Identifying a common action flow

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10740119-B2
Application number	US-201715655726-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 20, 2017
Priority date	Dec 5, 2013
Publication date	Aug 11, 2020
Grant date	Aug 11, 2020

Abstract

A common action flow for an application is identified by processing session data maintained for a plurality of users to identify a plurality of action flows. Each action flow represents a series of actions taken by one of the users navigating the application's user interface during a session. A data structure is generated from the plurality of action flows. That data structure is indicative of a plurality of candidate sub-flows. The data structure is analyzed to identify a selected one of the candidate sub-flows repeated in multiple ones of the plurality of action flows. That identified sub-flow is the common action flow. Data representative of the identified common action flow can then be communicated.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer readable medium on which is stored instructions that cause the processor to:
identify, for an application, a plurality of action flows that each represents a series of user actions in navigating a user interface of the application, wherein each of the plurality of action flows includes a respective sub-flow of actions;
determine a sub-flow of actions in the plurality of action flows that meets a repetition count rule, the determined sub-flow of actions representing a common action flow;
represent each of the sub-flows of actions by a respective character string with each character in the respective character string representing a user action in navigating the user interface, wherein the repetition count rule corresponds to a minimum number of times a character string of a sub-flow of actions is repeated among the sub-flows of actions and wherein the determined sub-flow of actions comprises a sub-flow of actions that includes a character string that meets the repetition count rule; and
cause data representative of the common action flow to be outputted.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
determine a set of candidate action flows from the plurality of action flows that have sub-flows of actions that are longer than a specified length; and
determine the sub-flow of actions that meets the repetition count rule from the determined set of candidate action flows.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
use a respective set of the character strings to represent each of the plurality of action flows; and
use sets character of strings to generate a suffix tree data structure, each suffix in the suffix tree data structure representing a different sub-flow of actions in the plurality of action flows.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
determine the sub-flow of actions that meets the repetition count rule from the sets of character strings in the suffix tree data structure.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
identify an extension of the suffix representing the sub-flow of actions that meets the repetition count rule; and
determine the suffix representing the sub-flow of actions and the identified extension as the common action flow.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein each character in the respective character string represents a user action in navigating the user interface.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
filter the plurality of action flows to include actions in a set of statistically related actions;
identify a set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions from the filtered plurality of action flows; and
filter the identified set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions such that the sub-flow of actions representing the common action flow remains.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
generate a script for testing the application from the common action flow.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
track user actions in navigating the user interface to determine the plurality of action flows.

10. A method comprising:
identifying, by a processor, user interactions with a user interface of an application;
identifying, by the processor, a plurality of action flows that each represents a series of user actions in navigating the user interface of the application, each of the plurality of action flows including a respective sub-flow of actions;
determining, by the processor, a sub-flow of actions that meets a specified rule, the determined sub-flow of actions representing a common action flow of the plurality of action flows;
representing each of the sub-flows of actions by a respective character string with each character in the respective character string representing a user action in navigating the user interface, wherein the specified rule comprises a length rule corresponding to a minimum length of the character string and wherein determining the sub-flow of actions further comprises determining a sub-flow of actions that includes a character string that meets the length rule; and
outputting, by the processor, data representative of the common action flow of the plurality of action flows.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
generating a test script for testing the application from the common action flow.

12. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
using a set of the character strings to represent each of the plurality of action flows; and
using sets of character strings to generate a suffix tree data structure, each suffix in the suffix tree data structure representing a different sub-flow of actions in the plurality of action flows.

13. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
filtering the plurality of action flows to include actions in a set of statistically related actions;
identifying a set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions from the filtered plurality of action flows; and
filtering the identified set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions such that the sub-flow of actions representing the common action flow remains.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein each character in the character string represents a user action in navigating the user interface.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
tracking user actions in navigating the user interface to determine the plurality of action flows.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium on which is stored machine readable instructions that when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
identify a plurality of action flows that each represents a series of user actions in navigating a user interface of an application, each of the plurality of action flows including a respective sub-flow of actions;
filter the identified plurality of action flows to include actions in a set of statistically related actions;
identify a set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions from the filtered plurality of action flows;
filter the identified set of candidate sub-flows of non-consecutive actions according to a specified rule such that the sub-flow of actions representing a common action flow remains; and
generate a test script for testing the application from the common action flow.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
represent each of the sub-flows of actions by a respective character string with each character in the respective character string representing a user action in navigating the user interface.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17 , wherein the specified rule comprises a repetition count rule corresponding to a minimum number of times a character string of a sub-flow of actions is repeated among the sub-flows of actions, and wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:
determine the sub-flow of actions that includes a character string that meets the repetition count rule as representing the common action flow.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17 , wherein the specified rule comprises a length rule corresponding to a minimum length of the character string and wherein the instructi

Assignees

• Entit Software Llc
• Micro Focus Llc

Inventors

• Nor Igor
• Kenigsberg Eyal
• Galkin Ola

Classifications

• G06F2201/88

  Monitoring involving counting · CPC title

• G06F11/3003

  Monitoring arrangements specially adapted to the computing system or computing system component being monitored · CPC title

• G06F11/30

  Monitoring · CPC title

• G06F11/3438

  monitoring of user actions (tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535) · CPC title

• G06F2201/81

  Threshold · CPC title