Patent Application Titled “Actor-Based Information System” Published Online (USPTO 20230281214): Adp Inc.

2023 SEP 27 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventors Dela-Cruz, Joseph (Pasadena, CA, US); Gupta, Neeraj (San Jose, CA, US); Kalaimalai, Madhu (Pasadena, CA, US); Kumar, Ajit Sri (San Dimas, CA, US), filed on February 16, 2023, was made available online on September 7, 2023.

The assignee for this patent application is Adp Inc. (Roseland, New Jersey, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “

“The present disclosure relates generally to an improved computer system and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for accessing information. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for accessing information using an actor-based information system.

“Information systems are used for many different purposes. Many types of information may be located in the information systems for use by an organization.

“For example, an information system may have information in the form of payroll information. This payroll information is used to process payroll to generate paychecks for employees in an organization.

“Additionally, an information system also may include personnel information used by a human resources department to maintain benefits and other records about employees. For example, a human resources department may manage health insurance, wellness plans, and other programs and organizations using benefits information in the information system. As another example, this type of information may be used to determine when to hire new employees, assign employees to projects, perform reviews for employees, and other suitable operations for the organization.

“Further, the information may come from many sources. The sources may be different departments, organizations, or other sources of the information. These sources may also be in different locations. The information from the different sources may be in information systems for the different sources.

“Making information available for use by customers may be more difficult than desired. The information in the information systems may be in different formats. These formats may include, for example, the way the information is stored or the amount of information.

“For example, payroll information may be received from different locations. These locations may send information for payroll information for states, regions, countries, or other locations.

“Accessing the payroll information may be more difficult than desired for use in performing operations for an organization. For example, the payroll information may be formatted differently between some or all of the different locations. Different amounts of information may also be present.

“For example, payroll information from a first state that has an income tax may include information about state income taxes. Payroll information from a second state that does not have state taxes does not include this information. The number of fields may be different since the first payroll information from one state includes state tax income information and the second payroll information from the other state does not include state income tax information.

“As another example, the information received from two states may be the same type of information. The formatting of the information, however, may be different. For example, a currency symbol may be placed before or after the value. Further, the value may or may not have decimal places. As another example, the names of the fields may be different.

“Also, in addition to formatting, the type of currency may be different for different locations. Payroll information from locations in the United States is in dollars, while payroll information from the United Kingdom is in pounds. Payroll information from Germany is in Euros.

“With this situation, the information from the two states may be more difficult for the consumer to use than desired. For example, the consumer may wish to aggregate the payroll information from the first state and the second state.

“The consumer often changes the format of the payroll information from the format as received into one useable by the consumer. For example, when multiple formats for payroll information are present, these formats are converted such that all of the payroll information has the same format. A consumer accessing this payroll information may find this process more difficult than desired.

“Therefore, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues. For example, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus that overcome the technical problem of information having different formats in an information system.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “An embodiment of the present disclosure provides a method for accessing information over an actor-based integration system. The actor-based integration system receives a request from an application for a piece of the information stored in a location between the application and organizations assigned to control a group of portions of the information in the location. The information has formats for the information in the location. The actor-based integration system identifies the piece of the information in the location corresponding to the request. The actor-based integration system transforms the piece of information from a first format that is used to store the information in the location into a second format usable by the requesting application. The actor-based integration system returns a response to requesting application that includes the transformed information.

“Another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a computer system comprising a hardware processor and an actor-based integration system in communication with the hardware processor. The actor-based integration system receives a request from an application for a piece of the information stored in a location between the application and organizations assigned to control a group of portions of the information in the location. The information has formats for the information in the location. The actor-based integration system identifies the piece of the information in the location corresponding to the request. The actor-based integration system transforms the piece of information from a first format that is used to store the information in the location into a second format usable by the requesting application. The actor-based integration system returns a response to requesting application that includes the transformed information.

“Yet another embodiment of the present disclosure provides a computer program product for accessing information over an actor-based integration system. The computer program product comprises a non-transitory computer readable storage media and program code stored on the computer readable storage media. The program code includes code for receiving a request from an application for a piece of the information stored in a location between the application and organizations assigned to control a group of portions of the information in the location. The information has formats for the information in the location. The program code includes code for identifying the piece of the information in the location corresponding to the request. The program code includes code for transforming the piece of information from a first format that is used to store the information in the location into a second format usable by the requesting application. The actor-based integration system returns a response to requesting application that includes the transformed information.

“The features and functions can be achieved independently in various embodiments of the present disclosure or may be combined in yet other embodiments in which further details can be seen with reference to the following description and drawings.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1.-24. (canceled)

“25. A system of model-based access and format control, comprising: one or more processors, coupled with memory, to: aggregate a plurality of portions of information comprising a first format provided by a plurality of sources; generate, based on a model that identifies i) rules used to provide a plurality of entities with control over the plurality of portions of information, and ii) formats used by the plurality of entities to process the plurality of portions of information, an assignment list that maps control of each portion of information of the plurality of portions of information to the plurality of entities; receive, via a network, a request from a first application executed by a first entity of the plurality of entities, to control a portion of information of the plurality of portions of information via a second format different from the first format; determine, responsive to the request and based on the rules and the formats of the model, that the assignment list authorizes control of the portion of information in the second format by the first entity; transform, responsive to the authorization, the portion of information from the first format to the second format; and provide, via the network and responsive to the request and the transformation, the portion of information in the second format to the first application.

“26. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format based on the model that comprises a description of one or more formats of the plurality of portions of information.

“27. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format through an asynchronous exchange of messages between actors of the model.

“28. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to notify one or more entities of the plurality of entities authorized to control the portion of information, based on an entity relationship defined by the model, that the portion of information has transformed from the first format to the second format responsive to a request from the first entity.

“29. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format through a dynamic cluster of nodes, each node comprising an actor to provide a step of a transformation.

“30. The system of claim 25, wherein the plurality of sources are configured to communicate through at least one of representational state transfer services or durable queues.

“31. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format via actors, wherein each actor is coupled with an independent memory.

“32. The system of claim 25, wherein the request from the first application indicates search criteria which tests for values in the plurality of portions of information, the values indicating a match for the search criteria.

“33. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format by actors of the model executing a transformation through a concurrent execution of steps of the transformation by each actor.

“34. The system of claim 25, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to transform the portion of information from the first format to the second format by delegating, through a hierarchy of actors each performing a task, steps of a transformation to each actor.

“35. A method of model-based access and format control, comprising: aggregating, by one or more processors coupled with memory, a plurality of portions of information comprising a first format provided by a plurality of sources; generating, based on a model that identifies i) rules used to provide a plurality of entities with control over the plurality of portions of information, and ii) formats used by the plurality of entities to process the plurality of portions of information, an assignment list that maps control of each portion of information of the plurality of portions of information to the plurality of entities; receiving, via a network, a request from a first application executed by a first entity of the plurality of entities, to control a portion of information of the plurality of portions of information via a second format different from the first format; determining, responsive to the request and based on the rules and the formats of the model, that the assignment list authorizes control of the portion of information in the second format by the first entity; transforming, responsive to the authorization, the portion of information from the first format to the second format; and providing, via the network and responsive to the request and the transformation, the portion of information in the second format to the first application.

“36. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format based on the model that comprises a description of one or more formats of the plurality of portions of information.

“37. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format through an asynchronous exchange of messages between actors of the model.

“38. The method of claim 35, further comprising notifying one or more entities of the plurality of entities authorized to control the portion of information, based on an entity relationship defined by the model, that the portion of information has transformed from the first format to the second format responsive to a request from the first entity.

“39. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format through a dynamic cluster of nodes, each node comprising an actor to provide a step of a transformation.

“40. The method of claim 35, wherein the plurality of sources are configured to communicate through at least one of representational state transfer services or durable queues.

“41. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format via actors, wherein each actor is coupled with an independent memory.

“42. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format by actors of the model executing a transformation through a concurrent execution of steps of the transformation by each actor.

“43. The method of claim 35, further comprising transforming the portion of information from the first format to the second format by delegating, through a hierarchy of actors each performing a task, steps of a transformation to each actor.

“44. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing processor-executable instructions for model-based access and format control that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: aggregate a plurality of portions of information comprising a first format provided by a plurality of sources; generate, based on a model that identifies i) rules used to provide a plurality of entities with control over the plurality of portions of information, and ii) formats used by the plurality of entities to process the plurality of portions of information, an assignment list that maps control of each portion of information of the plurality of portions of information to the plurality of entities; receive, via a network, a request from a first application executed by a first entity of the plurality of entities, to control a portion of information of the plurality of portions of information via a second format different from the first format; determine, responsive to the request and based on the rules and the formats of the model, that the assignment list authorizes control of the portion of information in the second format by the first entity; transform, responsive to the authorization, the portion of information from the first format to the second format; and provide, via the network and responsive to the request and the transformation, the portion of information in the second format to the first application.”

For more information, see this patent application: Dela-Cruz, Joseph; Gupta, Neeraj; Kalaimalai, Madhu; Kumar, Ajit Sri. Actor-Based Information System. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230281214, filed February 16, 2023 and posted September 7, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230281214)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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