Navigation of data set preparation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10628397-B2
Application number	US-201615283193-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2016
Priority date	Sep 30, 2016
Publication date	Apr 21, 2020
Grant date	Apr 21, 2020

Abstract

A user interface having components that each provide a view on underlying data, and controls for preparing the data. This allows the user to have a wide variety of views on the data set, and corresponding controls appropriate for that view. The level of control over data preparation is even further enhanced by a selection control and navigation control. The selection control allows a portion of the view to be selected, which would in turn affect the view(s) displayed in one or more other user interface components. The navigation control causes the user interface components to display views on the data set as that data set existed at various prior stages in data preparation. The selection control remains active even when viewing prior stages of the data set.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A computing system comprising:
one or more processor(s); and
one or more computer-readable hardware storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more processor(s) to cause the computing system to display a user interface comprising:
a plurality of user interface components, each user interface component displaying a different view of a data set, each of at least some of the plurality of views having one or more control(s) that, when selected, implement one or more change(s) to the data set;
a selection control for selecting a portion of a first view displayed on at least a particular one of the user interface components, wherein when the portion is selected, at least one of the other views in the one or more other user interface components changes to reflect the selection, and wherein changing the at least one other view to reflect the selected portion is performed by:
determining a first data type that is consumable by the at least one other view, and
upon determining that a second data type of the selected portion corresponds to the first data type, changing the at least one other view to reflect the selected portion, or, alternatively, upon determining that the second data type does not correspond to the first data type, changing the at least one other view to reflect an identified difference between the first and second data types;

a navigation control for causing the user interface components to display a second view on the data set as the data set existed at a prior stage, wherein the selection control remains continuously operative so as to be able to change the selected portion of the first view thereby changing at least one of the views in at least one of the one or more other user interface components, wherein:
the navigation control includes a navigation pane which is displayed simultaneously with the plurality of user interface components and which illustrates a plurality of listed items that simultaneously show multiple different alteration stages associated with the data set, each alteration stage included in the multiple different alteration stages, which are listed simultaneously with one another as the plurality of listed items and simultaneously with the plurality of user interface components, providing descriptive information regarding a corresponding individual edit that has been or that will be performed on the data set,
alteration stages that have already been performed against the data set are displayed differently than alteration stages that have not yet been performed but that will subsequently be performed against the data set, and
the plurality of listed items, which are included in the navigation pane, are displayed simultaneously with the plurality of user interface components.

2. The computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the user interface further comprising:
an undo control for undoing preparation of the data set to return the data set itself to the prior stage navigated to with the navigation control.

3. The computing system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein the changing of the data set comprising preparing the data set.

4. The computing system in accordance with claim 3 , the preparing of the data set comprising removal of data.

5. The computing system in accordance with claim 3 , the preparing of the data set comprising changing a format of data.

6. The computing system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein one or more of the user interface components are capable of stacking multiple views so as to display on top a view most recently accessed by the particular user interface component.

7. The computing system in accordance with claim 6 , the user interface further comprising:
an exposing control for exposing on top of the one or more user interface components a detail view of the multiple stacked views that was not previously on the top of the one or more user interface components.

8. The computing system in accordance with claim 7 , wherein when the view is exposed in the one or more user interface components, at least one other view of the one or more user interface components also changes to correspond to the newly exposed view.

9. The computing system in accordance with claim 7 , the exposing control comprising a minimize control that minimizes the view that was on the top of the one or more user interface components to expose an immediately underlying view in the one or more user interface components.

10. The computing system in accordance with claim 7 , the exposing control comprises a close control that closes the view that was on top of the one or more user interface components to expose an immediately underlying view in the one or more user interface components.

11. The computing system of claim 1 , wherein the user interface is further configured to:
display an additional marker proximately to a currently-implemented alteration stage that is currently being performed against the data set.

12. A method for causing a user interface to be displayed on a display of a computing system, the method comprising:
causing a plurality of user interface components to be displayed, each user interface component displaying a different view of a data set, each of at least some of the plurality of views having one or more control(s) that, when selected, implement one or more change(s) to the data set;
providing a selection control to be displayed for selecting a portion of a first view displayed on at least a particular one of the user interface components, wherein when the portion is selected, at least one of the other views in the one or more other user interface components changes to reflect the selection, and wherein changing the at least one other view to reflect the selected portion is performed by:
determining a first data type that is consumable by the at least one other view, and
upon determining that a second data type of the selected portion corresponds to the first data type, changing the at least one other view to reflect the selected portion, or, alternatively, upon determining that the second data type does not correspond to the first data type, changing the at least one other view to reflect an identified difference between the first and second data types; and

providing a navigation control to be displayed for causing the user interface components to display a second view on the data set as the data set existed at a prior stage, wherein the selection control remains continuously operative so as to be able to change the selected portion of the first view thereby changing at least one of the views in at least one of the one or more other user interface components, and wherein:
the navigation control includes a navigation pane which is displayed simultaneously with the plurality of user interface components and which illustrates a plurality of listed items that simultaneously show multiple different alteration stages associated with the data set, each alteration stage included in the multiple different alteration stages, which are listed simultaneously with one another as the plurality of listed items and simultaneously with the plurality of user interface components, providing descriptive information regarding a corresponding individual edit that has been or that will be performed on the data set,
alteration stages that have already been performed against the data set are displayed differently than alteration stages that have not yet been performed but that will subsequently be performed against the data set, and
the plurality of listed items, which are included in the navigation pane, are displayed simultaneously with the plurality of

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Cheung Chairy
• Jones Taurean
• Garden Euan Peter

Classifications

• G06F16/215 Primary

  Improving data quality; Data cleansing, e.g. de-duplication, removing invalid entries or correcting typographical errors · CPC title

• G06F16/26

  Visual data mining; Browsing structured data · CPC title