Automating data entry for fields in electronic documents

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10013411-B2
Application number	US-201414265999-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2014
Priority date	Apr 30, 2014
Publication date	Jul 3, 2018
Grant date	Jul 3, 2018

Abstract

In some embodiments, a document management application determines that a field of a document lacks a tag describing the field. The document management application also determines that data entered into the field of the document corresponds to a value of a field description included in a user profile. The document management application tags or otherwise associates the field with the field description based on the entered data corresponding to the value of the field description.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
determining, by a processing device, that a document accessed from a computer-readable medium lacks existing metadata describing a field in the document;
performing, by the processing device and based on determining that the document lacks the existing metadata, document-modification operations comprising:
determining, by the processing device, that data entered into the field of the document corresponds to a value of a field description included in a user profile, and
modifying, by the processing device and based on the data entered into the field corresponding to the value of the field description, the document to include a tag that is applied to the field, wherein the tag comprises metadata with the field description; and

performing, by a document management application executed by the processing device and accessed with the user profile, operations comprising:
scanning a user document associated with the user profile,
identifying, from scanning the user document, a link to a web document at a remote resource, wherein the remote resource is independent of the document management application and accessible by the document management application via a data network,
executing a crawler process that accesses, via the link, the web document from the remote resource and that identifies a web field in the web document,
generating, from the crawler process, remote document data in a locally accessible storage location in which the document is stored, wherein the remote document data is generated specifically for the web document and associates the field description with the web field,
modifying, based on identifying changed data in the field of the document, the remote document data to include the changed data for the field description, and
updating the web field at the remote resource by copying the changed data from the remote document data to the web field of the web document at the remote resource, wherein the web field at the remote resource is updated based on the remote document data being modified to include the changed data for the field description.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining that the data entered into the field corresponds to the value of the field description comprises determining that at least some of the data entered into the field matches the value of the field description;
wherein the field description comprises identification information for a user associated with the user profile,
wherein the field is accessible for data entry via a user interface, wherein the data is entered into the field of the document via the user interface,
wherein the method further comprises performing, by a document management application executed by the processing device and accessed with the user profile, operations comprising:
obtaining the document from a first provider, wherein the document management application maintains the field description and performs, after obtaining the document from the first provider, the determination that the document lacks the existing metadata,
obtaining an additional document from a second provider different from the first provider, wherein the second provider is different from the first provider,
receiving, via a dashboard graphical interface generated by the document management application, data for entry into (i) the field of the document and (ii) an additional field of an additional document, wherein the additional field is tagged with the field description, and
updating, based on the field description being associated with both the field and the additional field, at least one of the field and the additional field such that the field and the additional field include the data received via the dashboard graphical interface of the document management application.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising maintaining a common field value in a set of documents that are managed via a document management dashboard accessed with the user profile and that have respective fields tagged with the field description, wherein the set of documents includes the document and an additional document, wherein maintaining the common field value in the set of documents comprises:
detecting a change to data in a target field that is one of the field in the document and an additional field in the additional document, wherein the target field is tagged with the field description, wherein the changed data has the common field value;
retrieving, responsive to detecting the change to the data, the set of documents from a data structure accessible via the document management dashboard,
comparing, in each document from the set of documents, the common field value to a respective field value in a respective field that is tagged with the field description, and
automatically updating, based on the comparison, data in another of the field in the document and the additional field in the additional document such that the updated data has the common field value.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising, prior to detecting the change and updating the data in the other of the field in the document and the additional field in the additional document:
opening the document for display in a graphical interface, wherein detecting the change comprises detecting a change to the data in the field in the document while the document is opened for display;
opening the additional document for a separate display in the graphical interface that is independent of the display of the document; and
closing the additional document, wherein updating the data comprises modifying the data of the additional field while the additional document is closed.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein an additional field in an additional document is tagged with the field description and the additional document is associated with the user profile, the method further comprising:
identifying a first pattern of multiple interactions, via the user profile, with multiple fields in the document;
determining that a second pattern of multiple interactions, via the user profile, with multiple fields in the additional document is different from the first pattern of multiple interactions; and
providing, via the user profile, a notification that the first pattern of multiple interactions is different from the second pattern of multiple interactions, wherein the notification is provided based at least partially on (i) the second pattern of multiple interactions being different from the first pattern of multiple interactions and (ii) the field in the document and the additional field in the additional document being tagged with the field description.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein each of the document and the additional document are received from a network domain specific to a common provider,
wherein the notification is also provided based on:
(i) the document and the additional document being received from the network domain specific to the common provider, and
(ii) the determined difference between the first and second patterns of multiple interactions indicating a failure, with respect to one of the document or the additional document, to complete a task required by the common provider,

wherein the notification causes the one of the document or the additional document to be displayed, via the user profile, with a visual indicator of a higher priority as compared to other documents displayed via the user profile.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising causing the one of the document or the additional document to be displayed, via the user profile, with the visual indicator of a higher priority by displaying the visual indicator in a listing of documents, wherein the listing of documents includes (i) the other

Assignees

• Adobe Systems Inc

Inventors

• Sherry David Rudi
• Gould Kirk B
• Dakin Steve
• Thevenet Frederic
• Vohra Lalit
• Modi Abhishek

Classifications

• G06F40/174 Primary

  Form filling; Merging · CPC title

• G06F40/117

  Tagging; Marking up (details of markup languages G06F40/143); Designating a block; Setting of attributes (style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154) · CPC title

• G06F17/243 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/218

  Physics · mapped topic