation rules, the controller 206 may call a method on the business object 207 to make sure those rules are not violated.
If invalid data is detected by the controller 206, it will notify the user with a message box and, if possible, the indicate which field or fields are in error. Under no circumstances will the window perform validation when the user is trying to cancel.
Window "Save Processing" involves tracking changes to data on a form 204 and responding to save and cancel events initiated by the user.
Tracking Changes to Form Data
Each window within the CBAM application contains a field within its corresponding control object known as the dirty flag. The dirty flag is set to True whenever an end user modifies data within the window. This field is interrogated by the UI Controller 206 to determine when a user should be prompted on Cancel or if a remote procedure should be invoked upon window close.
The application shell provides standard processing for each window containing an OK or Save button.
The default Save processing is implemented within the UI Controller 206 as follows:
The UI Controller is Notified that the OK button has been clicked. Then the controller 206 checks its Dirty Flag. If flag is dirty, the controller 206 calls the InterrogateForm method to retrieve data from the form 204 and calls a server component 222 to store the business object 207 in the database. If the Dirty Flag is not set, then no save is necessary. The window is then closed.
When the user cancels a window, the UI Controller 206 immediately examines the Dirty Flag. If the flag is set to true, the user is prompted that their changes will be lost if they decide to close the window.
Once prompted, the user can elect to continue to close the window and lose their changes or decide not to close and continue working.
In the event of an error, it is sometimes necessary to shutdown a window or to terminate the entire application. It is critical that all windows follow the shutdown process in order to avoid the GPFs commonly associated with terminating incorrectly. Following is how the window/application is shutdown.
Shutdown Scope
The scope of the shutdown is as small as possible. If an error occurs in a controller 206 that does not affect the rest of the application, only that window is shut down. If an error occurs that threatens the entire application, there is a way to quickly close every open window in the application. The window shutdown strategy is able to accommodate both types of shutdowns.
In order to know what windows must be shut down, the architecture tracks which windows are open. Whenever the App Object 202 creates a controller 206, it calls its RegCTLR function to add the controller 206 to a collection of open controllers. Likewise, whenever a window closes, it tells the App Object 202 that it is closing by calling the App Object's 202 UnRegCTLR function, and the App Object 202 removes the closing controller 206 from its collection. In the case of an error, the App Object 202 loops through its collection of open controllers, telling each controller to "quiesce" or shutdown immediately.
The GeneralErrorHandler is a method in MArch.bas that acts as the point of entry into the architecture's error handling mechanism. A component or a controller will call the GeneralErrorHandler when they encounter any type of unexpected or unknown error. The general error handler will return a value indicating what the component or controller should do: (1) resume on the line that triggered the error (2) resume on the statement after the line that triggered the error (3) exit the function (4) quiesce (5) shutdown the entire application.
In order to prevent recursive calls the GeneralErrorHandler keeps a collection of controllers that are in the process of shutting down. If it is called twice in a row by the same controller 206, it is able to detect and short-circuit the loop. When the controller 206 finally does terminate, it calls the UnRegisterError function to let the GeneralErrorHandler know that it has shut down and removed from the collection of controllers.
Shutdown Process
After being told what to do by the GeneralErrorHandler, the controller 206 in error may try to execute the statement that caused the error, proceed as if nothing happened, exit the current function, call its Quiesce function to shut itself down, or call the Shutdown method on the App Object 202 to shut the entire application down.
Controllers 206 that manage search windows have a public method named Find<Noun>s where <Noun> is the type of object being searched for. This method is called in the event handler for the Find Now button.
Any controller 206 that manages an edit window has a public method called Save that saves changes the user makes to the data on the form 204. This method is called by the event handlers for both the Save and OK buttons (when/if the OK button needs to save changes before closing).
A VB window is closed by the user in several ways: via the control-box in upper left corner, the X button in upper right corner, or the Close button. When the form closes, the only method that will always be called, regardless of the way in which the close was initiated, is the form's 204 QueryUnload event handler.
Because of this, there cannot be a standard Close method. Any processing that must occur when a window closes is to be done in the QueryUnload method on the controller 206 (which is called by the form's QueryUnload event handler).
The VB statement, Unload Me, appears in the Close button's event handler to manually initiate the unloading process. In this way, the Close button mimics the functionality of the control box and the X button, so that the closing process is handled the same way every time, regardless of how the user triggered the close. The OK button's event handler also executes the Unload Me statement, but calls the Save method on the controller first to save any pending changes.
Business Objects 207 are responsible for containing data, maintaining the integrity of that data, and exposing functions that make the data easy to manipulate. Whenever logic pertains to a single BO 207 it is a candidate to be placed on that BO. This ensures that it will not be coded once for each controller 206 that needs it. Following are some standard examples of business object logic.
The "state" of a business object 207 is the set of all its attributes. Life cycle state refers only to a single attribute (or a small group of attributes) that determine where the BO 207 is in its life cycle. For example, the life cycle states of a Task are Open, Completed, Cleared, or Error. Business objectives usually involve moving a BO toward its final state (i.e., Completed for a Task, Closed for a Supplement, etc.).
Often, there are restrictions on a BO's movement through its life cycle. For example, a Task may only move to the Error state after first being Completed or Cleared. BOs provide a mechanism to ensure that they do not violate life cycle restrictions when they move from state to state.
A BO 207 has a method to move to each one of its different life cycle states. Rather than simply exposing a public variable containing the life cycle state of the task, the BO exposes methods, such as Task.Clear( ), Task.Complete( ), and Task.MarkInError( ), that move the task a new state. This approach prevents the task from containing an invalid value for life cycle state, and makes it obvious what the life cycle states of a task are.
Sometimes, a BO 207 acts as a container for a group of other BOs. This happens when performing operations involving multiple BOs. For example, to close, a claim ensures that it has no open supplements or tasks. There might be a method on the claim BO—CanClose( )—that evaluates the business rules restricting the closing of a claim and return true or false. Another situation might involve retrieving the open tasks for a claim. The claim can loop through its collection of tasks, asking each task if it is open and, if so, adding it to a temporary collection which is returned to the caller.
When a BO 207 is added or updated, it sends all of its attributes down to a server component 222 to write to the database. Instead of explicitly referring to each attribute in the parameter list of the functions on the CCA 208 and server component 222, all the attributes are sent in a single variant array. This array is also known as a structure.
Each editable BO 207 has a method named AsStruct that takes the object's member variables and puts them in a variant array. The CCA 208 calls this method on a BO 207 before it sends the BO 207 down to the server component 222 to be added or updated. The reason that this is necessary is that, although object references can be passed by value over the network, the objects themselves cannot. Only basic data types like Integer and String can be sent by value to a server component 222. A VB enumeration is used to name the slots of the structure, so that the server component 222 can use a symbolic name to access elements in the array instead of an index. Note that this is generally used only when performing adds or full updates on a business object 207.
In a few cases, there is a reason to re-instantiate the BO 207 on the server side. The FromStruct method does exactly the opposite of the AsStruct method and initializes the BO 207 from a variant array. The size of the structure passed as a parameter to FromStruct is checked to increase the certainty that it is a valid structure.
When a BO 207 contains a reference to another BO 207, the AsStruct method stores the primary key of the referenced BO 207. For example, the Task structure contains a PerformerId, not the performer BO 207 that is referenced by the task. When the FromStruct method encounters the PerformerId in the task structure, it instantiates a new performer BO and fills in the ID, leaving the rest of the performer BO empty.
Often a copy of a business object 207 is made. Cloning is a way to implement this kind of functionality by encapsulating the copying process in the BO 207 itself. Controllers 206 that need to make tentative changes to a business object 207 simply ask the original BO 207 for a clone and make changes to the clone. If the user decides to save the changes, the controller 206 ask the original BO to update itself from the changes made to the clone.
Each BO 207 has a Clone method to return a shallow copy of itself. A shallow copy is a copy that doesn't include copies of the other objects that the BO 207 refers to, but only a copy of a reference to those objects. For example, to clone a task, it does not give the clone a brand new claim object; it gives the clone a new reference to the existing claim object. Collections are the only exception to this rule—they are always copied completely since they contain references to other BOs.
Each BO 207 also has an UpdateFromClone method to allow it "merge" a clone back in to itself by changing its attributes to match the changes made to the clone.
BOs 207 occasionally are filled only half-full for performance reasons. This is done for queries involving multiple tables that return large data sets. Using half-baked BOs 207 can be an error prone process, so it is essential that the half-baking of BOs are carefully managed and contained.
In most applications, there are two kinds of windows—search windows and edit/detail windows. Search windows are the only windows that half-bake BOs 207. Generally, half-baking only is a problem when a detail window expecting a fully-baked BO receives a half-baked BO from a search window.
Detail windows refresh the BOs 207 they are passed by the search windows, regardless of whether or not they were already fully-baked. This addresses the problems associated with passing half-baked BOs and also helps ensure that the BO 207 is up-to-date.
This approach requires another type of method (besides Get, Add, Update, and Delete) on the CCA 208: a Refresh method. This method is very similar to a Get method (in fact, it calls the same method on the server component) but is unique because it refreshes the data in objects that are already created. The detail window's controller 206 calls the appropriate CCA 208 passing the BO 207 to be refreshed, and may assume that, when control returns from the CCA 208, the BO 207 will be up-to-date and fully-baked.
This is may not be necessary if two windows are very closely related. If the first window is the only window that ever opens the second, it is necessary for the second window to refresh the BO 207 passed by the first window if it knows that the BO 207 is baked fully enough to be used.
CCAs 208 are responsible for transforming data from row and columns in a recordset to business objects 207, and for executing calls to server components 222 on behalf of controllers 206.
After asking a component to retrieve data, the CCA 208 marshals the data returned by the component into business objects 207 that are used by the UI Controller 206.
The marshaling process is as follows:
CCAs 208 call GetRows on the recordset to get a copy of its data in a variant array in order to release the recordset as soon as possible. A method exist to coordinate the marshaling of each recordset returned by the component.
Only one recordset is coordinated in the marshaling process of a single method. A method exist to build a BO from a single row of a recordset. This method is called once for each row in the recordset by the marshaling coordination method.
The logic to refresh BOs 207 is very similar to the logic to create them in the first place. A "refresh" method is very similar to a "get" method, but must use BOs 207 that already exist when carrying out the marshalling process.
Controllers 206 are responsible for creating and populating new BOs 207. To add a BO 207 to the database, the controller 206 must call the CCA 208, passing the business object 207 to be added. The CCA 208 calls the AsStruct method on the BO 207, and pass the BO structure down to the component to be saved. It then updates the BO 207 with the ID and timestamp generated by the server. Note the method on the CCA 208 just updates the BO 207.
The update process is very similar to the add process. The only difference is that the server component only returns a timestamp, since the BO already has an ID.
Deleting Overview
Like the add and the update methods, delete methods take a business object 207 as a parameter and do not have a return value. The delete method does not modify the object 207 it is deleting since that object will soon be discarded.
Server components 222 have two purposes: enforcing business rules and carrying out data access operations. They are designed to avoid duplicating logic between functions.
Enforcing Encapsulation
Each server component 222 encapsulates a single database table or a set of closely related database tables. As much as possible, server components 222 select or modify data from a single table. A component occasionally selects from a table that is "owned" or encapsulated by another component in order to use a join (for efficiency reasons). A server component 222 often collaborates with other server components to complete a business transaction.
Partioning Logic Between Multiple Classes
If the component becomes very large, it is split into more than one class. When this occurs, it is divided into two classes—one for business rules and one for data access. The business rules class implements the component's interface and utilizes the data access class to modify data as needed.
With the exception of "Class_Initialize", "Class_Terminate", and methods called within an error handler, every function or subroutine has a user defined 'On Error GoTo' statement. The first line in each procedure is: On Error GoTo ErrorHandler. A line near the end of the procedure is given a label "ErrorHandler". (Note that because line labels in VB 5.0 have procedure scope, each procedure can have a line labeled "ErrorHandler"). The ErrorHandler label is preceded by a Exit Sub or Exit Function statement to avoid executing the error handling code when there is no error.
Errors are handled differently based on the module's level within the application (i.e., user interface modules are responsible for displaying error messages to the user).
All modules take advantage of technical architecture to log messages. Client modules that already have a reference to the architecture call the Log Manager object directly. Because server modules do not usually have a reference to the architecture, they use the LogMessage( ) global function complied into each server component.
Any errors that are raised within a server component 222 are handled by the calling UI controller 206. This ensures that the user is appropriately notified of the error and that business errors are not translated to unhandled fatal errors.
All unexpected errors are handled by a general error handler function at the global Architecture module in order to always gracefully shut-down the application.
The error handler for each service module contains a Case statement to check for all anticipated errors. If the error is not a recoverable error, the logic to handle it is first tell MTS about the error by calling GetObjectContext.SetAbort( ). Next, the global LogMessage( ) function is called to log the short description intended for level one support personnel. Then the LogMessage( ) function is called a second time to log the detailed description of the error for upper level support personnel. Finally, the error is re-raised, so that the calling function will know the operation failed.
A default Case condition is coded to handle any unexpected errors. This logs the VB generated error then raises it. A code sample is provided below:
Following is an example of how error handling in the task component is implemented when an attempt is made to reassign a task to a performer that doesn't exist. Executing SQL to reassign a task to a non-existent performer generates a referential integrity violation error, which is trapped in this error handler:
All CCI's, CCA's, Business Objects, and Forms raise any error that is generated. A code sample is provided below:
The user interface controllers 206 handle any errors generated and passed up from the lower levels of the application. UI modules are responsible for handling whatever errors might be raised by server components 222 by displaying a message box to the user.
Any error generated in the UI's is also displayed to the user in a dialog box. Any error initiated on the client is logged using the LogMessage( ) procedure. Errors initiated on the server will already have been logged and therefore do not need to be logged again.
All unexpected errors are trapped by a general error method at the global architecture module. Depending on the value returned from this function, the controller may resume on the statement that triggered the error, resume on the next statement, call its Quiesce function to shut itself down, or call a Shutdown method on the application object to shutdown the entire application.
No errors are raised from this level of the application, since controllers handle all errors. A code sample of a controller error handler is provided below:
The CBAM application is constructed so that it can be localized for different languages and countries with a minimum effort or conversion.
The CBAM architecture provides support for certain localization features:
Localizable Resource Repository;
Flexible User Interface Design;
Date Format Localization; and
Exposure of Windows Operation System Localization Features.
The CBAM application has an infrastructure to support multiple languages. The architecture acts as a centralized literals repository via its Codes Table Approach.
The Codes Tables have localization in mind. Each row in the codes table contains an associated language identifier. Via the language identifier, any given code can support values of any language.
Flexible user interface 400 and code makes customization easy. The
Generic graphics are used and overcrowding is avoided to create a user interface which is easy to localize.
Language localization settings affect the way dates are displayed on UI's (user interfaces). The default system display format is different for different Language/Countries. For Example:
The present inventions UI's employ a number of third-party date controls including Sheridan Calendar Widgets (from Sheridan Software) which allow developers to set predefined input masks for dates (via the controls' Property Pages; the property in this case is "Mask").
Although the Mask property can be manipulated, the default setting is preferably accepted (the default setting for Mask is "0—System Default"; it is set at design time). Accepting the default system settings eliminates the need to code for multiple locales (with some possible exceptions), does not interfere with intrinsic Visual Basic functions such as DateAdd, and allows dates to be formatted as strings for use in SQL.
The test program illustrated below shows how a date using the English (United Kingdom) default system date format is reformatted to a user-defined format (in this case, a string constant for use with DB2 SQL statements):
The CBAM architecture exposes interface methods on the RegistryService object to access locale specific values which are set from the control panel.
The architecture exposes an API from the RegistryService object which allows access to all of the information available in the control panel. Shown below is the signature of the API:
The Logical Unit of Work (LUW) pattern enables separation of concern between UI Controllers 206 and business logic.
Normally, when a user opens a window, makes changes, and clicks OK or Save, a server component 222 is called to execute a transaction that will save the user's changes to the database. Because of this, it can be said that the window defines the boundary of the transaction, since the transaction is committed when the window closes.
The LUW pattern is useful when database transactions span windows. For example, a user begins editing data on one window and then, without saving, opens another window and begins editing data on that window, the save process involves multiple windows. Neither window controller 206 can manage the saving process, since data from both windows must be saved as an part of an indivisible unit of work. Instead, a LUW object is introduced to manage the saving process.
The LUW acts as a sort of "shopping bag". When a controller 206 modifies a business object 207, it puts it in the bag to be paid for (saved) later. It might give the bag to another controller 206 to finish the shopping (modify more objects), and then to a third controller who pays (asks the LUW to initiate the save).
Controllers 206 may have different levels of LUW "awareness":
Requires New: always creates a new LUW;
Requires: requires an LUW, and creates a new LUW only if one is not passed by the calling controller;
Requires Existing: requires an LUW, but does not create a new LUW if one is not passed by the calling controller. Raises an error if no LUW is passed; and
Not Supported: is not capable of using an LUW.
Controllers 206 that always require a new LUW create that LUW in their ArchInitClass function during initialization. They may choose whether or not to involve other windows in their LUW. If it is desirable for another window to be involved in an existing LUW, the controller 206 that owns the LUW passes a reference to that LUW when it calls the App Object 202 to open the second window. Controllers 206 that require an LUW or require an existing LUW accept the LUW as a parameter in the ArchInitClass function.
LUWs contain all the necessary logic to persist their "contents"—the modified BOs 207. They handle calling methods on the CCA 208 and updating the BOs 207 with new IDs and/or timestamps.
Following is an overview of the architecture object model, including a description of each method and the parameters it accepts. Additional sections address the concepts behind specific areas (code caching, message logging, and data access) in more detail.
The following are APIs located on the Arch Object 200 which return either a retrieved or created instance of an object which implements the following interfaces:
CodesMan( ) 500;
TextMan( ) 502;
IdMan( ) 504;
RegMan( ) 506;
LogMan( ) 508;
ErrMan( ) 510;
UserMan( ) 512; and
SecurityMan( ) 514.
AsMsgStruct( )
This method on the Arch Object returns a variant structure to pass along a remote message.
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named CodesMan 500:
CheckCacheFreshness( );
FillControl(ctlControl, ncategory, nFillType, [nCodeStatus], [colAssignedCodes]);
FilterCodes(colAllCodes, nCodeStatus);
GetCodeObject(nCategory, sCode);
GetServerDate( );
RefreshCache( );
RemoveValidDates(sCode, colPassedInAssignedCodes); and
CheckCacheFreshness( )
Checks whether the cache has expired, if so refresh.
This API is used to fill listboxes or comboboxes with values from a list of CodeDecodes. Returns a collection for subsequent lookups to Code objects used to fill controls.
Returns a collection of code/decodes that are filtered using their effective and expiration dates based on which nCodeStatus is passed from the fillcontrol method.
Removes all valid codes from the passed in assigned codes collection, which is used to see which codes are assigned and not valid.
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named TextMan 502.
PairUpAposts( );
PairUpAmps( ); and
MergeParms( ).
PairUpAposts ( )
Pairs up apostrophes in the passed string.
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named IdMan 504:
GetSequenceID( );
GetTimeStamp( );
GetTrackingNbr( ); and
GetUniqueId( ).
GetGUID ( )
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named RegMan 506:
GetCacheLife( );
GetClientDSN( );
GetComputerName( );
GetDefaultAndValidate( );
GetFCArchiveDirectory( );
GetFCDistributionDirectory( );
GetFCMasterDirectory( );
GetFCUserDirectory( );
GetFCWorkingDirectory( );
GetHelpPath( );
GetLocalInfo( );
GetLogLevel( );
GetRegionalInfo( );
GetRegValue( );
GetServerDSN( );
GetSetting( );
GetTimerLogLevel( );
GetTimerLogPath( ); and
GetUseLocalCodes( ).
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named LogMan 508:
LogMessage( );
WriteToDatabase( ); and
WriteToLocalLog( ).
LogMessage( )
Used to log the message. This function will determine where the message should be logged, if at all, based on its severity and the vMsg's log level.
Used to log the message to the database on the server using the CLoggingComp. This function returns the TrackingId that is generated by the CLoggingObject.
Used to log the message to either a flat file, in the case of Windows 95, or the NT Event Log, in the case of Windows NT.
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named ErrMan 510:
HandleError( );
RaiseOriginal( );
ResetError( ); and
Update( ).
HandleError( )
This method is passed through to the general error handler in MArch.bas
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named UserMan 512.
IsSuperOf( );
IsRelativeOf( ); and
IsInRole( ).
UserId( )
Creates a collection of user's supervisees from the dictionary and returns GetAuthorizedEmployees—collection of authorized employees
The following APIs are located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named SecurityMan 514.
GetUserId; and
EvalClaimRules( )
This API references business rules for Claim security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for FileNote security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for Forms and Corr security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for Event Processor security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for running the application and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for Event Processor security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for Task Template security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules for Task Template security checking and returns a boolean if rules are met.
This API references business rules and returns a boolean determining whether the user has security privileges to perform a certain operation.
Separate tables (CodesDecodes) are Created for storing the static values.
Only the references to codes/decodes are stored in business tables (e.g., Task) which utilize these values. This minimizes the size of the business tables, since storing a Code value takes much less storage space than its corresponding Decode value (e.g., For State, "AL" is stored in each table row instead of the string "Alabama").
CodeDecodes are stored locally on the client workstation in a local DBMS. On Application startup, a procedure to ensure the local tables are in sync with the central DBMS is performed.
The present invention's Code Decode Infrastructure 600 Approach outlines the method of physically modeling codes tables. The model allows codes to be extended with no impact to the physical data model and/or application and architecture.
The physical model of the CodeDecode infrastructure 600 does the following:
Supports relational functionality between CodeDecode objects;
Supports extensibility without modification to the DBMS or Application Architecture;
Provides a consistent approach for accessing all CodeDecode elements; and
Is easily maintainable.
These generic tables are able to handle new categories, and modification of relationships without a need to change the DBMS or CodeDecode Application Architecture.
Benefits of this model are extensibility and maintainability. This model allows for the modifications of code categories without any impact to the DBMS or the Application Architecture code. This model also requires fewer tables to maintain. In addition, only one method is necessary to access CodeDecodes.
Table Relationships and Field Descriptions:
Enabling Localization
Codes have support for multiple languages. The key to this feature is storing a language identifier along with each CodeDecode value. This Language field makes up a part of the compound key of the Code_Decode table. Each Code API lookup includes a system level call to retrieve the Language system variable. This value is used as part of the call to retrieve the values given the correct language.
Maintaining Language Localization Setting
A link to the Language system environment variable to the language keys is stored on each CodeDecode. This value is modified at any time by the user simply by editing the regional settings User Interface available in the Microsoft Windows Control Panel folder.
Handling Time Sensitive Codes becomes an issue when filling controls with a list of values. One objective is to only allow the user to view and select appropriate entries. The challenge lies in being able to expire Codes without adversely affecting the application. To achieve this, consideration is given to how each UI will decide which values are appropriate to show to the user given its current mode.
The three most common UI modes that affect time sensitive codes are Add Mode, View Mode, and Edit Mode.
Add Mode
In Add Mode, typically only valid codes are displayed to the user as selection options. Note that the constant, cmValidCodes, is the default and will still work the same even when this optional parameter is omitted.
In View Mode, the user is typically viewing results of historical data without direct ability to edit. Editing selected historical data launches another UI. Given this the controls are filled with valid and expired codes, or in other words, non-pending codes.
In Edit Mode, changes are allowed to valid codes but also expired codes are displayed if already assigned to the entity.
The Local CodeDecode tables are kept in sync with central storage of CodeDecodes. The architecture is responsible for making a check to see if there are any new or updated code decodes from the server on a regular basis. The architecture also, upon detection of new or modified CodeDecode categories, returns the associated data, and performs an update to the local database.
After an API call, a check is made to determine if the Arch is initialized 702. If it is a check is made to determine if the Freshness Interval has expired 704. If the Freshness Interval has not expired, the API call is complete 706. However, if either the Arch is not initialized or the Freshness Interval has expired, then the "LastUpdate" fields for each category are read from the CodeDecode and passed to the server 708. Then new and updated categories are read from the database 710. Finally the Local database is updated 712.
The following are APIs located on the interface of the Arch Object 200 named CodesMan 500.
GetCodeObject(nCategory, sCode);
FillControl(ctlControl, ncategory, nFillType, [nCodeStatus], [colAssignedCodes]).
GetCodeObject: Returns a valid CCode object given a specific category and code.
GetCategoryCodes: Returns a collection of CCode objects given a valid category
FillControl: This API is used to fill listboxes or comboboxes with values from a list of CodeDecodes. Returns a collection for subsequent lookups to Code objects used to fill controls.
Code objects returned via the "GetCodeObject" or "GetCategoryCodes" APIs can have relations to other code objects. This allows for functionality in which codes are associated to other individual code objects.
The APIs used to retrieve these values are similar to those on the CodesMan interface. The difference, however is that the methods are called on the Codes object rather that the CodesManager interface: Listed below again are the APIs.
GetCodeObject(nCategory, sCode);
FillControl(ctlControl, nCategory, nFillType, [nCodeStatus], [colAssignedCodes]).
Given below is some sample code to illustrate how these APIs are also called on Code objects.
The message logging architecture allows message logging in a safe and consistent manner. The interface to the message logging component is simple and consistent, allowing message logging on any processing tier. Both error and informational messages are logged to a centralized repository.
Abstracting the message logging approach allows the implementation to change without breaking existing code.
Messages are always logged by the architecture when an unrecoverable error occurs (i.e., the network goes down) and it is not explicitly handled. Message logging may be used on an as-needed basis to facilitate the diagnosis and fixing of SIRs. This sort of logging is especially useful at points of integration between classes and components. Messages logged for the purpose of debugging have a severity of Informational, so as not to be confused with legitimate error messages.
A message is logged by calling the LogMessage( ) function on the architecture.
Description of Parameters:
vMsg: the standard architecture message
lSeverity: the severity of the message
sClassName: the name of the class logging the message
sMethodName: the name of the method logging the message
sVersion: the version of the binary file (EXE or DLL) that contains the method logging the message
lErrorNum: the number of the current error
sText: an optional parameter containing the text of the message. If omitted, the text will be looked up in a string file or the generic VB error description will be used.
sText: an optional parameter containing the text of the message. If omitted, the text will be looked up in a string file or the generic VB error description will be used.
lLoggingOptions: an optional parameter containing a constant specifying where to log the message (i.e., passing cmogToDBAndEventViewer to LogMessage will log the error to the database and the event viewer.)
Logging Levels
Before a message is logged, its severity is compared to the log level of the current machine. If the severity of the message is less than or equal to the log level, then the message is logged.
Valid values for the log level are defined as an enumeration in VB. They include:
The database log table is composed of the following fields:
Messages are always logged to the application server's Event Log; however this is not necessarily true for the database as noted by the optional parameter passed to LogMessage, lLoggingoptions. An administrator with the appropriate access rights can connect to the MTS application server remotely and view its Event Log. Only one MTS package contains the Event Log Component, so that errors will all be written to the same application server Event Log.
Events logged via Visual Basic always have "VBRuntime" as the source. The Computer field is automatically populated with the name of the computer that is logging the event (i.e., the MTS application server) rather than the computer that generated the event (typically a client computer).
The same event details that are written to the database are formatted into a readable string and written to the log. The text "The VB Application identified by . . . Logged:" is automatically added by VB; the text that follows contains the details of the message.
All but a few exceptional cases use the "ExecuteQuery" API. This API covers singular database operations in which there exists a single input and a single output. Essentially should only exclude certain batch type operations.
The Data Access Framework serves the purposes of performance, consistency, and maintainability.
The "ExecuteQuery" method incorporates usage patterns for using ADO in an efficient manner. Examples of these patterns include utilization of disconnected recordsets, and explicitly declaring optional parameters which result in the best performance.
This method provides a common interface for development of data access. Given a simple and stable data access interface, best practices can be developed and disseminated.
Since the method is located in a single location, it is very modularized and can be maintained with little impact to its callers.
Application servers often use the ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) data access interface. This allows for a simplified programming model as well as enabling the embodiments to utilize a variety of data sources.
The "ExecuteQuery" method should be used for most application SQL calls. This method encapsulates functionality for using ADO in a effective and efficient manner. This API applies to situations in which a single operation needs to be executed which returns a single recordset object.
nMaxRows (Optional)
adoTransConn (Optional)
args (Optional)
In one embodiment of the present invention the "ExecuteQuery" method resides within the MservArch.bas file. This file should be incorporated into all ServerComponent type projects. This will allow each server component access to this method.
Note: Since this method is a public method in a "bas" module, it is globally available from anywhere in the project.
ExecuteQuery utilizes disconnected recordsets for "Select" type statements. This requires that the clients, particularly the CCA's contain a reference to ADOR, ActiveX Data Object Recordset. This DLL is a subset of the ADODB DLL. ADOR contains only the recordset object.
Using disconnected recordsets allows marshalling of recordset objects from sever to client. This performs much more efficiently than the variant array which is associated with using the "GetRows" API on the server. This performance gain is especially apparent when the application server is under load of a large number of concurrent users.
Inserting records requires certain information pertaining to optimistic locking. On the server a unique value is requested to indicate the last time modified. This unique value is returned back to the requester such that it can be used to later database operations.
Updating records requires certain information pertaining to optimistic locking. On the server a unique value is requested to indicate the last time modified. Also the last read timestamp is used to validate, during the update, that the record has not been modified since last time read.
In deleting records the last read timestamp is used to validate, during the delete, that the record has not been modified since last time read.
Database Locking ensures the integrity of the database in a multi-user environment. Locking prevents the common problem of lost updates from multiple users updating the same record.
Pessimistic Locking
This policy of locking allows the first user to have full access to the record while following users are denied access or have read only access until the record is unlocked. There are drawbacks to this method of locking. It is a method that is prone to deadlocks on the database as well poor performance when conflicts are encountered.
Optimistic Locking
The optimistic approach to record locking is based on the assumption that it is not normal processing for multiple users to both read and update records concurrently. This situation is treated as exceptional processing rather than normal processing. Locks are not actually placed on the database at read time. A timestamp mechanism is used at time of update or delete to ensure that another user has not modified or deleted the record since you last read the record.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention uses an optimistic locking approach to concurrency control. This ensures database integrity as well as the low overhead associated with this form of locking. Other benefits to this method are increased availability of records to multiple users, and a minimization of database deadlocks.
Table candidates for concurrency control are identified during the "Data Modeling Exercise". The only table which is updated concurrently is the Optimistic Locking mechanism. Once these are identified, the following is added to the application.
Add "N_Last_Updt" field to table in database;
Error Handling routines on those operations which modify or delete from this table; and
Display/Notification to user that the error has occurred.
The chart below describes the roles of the two basic types of components to enable optimistic locking.
Assumption: The optimistic locking field is of type Date and is named "N_Last_Updt"
When retrieving records from a database, if the search criteria is too broad, the amount of data required to be retrieved from the database and passed across the network will affect user perceived performance. Windows requesting such data will be slow to paint and searches will be slow. The formation of the database queries is made such that a workable amount of data is retrieved. There are a few options for addressing the problems that occur from large result sets. The options are given below in order of preference.
Redesign the interface/controller to return smaller result sets. By designing the controllers that present the database queries intelligently, the queries that are presented to the database server do not return a result set that is large enough to affect user perceived performance. In essence, the potential to retrieve too many records indicates that the UIs and the controllers have been designed differently. An example of a well designed Search UI is one where the user is required to enter in a minimum search criteria to prevent an excessively large result set.
Have Scrollable Result Sets. The scrolling retrieval of a large result set is the incremental retrieval of a result subset repeated as many times as the user requests or until the entire result set is obtained. Results are retrieved by the Bounded Query Approach where the first record is determined by a where clause with calculated values.
Preferred UI
The preferred displays are as follows:
Returned results are displayed in a GreenTree List Box;
An action button with the label More . . . is provided for the user to obtain the remaining results;
The More button is enabled when the user has performed an initial search and there are still results to be retrieved;
The More button is disabled when there are no more results to retrieve;
The List Box and the Action button is contained within a group box to provide a visual association between the button and the List Box.
Queries that are implemented with the limited result sets are sent to the server. The server implements the executeQuery method to retrieve the recordset as usual. Limited result queries have an order by clause that includes the business required sort order along with a sufficient number of columns to ensure that all rows can be uniquely identified. The recordset is limited by the nMaxRows variable passed from the client incremented to obtain the first row of the next result set. The return from the component is a recordset just the same as with a query that is not limited. The CCA 208 creates the objects and passes these back to the controller 206. The Controller 206 adds this returned collection of object to its collection of objects (an accumulation of previous results) and while doing so will performs the comparison of the last object to the first object of the next row. The values necessary to discriminate the two rows are added to the variant array that is necessary to pass to the component for the subsequent query.
The Controller 206 on the client retains the values for nMaxRows, the initial SQL statement, and array of values to discern between the last row of the previous query and the first row of the next query. The mechanism by which the controller 206 is aware that there are more records to retrieve is by checking the number of results is one greater than the max number of rows. To prevent the retrieval of records past the end of file, the controller 206 disables these functions on the UI. For example, a command button More on the UI, used to requested the data, is disabled when the number of objects returned is less than nMaxRows+1.
The Server component is responsible for creating a collection of arguments and appending the SQL statement to add a where clause that will be able to discriminate between the last row of the previous query and the first row of the next.
The CCA 208 processes the recordset into objects as in non limited queries. The CCA 208 forwards the variant array passed from the Controller 206 to identify the limited results.
The controller 206 has the responsibility of disabling the More control when the end of file has been reached. The controller 206 populates the variant array (vKeys) with the values necessary to determine start of next query.
A CCA 208 is coded for a user defined search which has the potential to return a sizable result set. The code example below implements the Bounded Query approach.
On the Server the developer codes the query as follows:
To determine the additional where clause necessary to determine the starting point of the query, the following method is added:
On the CCA 208, allowance must be made for the passing of the vKeys
Public Function RetrieveBusinessObjects(vMsg As Variant, sSql As String, nMaxRows As Integer, Optional ByVal vKeys As Variant) As CCollection
The controller initiates the query and updates the variant array of keys and form 204 properties based on the return. In addition to the code shown for the example below, the More Control is enabled if the search is cleared.
During class initialization perform the following:
Search reset functionality is kept outside of initialization so this may be called from other parts of the application.
In order to retain the values to discriminate between the last row of the result set and the first row of the next the following method on the controller is used:
For this example let nMaxRows=3. The business case calls for the result set to be ordered by the last name, and developer knows that any row can be uniquely identified by the FirstName, LastName, and Unique ID fields so the initial SQL added as a constant in the controller should be;
The first query is sent with an empty vKeys Array. When the server receives this query, the method ArgumentsForBusinessObject identifies the elements as being empty and does not populate the colArgs. The query is executed with the initial SQL unchanged. The recordset of size nMaxRows+1 is returned to the CCA 208 and processed the same as non-limited results. The CCA 208 returns the collection of objects to the controller 206. The controller 206 proceeds to populate the vResults collection with the returned objects. vResults is the comprehensive collection of objects returned. When the last object of the first request is reached (at nMaxRows), the values are stored in vKeys as such;
vKeys(0)=LastName (Barleycorn)
vKeys(1)=FirstName (John)
vKeys(2)=Unique_ID (512)
When the First Object of the next request is reached (at nMaxRows+1), comparison of the object variables against the vKeys values is performed. Because the last names match, vKeys(2) will not be deleted and no further checks are performed.
Subsequent Query
The subsequent query will pass vKeys along with it. The server creates the collection of arguments from vKeys and append the sSql string in accordance.
The sSql statement that is passed to execute query is
This sSql and collection is included in the call to ExecuteQuery which merges the arguments with the string relying on the architecture method MergeSQL to complete the SQL statement.
The starting point of the recordset is defined by the WHERE clause and the limit is set by the nMaxRows value.
Query Less Restrictive WHERE Criteria
After the second query the last row of the query is David Dyson and the next is Bobby Halford. Because the last name is different, vKeys will be empty except for vKeys(0)=Dyson.
The ProcessObjectCollection will populate vKeys as follows when processing nMaxRows object:
Keys(0)=LastName (Dyson)
vKeys(1)=FirstName (David)
vKeys(2)=Unique_ID (98)
After identifying the differences between vKeys values and the nMaxRows+1 object the vKeys array is updated as follows:
vKeys(0)=LastName (Dyson)
The query that is returned from ArgumentsForBusinessObject is
After the fifth iteration the result set will only possess 2 records. When the controller 206 processes the returned collection the counter returned from ProcessObjectCollection is less than nMaxRows+1 which indicates that all records have been retrieved.
It can be seen from
User Authentication:
User authentication is handled via a method located in the Security object 802 called IsOperAuthorized. As the Application object loads, it calls the IsOperAuthorized method, with the operation being "Login", before executing further processing. This method subsequently calls a authentication DLL, which is responsible for identifying the user as an authorized user within the Corporate Security.
UI Controllers:
The UI Controllers limit access to their functions by restricting access to specific widgets through enabling and disabling them. The logic for the enabling and disabling of widgets remains on the UI Controller 206, but the logic to determine whether a user has access to a specific functionality is located in the Security object 802 in the form of business rules. The UI Controller 206 calls the IsOperAuthorized method in order to set the state of its widgets.
Server security is implemented by restricting access to the data in three different ways:
Server Security Method
Server Components 222 call the IsOperAuthorized API in the Architecture before executing every operation. In all cases the Security object 802 returns a boolean, according to the user's access rights and the business rules
SQL Filtering
Includes security attributes, like claim sensitiveness or public/private file note, into the SQL statements when selecting or updating rows. This efficiently restricts the resulting data set, and avoids the return of restricted data to the client.
Any GUI related security is implemented at the Client using the Security object 802. The information is available both at the Client Profile and Business Objects 207 which enables the security rules to be properly evaluated.
IsOperAuthorized is called to set widgets upon the loading of a UI or if there is a change of state within the UI.
User authentication always is used by the Application Objects 202 in order to validate user privilege to launch the application.
SQL Filtering is used in the cases where sensitive data must not even be available at the Client, or where there is a great advantage on reducing the size of the data set returned to the Client.
SQL Filtering is only used in very rare cases where performance is a serious concern. It is used carefully in order to avoid increased complexity and performance impacts because some queries can be cumbersome and embedding security on them could increase complexity even more.
The Security object 802 serves the purpose of holding hard coded business rules to grant or deny user access for various application functions. This information is returned to the UI controllers 206 which make the necessary modifications on the UI state. The ClientProfile object serves the purpose of caching user specific (and static) security information directly on the client. This information is necessary to evaluate the business rules at the Security object 802.
Architecture Object
The TechArch object is responsible for providing access and maintaining the state of the ClientProfile 902 and Security objects 802. The ClientProfile object 902 is instantiated and destroyed in the TechArch's initialization and terminate methods, respectively. This object is maintained through an instance variable on the TechArch object.
The CInitCompCCA object 904 provides two services to the architecture object 200, it serves as an access point to the CInitComp Server 906, and it Marshalls the query result set into a ClientProfile object 902.
The CInitComp server object 906 provides data access to the data that resides in the organization tables 908. This data is useful on the client to determine level of access to data based on hard coded business rules.
Organization Tables
The Organization tables 908 contain user, employee and unit information necessary to build the hierarchy of information necessary to determine level of access to sensitive information.
Client Profile
The ClientProfile object 902 serves the purpose of caching static, user specific security information directly on the client. This information is necessary to determine data access level of information to the user, which is accomplished by passing the necessary values to the Security object 802.
Security Object
The Security Object 802 contains business rules used to determine a user's access privileges in relation to specific functions. The object accepts certain parameters passed in by the various UI Controllers 206 and passes them to through the business rule logic which, in turn, interrogates the Client Profile object 902 for specific user information.
The following are internal attributes for the Client Profile object 902. These attributes are not exposed to the application and should only be used by the Security object 802:
The following are the APIs exposed by the Client Profile object. These APIs are used for security checking by the Security object and should not be used by the developers in any portion of the application.
The following accessors are used to get data from the Client Profile's object:
Public Methods
The following API is exposed by the Security Object and is used by the application for security checking:
The following examples show some ways to implement the options described above:
This application runs on the server as a background process or service with no direct interaction with Client applications, so it doesn't need any GUI related security. Basically, its main actions are limited to the generation of new tasks in response to externally generated events or, more specifically, it:
In this sense, its security is totally dependent on external entities as described below:
The Claim Folder manages claim information from first notice through closing and archiving. It does this by providing a structured and easy to use interface that supports multiple business processes for handling claims. The information that it captures is fed to many other components that allow claims professionals to make use of enabling applications that reduce their workload. Because physical claim files are still required, the claim folder provides capabilities that support physical file tracking. It works with the LEGACY system to support all the capabilities that exist within the current system.
The primary processes supported by the Claim Folder are:
By capturing detailed information on claims, the Claim Folder tries to improve the efficiency of claim professionals in many ways. First, because the information is organized in a logical, easy to use format, there is less digging required to find basic information to support any number of inquiries. Second, the Claim Folder uses its information to support other applications like Forms and Correspondence, so that claim information does not have to be reentered every time it is needed. Third, it provides better ways to find physical files to reduce the time required finding and working with them. Beyond this, there are many other potential uses of claim folder information.
The Claim Folder also tries to overcome some of the current processing requirements that the LEGACY system imposes such as recording losses without claims, requiring policy numbers for claim set-up, requiring reserves for lines, and other restrictions. This will reduce some of the low-value added work required to feed the LEGACY system.
Finally, the Claim Folder organizes and coordinates information on participants and performers so that all people involved in a claim can be identified quickly and easily.
Key Users
Although claim professionals are the primary users of the Claim Folder, any claims professional can utilize the Claim Folder to learn about a claim or answer an inquiry about a claim.
Component Functionality
Because the Claim Folder is the primary entry point for new claims, it needs to capture information necessary to set-up new claims and be able to pass the information to the LEGACY system. Once the information is passed, the LEGACY system owns all information contained in both systems, and it is uneditable in the Claim Folder. However, the Claim Folder has more information than what is contained in the LEGACY system, and therefore allows certain information to be entered and modified once the claim is pushed to the LEGACY system.
The Claim Folder decomposes a claim into different levels that reflect the policy, the insured, the claim, the claimants, and the claimant's lines. Each level has a structured set of information that applies to it. For example, the claim level of the claim has information on the claim status, line of business, and performers. An individual line has information which includes the line type, jurisdiction, and property or vehicle damages. The claimant level contains contact information as well as injury descriptions.
The information at each level is grouped into sections for organization purposes. Each level has a details section that includes the basic information about the level.
The key levels on the Claim Folder and their information sections are:
Events are triggered in the Claim Folder by performing certain actions like changing a jurisdiction, identifying an injury, or closing a line. Other general events are triggered in the Event Section on most levels by clicking the one that has occurred. These events are processed by the Event Processor and could generate any number of responses. In one embodiment of the present invention, the primary response is to trigger new tasks in the Task Assistant for a claim.
User Interfaces
Claim Tree
The claim tree in the Claim Folder window decomposes the claim into policy, insured, claim, claimant, and line levels depending on the specific composition of the claim.
The policy level is always the first node in the claim tree and is identified by the policy number. Before the policy number is entered, the field is listed as "Unknown". If a claim is uncoded, the field is listed as "Uncoded". Selecting the policy level brings up the policy level tabs in the body of the Claim Folder.
The insured level is always the second node in the claim tree and is identified by the insured's name. Before the insured is identified, the field is listed as "Unknown". Selecting the insured level brings up the insured participant tabs in the body of the claim folder. Only one insured is listed at this level as identified in the policy level tabs, however, multiple insureds can still be added. Additional insureds are shown in the participant list below the claim tree.
The claim level is always the third node in the claim tree and is identified by the claim number. When the claim level is selected, the claim level tabs appears in the body of the Claim Folder.
After the claim level, all claimants are listed with their associated lines in a hierarchy format. When a claimant is added, a node is added to the tree, and the field identifying the claimant is listed as "Unknown". Once a participant has been identified, partial or client, the name of the claimant is listed on the level. When the level is selected, the participant level tabs for the claimant is shown in the body of the claim folder.
Line levels are identified by their line type. Before a line type is selected, the line level is listed as "Unknown". When a line level is selected, the line level tabs for the specific line are shown in the body of the claim folder.
There are several things that can alter the claim tree once it has been set up. First, if a claimant or line is deleted, it is removed from the claim tree. A claim that is marked in error does not change the appearance of the levels. Second, the claim, claimant, and line levels are identified by different icons depending on whether they are pushed to V7 or not. Third, when a line or claimant is offset, it is identified as such.
Participant List
The participant list box contains all the non-claimant and non-insured participants on the claim. (Claimants and insureds are shown in the claim tree and not repeated here.) Participants are shown with their name and role. When a participant is selected, the participant level tabs are displayed in the claim folder.
Claim Folder Menu Items
The claim folder menus contain the actions that a user would need to perform within the claim folder. They can all be accessed through keyboard selection. The menu options become enabled or disabled based on the state of the Claim Folder. The Claim Folder can be in view mode or edit mode for a specific level in the Claim Tree. When the Claim Folder is in edit mode, most options are disabled until the user saves their changes and is returned to view mode. The enabling/disabling of menu options is also dependent on whether the claim or portions of the claim have been pushed to V7.
Claim Folder Tool Bar
The tool bar represents common action that a user performs that can be easily accessed by clicking the appropriate icon. There are five groups of button on the Claim Folder tool bar that represent, in order, common activities, adding new items to a claim, launching utilities, performing V7 activities, and accessing help functions. The enabling/disabling of tool bar buttons follows the same logic as for menu items.
Claim history shows information in one user interface that is intended to include all the constituent elements of a claim file. The four types of history included in the component are searchable by common indexing criteria like participant, performer, and claim phase. A caption report can be produced which shows the history selected in a document format.
Claim history provides the users with one common interface through which to view a large variety of information about the claim. It includes all history available on a claim, and is expanded as claim capabilities are built, like incoming mail capture. Users develop customized views of history based on any criteria the history can be indexed by, and these reports are saved as customizable Word documents. The way the history information is indexed provides quick access to pertinent data needed to respond to a variety of requests.
Key Users
All members of the claims organization can use claim history as a way to quickly see all activity performed on a claim. This utility increases the ability to locate key information regarding any claim.
Component Functionality
Claim history is a component that contains a simple process to retrieve history from the other components in the system. It contains no native data itself. Even viewing a history element is done in the component window where the item was first captured.
The second key process of claim history is to produce a caption report of all history elements according to the items the user wants to include.
There are two user interfaces needed for this component that correspond to the two key functions above:
The Forms & Correspondence component supports internal and external Claim communication and documentation across all parts of the claims handling process.
The Forms and Correspondence—Create Correspondence function provides the ability to search for a template using various search criteria, select a template for use and then leverage claim data into the selected template.
The Forms and Correspondence—Template Maintenance function is a tool for the librarian to create, delete, and update Correspondence templates and their associated criteria.
Some specific processes supported by Forms & Correspondence are:
The Forms and Correspondence component supports user in creating documentation.
Leveraging information from the claim directly into correspondence reduces the amount of typing and dictating done to create forms and letters. The typical data available to the templates should include: author, addressee, claim number, date of loss, insured name, policy number, etc. A librarian adds and maintains standardized forms and letters in logical groupings made available for the entire company.
Key Users
Claim employees are the primary users of the Forms and Correspondence component, but it can be used by anyone who has access to the system to create documents using existing templates.
Forms and Correspondence librarians use the system to create, update or remove templates.
Component Functionality
Forms and Correspondence—Create Correspondence
1. Search for a template based on search criteria.
2. Create a correspondence from a template using claim data.
3. Create a correspondence from a template without using claim data.
4. View the criteria for a selected template.
5. View the Microsoft Word template before leveraging any data.
Forms and Correspondence—Template Maintenance
1. Search for a template based on search criteria.
2. Create, duplicate, edit, and delete Correspondence templates and their criteria.
3. Internally test and approve newly created/edited templates.
4. Properly copy Word templates for NAN distribution.
User Interfaces
File notes captures the textual information that cannot be gathered in discrete data elements as part of claim data capture. They are primarily a documentation tool, but also are used for internal communication between claim professionals. Users can sort the notes by participant or claim phase (medical, investigation, coverage, etc.) in order to permit rapid retrieval and organization of this textual information.
File notes speeds the retrieval and reporting of claim information. A file notes search utility with multiple indexing criteria provides claim professionals and supervisors with the ability to quickly find a file note written about a particular person or topic. The file notes tool utilizes modern word processing capabilities which speed entry, reduce error, and allow for important information to be highlighted. Furthermore, the categorization and key field search eases the process of finding and grouping file notes. Finally, file notes improves communication as they can be sent back and forth between those involved in managing the claim.
Key Users
All members of the claims organization can utilize file notes. External parties via RMS can view file notes marked General. This utility increases the ability to locate key information regarding a claim. Anyone who wants to learn more about a claim or wants to record information about a claim utilizes the file notes tool.
Component Functionality
File Notes searching is included as part of the claim history component which allows the user to search the historical elements of a claim file including tasks, letters, and significant claim change events.
The user interfaces that are needed for this component are:
Address Book is the interface between the claims system and the Client database. The Client application is a new component designed to keep track of people or organizations that interact with RELIANCE for any reason, but claims are most likely the first application to use Client. The Address Book is accessed directly from the Desktop and from the Claim Folder.
The Address Book meets several needs within the claim organization. Although, its primary function is to support the adding of participants to a claim, it acts as a pathway to the Client database for searching out existing participants, and adding new people or organizations to the corporate database.
The Client database maintains information on names, addresses, phone numbers, and other information that always applies to a person or organization no matter what role they play on a claim.
Address Book provides a common definition of people or organizations that interact with RELIANCE, and therefore provides a much more efficient means of capturing this information. Each Client database entry provides the ability to link a person or organization to all the different roles that they play across the organization, and therefore makes retrieving information on a client by client basis quick and easy.
There are many benefits to RELIANCE by having a common address book. Information on people and organizations is leveraged into other activities like enabled tasks that lookup a client's phone numbers when a call needs to be made. Information that has been redundantly stored in the past can be entered once and reused. Once all areas of RELIANCE use the Client application, different areas of the company can share definitions of individuals and organizations.
Component Functionality
Address Book allows users to add, edit and delete records from the Client database. It also provides a robust search facility, including phonetic name searches to find people contained in the Client database.
There are two primary user interfaces for the Address Book: