Management and notification of object model changes

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9946989-B2
Application number	US-201213620210-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 14, 2012
Priority date	Sep 28, 2011
Publication date	Apr 17, 2018
Grant date	Apr 17, 2018

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for managing development of a model set comprised of one or more object models by a plurality of model developers. Each model developer may be considered an interested party. For example, when a model developer changes an area of the model, that person becomes the most interested party in other changes made to the same area. An automated mechanism is provided to track changes made to the model set and informs interested parties as changes are made or after changes are made to the model based on a weighting system. In one embodiment, the weighting system may be based on a distance from the changed portions and on the amount of time since a party last made a change to the same area.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for managing development of a model set, comprising:
responsive to receiving a change made by a first party to a changed model element from a model editor tool, querying an object history database to identify a plurality of candidate parties having one or more past interactions with a related model element affected by the change to the changed model element, the related model element being determined according to model relationships of the model set stored in the object history database;
generating a data model for determining relationships between the plurality of candidate parties and model elements, comprising assigning, by operation of one or more computer processors, for each candidate party, a numerical weight value representing a relevancy of the changed model element to the candidate party, based on an initial level of interest to the related model element when the candidate party first interacted with the related model element and based on an amount of time elapsed since the candidate party last interacted with the related model element;
generating a change notification indicating the change to the changed model element and the first party making the change, wherein the change notification further comprises a description of how the related model element is affected by the change to the changed model elements;
selectively transmitting, by operation of the one or more computer processors, the change notification to each of two or more parties of the plurality of candidate parties via a data communication network, responsive to determining that each of the two or more parties have a corresponding numerical weight value within the data model that exceeds a threshold value; and
dynamically updating information within the data model indicating a relevancy of the changed model element to a second party of the two or more parties, by modifying the numerical weight value for the second party in a manner dynamically determined based on a response of the second party to the transmitted change notification.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
storing change information associated with the changed model element in an object history log, wherein the change information comprises a source of the changed model element and datetime information of the change information.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1
wherein at least one related model element comprises a model element previously changed by a corresponding candidate party; and
wherein the numerical weight value between the corresponding candidate party and the changed model element comprises a weight value calculated based on a model relationship between the changed model element and the previously changed model element.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
decreasing the numerical weight value between the changed model element and a first candidate party, the first candidate party having modified the changed model element prior to a party that changed the changed model element.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the past interaction with the related model element comprises: a subscription request to be notified of changes to the related model element.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the change notification comprises a description of the changed model element and the numerical weight value, and wherein the change notification is selected from at least one of an e-mail message and a real-time alert message.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a feedback message from at least one of the candidate parties indicating approval of the changed model element;
responsive to receiving approval of the changed model element, submitting change information associated with the changed model element to a source control system.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
generating a feedback notification for a party that modified the changed model element responsive to determining the changed model element affects the related model element.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein calculating the numerical weight value comprises:
calculating the numerical weight value based on a number of levels comprising the model relationship between the changed model element and the related model element and based on an amount of time elapsed since the past interaction of the candidate party with the related model element.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the querying the object history database for the one or more candidate parties further comprises:
identifying one or more candidate parties having a past interaction with a related version of the corresponding related model element.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein modifying the numerical weight value for the second party in a manner dynamically determined based on a response of the second party to the transmitted change notification comprises:
increasing the numerical weight value when the second party sends a feedback message in response to the received change notification; and
decreasing the numerical weight value when the second party ignores the received change notification.

Assignees

• Bhola Saurabh
• Denner Gary
• Keohan Paula M
• Loughran Michael J
• Meade John
• IBM

Inventors

• Bhola Saurabh
• Denner Gary
• Keohan Paula M
• Loughran Michael J
• Meade John

Classifications

• H04L51/14

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06Q10/067 Primary

  Enterprise or organisation modelling · CPC title

• G06Q10/107

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title

• H04L51/214

  using selective forwarding · CPC title