Inventors:
Ying-Chieh Lan - Foster City CA, US
Roy Chia-Jih Liu - Fremont CA, US
Joshua Roper - San Francisco CA, US
Assignee:
Siebel Systems, Inc. - San Mateo CA
International Classification:
G06Q 40/00
Abstract:
Embodiments of the invention provide methods and data structures for the effective and efficient synchronization or inter-exchange of invoice information between business applications employing disparate DOFs. For one embodiment, a DOF is provided that allows for relationships between entities, also referred to as invoices, to be modeled as attributes of an entity and for customization of the DOF in a manner that facilitates upgrading of the DOF. For one embodiment, the invoice DOF is provided in a common software language such as XML. For one embodiment, invoice information from each of several business applications is translated to a common DOF. The invoice information, in the common DOF, is then inter-exchanged among the several business applications. Each application has only to translate the invoice information from the common DOF to the application-specific DOF of the respective business application.