Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management

Definitions

• the present invention therefore provides an electronic document having a status identifier for identifying its approval status.
• the status identifier has the following possible states:
• the electronic document may be provided with a plurality of such status identifiers, each associated with either a different approving user or a different section of the document.
• a status identifier for identifying an approval status of at least one section of this electronic document.
• the status identifier has a first state indicating that the at least one section of the electronic document is as approved by an approving user, a second state indicating that modifications have been made to the at least one section of the electronic document as approved by the approving user, and a third state indicating that modifications have been made to the at least one section of the electronic document as approved by the approving user but that a modifying user has taken responsibility for these modifications.
• the present invention further provides, also in combination with a document approval system for the approval of an electronic document by at least one user, a status identifier for identifying an approval status of the electronic document.
• This status identifier has:
• the present invention also provides improvements to a document approval system for the approval of an electronic document by at least one user, the system comprising a status identifier for identifying an approval status of at least one section of the electronic document.
• the status identifier has a first state indicating that the at least one section of the electronic document is as approved by an approving user and a second state indicating that modifications have been made to the at least one section of the electronic document as approved by the approving user.
• the status identifier has a third state indicating that modifications have been made to the at least one section of the electronic document as approved by the approving user, but that a modifying user has taken responsibility for said modifications.
• the document approval system includes a plurality of status identifiers, each associated with a different approving user, each of these status identifiers is provided with such a third state.
• the status identifier has a third state indicating that it is unknown if the at least one section of the electronic document is as approved by the approving user.
• FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an electronic document provided with status identifiers according to a preferred embodiment of the invention.
• FIG. 2 (prior art) is a diagram showing the evolution of the status of a document modified after approval by a user in a prior art system.
• FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the evolution of the status of a document modified after approval by a user in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention.
• the present invention provides two new states for an electronic document in the context of systems and methods for the approval of an electronic document.
• FIG. 1 shows an electronic document 10 to which is attached a plurality of status identifiers 12.
• Each status identifier is preferably related to approval of the document by a given user.
• the description below will refer to the approval of an electronic document, but it is understood that the present invention also applies to the case were approval of only one or a limited number of sections of a given electronic document is concerned.
• the status identifiers each preferably have four possible states:
• M&A MODIFIED AND APPROVED
• This state is advantageous in that it provides visual feedback, making users aware that since a previous approval, someone has altered the document, but then took responsibility for the change. This feature is presently not encompassed by prior art, where in this situation only an invalid state is represented.
• FIG. 2 shows the states of approval status identifiers for a given document that is modified after a first user has approved it, without the features of the present invention.
• the electronic document 10 is approved by user 1 , setting the status identifier associated with this user SI1 to the state "valid". It will remain so as long as the electronic document stays the same as it was at the moment of approval by user 1. Let's for example take the case where a user 2 modifies the electronic document after approval by user 1 , therefore generating a modified electronic document 13. SI1 is therefore set to the "invalid" state since the document is not the same as approved by user 1.
• a second status identifier linked to user 2 is set to valid.
• the first status identifier SI1 is still invalid, and there is no way of knowing if user 1 has ever approved the document in the first place.
• the electronic document 12 is first approved by user 1 , setting
• SI1 to the valid state, and then modified by user 2 to make the modified electronic document 13. SI1 is therefore set to the invalid state.
• the second status identifier SI2 is set to the valid state as before.
• SI1 is also modified at this point, and is set to the new "modified and approved” state. It now reflects the fact that user 1 has indeed approved the electronic document 12, that it was subsequently modified to generate the current modified electronic document 13, and that someone (in this case user 2) has taken responsibility for the modifications made.
• This "altered but approved” state can also display more intelligent information such as "the document was altered but Mr. Z took responsibility for the changes". Obviously these stages can overlap to a fair degree.
• the following table shows an example of an approval process where 6 people (A-F) are involved;
• This state is particularly useful in cases where the software required to perform the validation of the document's integrity is not available or in the case where the software function to perform the integrity checking has not been invoked.
• This state is also referred to as a safe mode.
• This state can be represented by a question mark (?) or some other symbol that indicates an undetermined state.
• ?) a question mark
• This is the ideal state to use when closing or storing a document into an archival situation - the reason being that an end user who has access to the document but not to the software to check the validity of the document, will only be able to access the document and not be able to incorrectly assume that the document is valid or not - it is undetermined until the verification software is run.
• the present invention therefore provides an electronic document provided with a status identifier, having either one or both of the two new states described above.
• the electronic document may be combined to any appropriate document approval system. It may be advantageous to improve an existing document approval system by having it assign, to approved documents, a status identifier having those possible states. It is understood that an electronic document according to the present invention, may be provided with a plurality of status identifiers as described above, each associated with a different user, but that a single one of such status identifiers is sufficient for the scope of the present invention.

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• 2000
  • 2000-07-05 CA CA002313589A patent/CA2313589A1/en not_active Abandoned
• 2001
  • 2001-07-05 WO PCT/CA2001/000986 patent/WO2002003174A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2001-07-05 EP EP01951271A patent/EP1323009A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2001-07-05 AU AU2001272255A patent/AU2001272255A1/en not_active Abandoned

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