Method of filing stapled documents with a staple relationship involving one or more application programs

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CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related in subject matter to the following applications filed concurrently herewith and assigned to a common assignee:

Application Ser. No. 07/277,385 filed by M. G. MacPhail entitled "Method of Filing Stapled Documents Within A Context of A Folder".

Application Ser. No. 07/277,387 filed by M. G. MacPhail entitled "Method of Filing Stapled Documents".

Application Ser. No. 07/277,390 filed by M. G. MacPhail entitled "Method of Distributing Stapled Documents".

The foregoing copending applications are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to methods of managing documents in an information processing system and more particularly, to methods of filing stapled documents in the information processing system within the context of an application program.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In recent times, automation of offices is rapidly becoming a reality for an increasing number of organizations. Office automation helps the organizations integrate data files with text, store and retrieve correspondence and reports electronically, distribute documents electronically and support the day-to-day activities of administrative personnel, professionals and managers.

While some of the benefits of electronic document processing can be realized from a single, stand-alone office system, a network which connects office systems in various locations in the organization increases the productivity of the organization. Physically, a network is a combination of interconnected pieces of equipment and programs used for moving information between points where it may be generated, processed, stored and used. From the viewpoint of an user of the network, the network is a collection of services which are useful in creating, revising, distributing, filing and retrieving documents.

In today's electronic office, documents are physically grouped or stored using one of the following techniques: partition data sets, directories and folders. Partition data sets are storage areas on a disk or other form of storage medium. Documents stored in a partition data set only exist in that storage area and a partition data set can not be deleted until all of the documents included therein have been removed. Generally, the documents are filed in the partition data set in the order created and there is no other relationship regarding the order to the documents.

Directories are similar to partition data sets in that they are physical storage areas for documents for files. Documents can not exist in more that one physical storage area. The documents contained in a directory are not logically organized.

In regards to both the partition data sets and the directories, if a user filed a group of documents which are related to a general topic and wanted to review the group of documents, the user would have to first locate the partition data set or sets or the directory or directories containing the documents. In partition data sets and directories, documents have to be deleted from the bottom up. Additionally, it is very difficult to rearrange documents stored or grouped using these two techniques. The documents must be copied and then deleted. Moreover, partition data sets, except for the contents thereof, can not be distributed. Directories can not be distributed in their entirety. Linear and hierarchical groupings can not be distributed using directories or partition data sets because the groupings mechanism utilized therewith will be lost. This type of operation technique reduces the efficiency of the electronic office.

Folders are documents which form hierarchical and linear relationship between a group of documents. Folders can be nested to form the hierarchical relationship whereby the group of documents within a folder are ordered to form the linear relationship. The documents within a folder are organized sequentially by a specified descriptor or by a specified position number. Access to a folder is independent from the documents contained therein. Documents within a folder can be manipulated as a single document, as a set of documents which comprise the entire folder or as a set of documents which comprise a specified level of the folder document.

A folder can be used to form a directed or one-to-one relationship between two documents. This requires the folder to be a first document and a document contained therein to be a second document. The relationship suffers in that not all documents are folders and if any other documents are entered into the folder, the one-to-one relationship between the first and the second document becomes unclear.

The use of partitioned data sets and directories in establishing directed relationships between two documents suffers from limitations which are similar to those as a result of using a folder. There is no way to identify which document is coupled to another, when more than two documents are included in a partitioned data set or directory, the one-to-one relationship is lost and the forms of grouping documents requires the creation of a new folder, directory or partition to establish the relationship.

Consequently, what is needed is a technique for establishing a directed relationship between documents without creating additional documents or groups.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to methods of establishing a directed relationship between at least two documents stored in an information processing system within the context of an application program. An end user indicates to the system that a staple relationship is to be created between at least two identified documents stored in therein. The staple relationship is then defined by entering an indication that the staple relationship is restricted to the application program, a name of the application, stapler/staplee attributes of the at least two documents including whether or not history is to be maintained and pointers to the physical locations of the at least two documents in the system. In response to the entry of the data defining the staple relationship, an add or file request is transmitted to a library server along with copies of any documents which are not filed in a library. The server then sets data objects associated with the identified documents to reflect the staple relationship. Thereafter, the server files the identified documents into the library as specified by the staple relationship defined by the end user.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a document management system in accordance with the principles of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a model of a document showing the various objects associated with a document stored in the system of FIG. 1.

FIGS. 3 through 6 are object structures which are employed in establishing a staple relationship within a context of an application.

FIGS. 7 through 9 are various flow charts illustrating detailed steps of the method of the present invention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a document management system 10 which controls the creation, retrieval, editing and distribution of documents within an information processing system. Moreover, the document management system 10 enables an end user (EU) to file a pair of documents in the system 10 which are coupled together in a stapled relationship within the context of an application. In essence, a stapled pair of documents to be filed consists of documents copied from the EU's local storage, the server's storage or a combination of both. Thus, the EU creates the staple relationship by interacting with a dialogue manager application 14 providing the data which is necessary to establish the staple relationship between the pair of documents. The necessary data includes addressing information for access control, contextual-search characteristics, requester/principle identifiers and a definition of the stapled pair of documents. The definition of the stapled pair includes an indication that a document is stapled by another document and pointers to the physical location of all of the documents to be filed. These documents can be directly accessible to the requester application 16 or they can be directly accessible to the requester's server 18. After the dialogue manager application 14 has gathered the above-identified information, it transmits the information to the requester application program 16.

The requester application application program 16, in response to input from the dialogue manager application 14, builds an add or a file request and transmits the request to the requester's server 18. The file request is built when at least one of the documents specified in the request to be a part of the staple relationship is not stored in a library 12. The add request is built when all of the documents specified in the request are stored in the library 12. The requester application program 16 makes a copy of each of the locally accessible documents identified by the EU which are stored in a local storage medium 20. The copies of the documents are transmitted to the requester's server 18 along with the request. Additionally, the requester application program 16 transmits pointers to the physical location of all of the documents identified in the request which are stored in the library 12 and not otherwise identified by the folder document containing the documents.

The requester's server 18 files the stapled documents into the library 12 as specified in the file request. The appropriate staple relationship will be established and maintained as specified in the file or add request.

The document management system 10 shown in FIG. 1 utilizes a uniform structure for exchanging information within the system. This structure includes an encoding scheme which is designed to convey any document, irrespective of it content, from one type of office system to another and to communicate the intent of the person creating or transmitting a document as to the method of processing thereof. One type of structure which meets all of these requirements is the Document Interchange Architecture (DIA) which is a part of a DISOSS office system marketed by the International Business Machines Corporation.

DIA is a program-to-program communication architecture which defines the protocols and data structures that enable programs to interchange information such as documents and messages in a consistent and predictable manner. DIA is independent of the type of information managed by DIA services. DIA includes document objects which contain parameters or descriptors that describe the contents of the information being transmitted. The descriptors contained in the objects include the name under which the information is filed, the authors, the subject of the information and the date the information was filed in the document history. These descriptors enable a document to be searched in a storage medium such as the server library 12.

The server library 12 performs various services for the system 10. These services are used for storing and retrieving documents electronically. Whenever a document is filed in the server library 12, a set of descriptors called a document profile is filed with it. The profile contains the descriptors noted above. Document profiles are used in searching for documents in the library 12. For purposes of illustration and not limitation, a EU can ask the system 10 to search for all documents regarding a particular subject and by a certain author which was filed in the library 12 between any two dates. Upon completing the search, the system presents the EU with a list of the documents which meet the search criteria. The EU could then ask the system 10 to retrieve a copy of a specific document on the list from the library an deliver the copy the EU for printing or viewing.

The server library 12 also provides the following services: file documents in and retrieve or delete documents from the library; update work in progress documents in the library; specify a security level to associate with the document that is being filed; allow authorized end users other than the EU who filed the document to retrieve the document from the library and perform searches for and retrieve documents in the library for other end users. The server library 12 assigns each new document filed in therein a unique name called a library-assigned document name (LADN). This name is returned to the requester and can be used to uniquely identify the document at some later time.

Referring to FIG. 2, each document stored in the server library 12 includes the objects shown therein. All of the objects shown in FIG. 2 are created in response to the processing a FILE command. A document model object contains information concerning ownership and attributes of a specific document. This object controls the access to the document during its life in the library.

An original owner object contains or points to information used by an owner of the document to control access to the document as filed.

A document content object provides for the storage of the document content and for saving information relating to the actual size of the filed document.

A document relation object describes the logical relationships between the document and other documents. If the document is a folder, each of the documents contained therein has a pointer or LADN entry in this object. If this document is in one or more folders, then each folder has a pointer or LADN entry in this object. Enter and remove history may be maintained for the document either as a folder or as a document in other folders.

An access control model object is created when the document owner authorizes other users to access the document.

Structures for all of the above-identified objects except document relations object (DRO) are a part of the DISOSS office system and will not be described herein. Every document stored in system 10 has a document relations object associated therewith. FIG. 3 shows the structure of the DRO which consists of the following: an attribute parameter set, a folder document parameter set, a document-within-a-folder (DIF) parameter set, a staplee parameter set and a stapler parameter set.

The attribute parameter set indicates whether or not the document associated with the DRO is a folder or whether or not the document is a `folder-only` document. Additionally, the attribute parameter set indicates whether or not in a stapled relationship the associated document is designated as a "staplee" or as a "stapler" with respect to another document. A staplee document is a document which is stapled by another document. A stapler document is a document which is stapled to another document. FIG. 4 illustrates the structure for the attribute parameter set. A folder attribute indicates whether or not the document associated with the document relation object is a folder. If the document is a folder, then a folder section parameter set is required. A DIF (document in folder) attribute indicates whether or not the document is contained within any folders. A folder-only attribute indicates whether or not the document can be viewed as existing on its own when it is included within a folder. Documents are viewed as folder-only when both the DIF and Folder-only attributes are positively set.

A physical document in a physical folder is a folder-only document. In essence, the physical document exists in the folder and can not stand on its own. However, electronic documents can logically exist in multiple places at the same time. Therefore, a document can appear to be in more than one folder and standing on its own all at the same time. Whether or not the document can stand on its own when it is also in a folder is indicated by the folder-only attribute. Folder-only documents are viewed as stand-alone when they are not contained by any folders.

The staplee attribute indicates whether or not the document associated with the DRO is a stapled by another document. The stapler attribute indicates whether or not the document associated with the DRO is stapled to another document.

FIG. 5 illustrates the structure for the staplee section parameters. The staplee parameters associated with the DRO is defined as a repository for information specific to a document stapled by another document. The staplee parameters are created when the document associated with the DRO is stapled by another document. The staplee parameters are preserved with the document until the document is deleted from a document library or the document is unstapled by its last document. The attributes parameter allows for the specification of a history option when the document is stapled and unstapled by another document. The history option determines the maintenance of a related document parameter set associated with the document. The related document parameter set is either deleted when the document is unstapled by another document and maintained when the document is stapled by another document. Alternatively, the related document parameter set is maintained when the document is unstapled by another document. The request date, time and requester's identification are added to the related document parameter set. When the document is restapled by the same document, the new staple date, time and the requester's identification are added to the related document parameter set.

The related document parameter set includes the following: a related document parameter introducer, the LADN of the document by which the document is stapled, a user-assigned document name of the other document, the context in which this document was stapled by the other document, the date and time this document was stapled by the other document, the identification of the staple requester, and the date and time the document was unstapled and the identification of the unstaple requester if the history option is specified.

FIG. 6 illustrates the structure for the staplee related document subparameters. The stapler LADN is a unique name assigned to the other document by the server library when the other document was filed in the library. The document name parameter identifies the other document by its user-assigned name. The context parameter set specifies the context in which this document is stapled by the other document: the context can be all folders, a set of folders, an application, or a set of applications. The other document can appear in more than one folder. The context parameter can be used to specify in which folders this documen