SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INDICATING THE STATE OF AN ELECTRONIC
DOCUMENT IN AN ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT APPROVAL SYSTEM
Field of the invention The present invention relates to a system and method for indicating the state of an electronic document in an electronic document approval system.
Description of the arior art When it comes to present electronic approval software, two states exist either valid or invalid, i.e, this document is the same document that was approved - quite often this is illustrated by a checkmark or some other symbol that indicates validity -, or that document has been modified since it was last approved -quite often this is illustrated by an X or some other symbol that indicates invalidity.
However, this binary representation of the "approved" or "modified" state of a document is not adequate to a normal business process.
Summary of the invention The present invention concerns a system and method for more precisely indicating the state of a document within or without an electronic document approval system or method.
Description of a preferred embodiment of the invention The present application concerns a system and method used in the context of electronic document approvals, where two new states that need to be
2 incorporated in order to have a proper electronic approval mechanism are provided.
These two states will be hereinafter referred to as "unknown" and "modified and approved".
State 1 ) The unknown state. This state is used to represent the case when the software required to perform the validation of the documents integrity is not available or 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. 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 if the document is valid or not - it is undetermined until the verification software is run.
State 2) The modified and approved state. This state provides visual feedback to the user such that they are aware that since the previous approval, someone has altered the document, but then took responsibility for the change.
This feature is presently not encompassed by the prior art. Only an invalid state is represented. In the examples below this state will be illustrated as M&A
Example:
Prior to the introduction of State 2, this typical business scenario would yield the following results:
3 Step Partial visual of Explanation document state A person approves Approval #1 -- OK The document is still a in the document - document same state since the first has not been altered approval since the last a royal A person makes a Approval #1 - INVALIDThe document has been change to the document altered since the first person approved it, rendering the document invalid.
A second person Approval #1 - INVALIDThe document is not the same possibly a manager Approval #2 - OK one that the first person approves the document, approved, but it is in the same essentially indicating state since the second person that the change is approved it.
acceptable (similar to someone initialing a correction Example of same process now with the introduction of State 2:
Step Partial visual of Explanation document state A person approves Approval #1 -- OK The document is still a in the document - document same state since the first has not been altered approval since the last a royal A person makes a Approval #1 - INVALIDThe document has been change to the document altered since the first person approved it, rendering the document invalid.
A second person Approval #1 - M&A. The document is not the same possibly a manager Approval #2 - OK one that the first person approves the document, approved, but it is in the same essentially indicating state since the second person that the change is approved it. Also the state of acceptable (similar the first approval has to now someone initialing been altered to reflect a the fact correction) that someone (i.e. the second person) has taken res onsibilit for the chan e.
4 This state is absolutely necessary for standard business practices to move to the electronic domain. Traditionally, in the pen and paper world, when a person signs a document indicating their approval, a second person can freely alter the contents of the document which does not cross out or invalidate the first person's signature.
They merely add their signature or initials to accept responsibility for the changes.
The reason this works well in the paper world is because changes to a document after the sign off are usually easy to detect by simple visual inspection (i.e. it's easy to see that someone scratched out an amount and wrote a new amount above the original value) so detecting an altered state is easy.
In the electronic world visually detecting these changes is difficult, thus the approval display mechanism needs to be able to illustrate the case that a change was made but that someone took responsibility for the change.
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. Consider the approval process where 6 people (A-F) are part of the process.
Person Step Partial visual of DocumentExplanation A rovin State A First person Approval #1 - VALID Document is now considered to approve the authentic, in the same state document since the erson si ned it B Second personApproval #1 - Valid Document is the same simply adds Approval #2 - Valid document that Person their A and B
a royal a roved.
A person makesApproval #1 - INVALID Document has been a altered correction Approval #2 - INVALID since person A and or B approved chan a it.
C Takes Approval #1 - M8cA Mr. C has taken responsibility by Person C
responsibilityApproval #2 - M&A by for the changes for Person C
the change A royal #3 - VALID
Another personApproval #1 - INVALID Document is not in the same changes or Approval #2 - INVALID state as when the last person corrects the Approval #3 - INVALID approved.
document yet a ain D Takes Approval #1 - M&A by Person C
responsibilityApproval #2 - M&A by for Person C
the change Approval #3 - M&A by Person D
A royal #4 - VALID
E Agrees with Approval #1 - M&A by the Person C
document contentApproval #2 - M&A by Person C
and approved Approval #3 - M8cA
it. by Person D
Approval #4 - VALID
A royal #5 - VALID
F Agrees with Approval #1 - M&A by the Person C
document contentApproval #2 - M&A by Person C
and approved Approval #3 - M&A by it. Person D
Approval #4 - VALID
Approval #5 - VALID
A royal #6 - VALID
Consequently, the present invention concerns a system and method by which the electronic document itself contains information about the state of the
5 document within an electronic document approval system. More specifically, a verification is performed to determine if the document has yet to be approved, and if so, if the document is validly approved, if modifications have been made and if these modifications have been approved.
Although the present invention has been explained hereinabove by way of a preferred embodiment thereof, it should be pointed out that any modifications to
6 this preferred embodiment within the scope of the appended claims is not deemed to alter or change the nature and scope of the present invention.