Patent Issued for Transaction data transfer management (USPTO 11514532): United Services Automobile Association

2022 DEC 16 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States) has been issued patent number 11514532, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Beard, Brian Michael (San Antonio, TX, US), Biasiolli, David Thomas (San Antonio, TX, US), Dixon, Jeffrey Andrew (San Antonio, TX, US), Doyal, David Hugh (Helotes, TX, US), Hendry, Jason Paul (Selma, TX, US), Ortiz, Paul Edward (Bulverde, TX, US), Rubalcaba, Steve (San Antonio, TX, US), Williams, Josh Matthew (San Antonio, TX, US).

This patent was filed on June 12, 2019 and was published online on November 29, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Entities such as enterprises can provide applications that enable users to access products and/or services provided by the entities. For example, an entity can provide a web application and/or a mobile application through which users can access products and/or services over a network such as the internet. In some examples, an application includes a page (e.g., a web page) that displays information to the user, and that provides one or more interfaces, through which the user can interact with the application. In some instances, an entity can partner with a third-party provider to enable user access, through the application of the entity, to products, services, and/or information provided by the third-party provider. For example, an interface associated with an application of the third-party provider can be embedded within a page of the entity’s application. In this manner, the user can access the products, services, and/or information of the third-party provider directly through the application provided by the entity.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Implementations of the present disclosure are generally directed to data communications between an enterprise system and a third-party provider system. More specifically, implementations are directed to managing the transfer of batches of transaction data from the enterprise system to a third-party provider system, and receiving from the third-party provider system enrichment data associated with the transaction data, in which the transferred batches may be filtered for transfer efficiency and in which reconciliation data can be employed to confirm the integrity of the data transfer process.

“In general, innovative aspects of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods that include operations of: receiving transaction records that are each associated with a transaction; filtering the transaction records to select a subset of the transaction records; and communicating, to a batch processing interface of an external service, a batch file that includes the subset of the transaction records and, in response, receiving enrichment data generated by the external service, the enrichment data including enrichment data records that each describes a respective transaction associated with a respective one of the subset of the transaction records.

“Implementations can optionally include one or more of the following features: the external service further provides a real time processing interface and is configured to generate a respective individual enrichment data record in real time for each individual transaction record received through the real time processing interface; the filtering includes selecting the subset of the transaction records for which an individual enrichment data record has not already been generated based on a request to the real time processing interface; the filtering includes selecting the subset of the transaction records associated with transactions that involve users listed in a subscriber database; the operations further include reducing a width of the subset of the transaction records, prior to communicating the batch file to the batch processing interface of the external service, by removing at least one data field from each of the subset of the transaction records; each of the subset of the transaction records is reduced to include data fields for a merchant code and a transaction description; the operations further include receiving, in response to the communicating of the batch file, reconciliation data generated by the external service; the operations further include verifying the enrichment data based on the reconciliation data; and/or the reconciliation data includes one or more of a checksum, a record count, and a record width of the enrichment data.

“Other implementations of any of the above aspects include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer programs that are configured to perform the actions of the methods, encoded on computer storage devices. The present disclosure also provides a computer-readable storage medium coupled to one or more processors and having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein. The present disclosure further provides a system for implementing the methods provided herein. The system includes one or more processors, and a computer-readable storage medium coupled to the one or more processors having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations in accordance with implementations of the methods provided herein.

“Implementations of the present disclosure provide one or more of the following technical advantages and/or technical improvements over previously available solutions. By employing a batch interface for enrichment of transaction data for large numbers of transactions, instead of exclusively employing an interface for individual transaction enrichment, implementations provide a mechanism that uses network capacity more efficiently, in which batch processing involves less communications overhead that individual uploads of individual transaction records for enrichment. Moreover, by filtering the transaction data prior to batch data upload (as described further below), implementations reduce the amount of data that is communicated between the third-party service and the enterprise systems described herein. Accordingly, implementations use less network bandwidth, processing capacity, active memory, storage space, and/or other computing resources compared to traditional systems. Moreover, implementations provide greater scalability compared to previously available solutions, by ensuring that, as the number of users and the amount of transaction data increases, the system continues to perform within acceptable ranges of performance metrics.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method performed by at least one processor of an enterprise system, the method comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor of the enterprise system, transaction records that are each associated with a transaction; filtering, by the at least one processor of the enterprise system, the transaction records to select a subset of the transaction records, the filtering comprising: selecting, from the transaction records, a first subset of transaction records that are associated with transactions that involve users listed in a subscriber database of the enterprise system, monitoring enrichment data previously received from an external service system, identifying, based on the monitored enrichment data, among the first subset of transaction records, at least one transaction record that was previously enriched, and responsive to identifying that the at least one transaction record was previously enriched, excluding the at least one transaction record from the first subset of transaction records to obtain the subset of the transaction records; encrypting the transaction records in the subset using a key exchange between the enterprise system and the external service system; and communicating, by the at least one processor over a secure network connection, to a batch processing interface of the external service system, a batch file that includes the encrypted transaction records and, in response, receiving enrichment data generated by the external service system, the enrichment data including enrichment data records that each describes a respective transaction associated with a respective one of the subset of the transaction records.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein: the external service system further provides a real time processing interface and is configured to generate a respective individual enrichment data record in real time for each individual transaction record received through the real time processing interface; and the filtering includes selecting the subset of the transaction records for which an individual enrichment data record has not already been generated based on a request to the real time processing interface.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: reducing, by the at least one processor, a width of the subset of the transaction records, prior to communicating the batch file to the batch processing interface of the external service system, by removing at least one data field from each of the subset of the transaction records.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein each of the subset of the transaction records is reduced to include data fields for a merchant code and a transaction description.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the at least one processor, in response to the communicating of the batch file, reconciliation data generated by the external service system; and verifying, by the at least one processor, the enrichment data based on the reconciliation data.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein the reconciliation data includes one or more of a checksum, a record count, and a record width of the enrichment data.

“7. A system comprising: at least one processor of an enterprise system; and memory communicatively coupled to the at least one processor of the enterprise system, the memory storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor of the enterprise system to perform operations comprising: receiving transaction records that are each associated with a transaction; filtering the transaction records to select a subset of the transaction records, the filtering comprising: selecting, from the transaction records, a first subset of transaction records that are associated with transactions that involve users listed in a subscriber database of the enterprise system, monitoring enrichment data previously received from an external service system, identifying, based on the monitored enrichment data, among the first subset of transaction records, at least one transaction record that was previously enriched, and responsive to identifying that the at least one transaction record was previously enriched, excluding the at least one transaction record from the first subset of transaction records to obtain the subset of the transaction records; encrypting the transaction records in the subset using a key exchange between the enterprise system and the external service system; and communicating, over a secure network connection, to a batch processing interface of the external service system, a batch file that includes the subset of the encrypted transaction records and, in response, receiving enrichment data generated by the external service system, the enrichment data including enrichment data records that each describes a respective transaction associated with a respective one of the subset of the transaction records.

“8. The system of claim 7, wherein: the external service system further provides a real time processing interface and is configured to generate a respective individual enrichment data record in real time for each individual transaction record received through the real time processing interface; and the filtering includes selecting the subset of the transaction records for which an individual enrichment data record has not already been generated based on a request to the real time processing interface.

“9. The system of claim 7, the operations further comprising: reducing a width of the subset of the transaction records, prior to communicating the batch file to the batch processing interface of the external service system, by removing at least one data field from each of the subset of the transaction records.

“10. The system of claim 9, wherein each of the subset of the transaction records is reduced to include data fields for a merchant code and a transaction description.

“11. The system of claim 7, the operations further comprising: receiving, in response to the communicating of the batch file, reconciliation data generated by the external service system; and verifying the enrichment data based on the reconciliation data.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the reconciliation data includes one or more of a checksum, a record count, and a record width of the enrichment data.

“13. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing instructions which, when executed by at least one processor of an enterprise system, cause the at least one processor of the enterprise system to perform operations comprising: receiving transaction records that are each associated with a transaction; filtering the transaction records to select a subset of the transaction records, the filtering comprising: selecting, from the transaction records, a first subset of transaction records that are associated with transactions that involve users listed in a subscriber database of the enterprise system, monitoring enrichment data previously received from an external service system, identifying, based on the monitored enrichment data, among the first subset of transaction records, at least one transaction record that was previously enriched, and responsive to identifying that the at least one transaction record was previously enriched, excluding the at least one transaction record from the first subset of transaction records to obtain the subset of the transaction records; encrypting the transaction records in the subset using a key exchange between the enterprise system and the external service system; and communicating, over a secure network connection to a batch processing interface of the external service system, a batch file that includes the encrypted transaction records and, in response, receiving enrichment data generated by the external service system, the enrichment data including enrichment data records that each describes a respective transaction associated with a respective one of the subset of the transaction records.

“14. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 13, wherein: the external service system further provides a real time processing interface and is configured to generate a respective individual enrichment data record in real time for each individual transaction record received through the real time processing interface; and the filtering includes selecting the subset of the transaction records for which an individual enrichment data record has not already been generated based on a request to the real time processing interface.

“15. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 13, the operations further comprising: reducing, a width of the subset of the transaction records, prior to communicating the batch file to the batch processing interface of the external service system, by removing at least one data field from each of the subset of the transaction records.

“16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein each of the subset of the transaction records is reduced to include data fields for a merchant code and a transaction description.

“17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 13, the operations further comprising: receiving, in response to the communicating of the batch file, reconciliation data generated by the external service system; and verifying the enrichment data based on the reconciliation data.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Beard, Brian Michael. Transaction data transfer management. U.S. Patent Number 11514532, filed June 12, 2019, and published online on November 29, 2022. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11514532)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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