Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Vertafore, Inc.

Fang Wang

Christopher Alan Hays

Jason David Carlson

Robert M Bruckner

Jie Jerry Liu

Melissa Wood Dunn

Daniel Cory

Ashwini Kumar Varma

Dimitrios Lymperopoulos

Aleksey Sinyagin

Kiran Ravi Tumkur

Saranga Goswami

Eshwar Stalin

Jay Kothari

Justin P Vinall

Rajesh Roy

Jen-Hsien Kenny Chien

Albert Chik Shi Shen

Yee Man Bergstrom

remote server machine, without an accessible operating system, is identified. A management computing system sends, to the remote server machine to be tested, a pre-installation environment image that has a pre-configured remote execution service disposed thereon. The pre-installation environment image is loaded into memory on the remote server machine to be tested and the remote execution service automatically runs and exposes an application programming interface (API). A client application on the management computing system interacts with the API to execute a debugging script on the remote server machine, and receives the result of the executed scripts through the API.

Using a pre-installation environment to debug a server without a functioning operating system

Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and software for implementing runtime experiments with user interface configurations. In at least one implementation, an online application service receives access requests associated with various client applications attempting to access the online application service. In response to the access requests, the online application service communicates with an experiment control service to identify an experimental configuration in accordance with which to present a user interface to the online application service. The experiment control service selects the experimental configuration from various experimental configurations. The user interface is then presented in accordance with the experimental configuration identified for each of the client applications.

Method and system of operating an online application service in a deployment environment to facilitate run-time experimentation with user interface configurations

Techniques for collecting information about client devices utilizing IIS logging in a secure and asynchronous manner are described. A method may comprise collecting information associated with one or more programs resident on a client device. A request is generated to access a webpage associated with one or more of the client devices where a query string, including at least a portion of the collected information, is attached to the request to access the webpage. The request to access the webpage along with the query string is sent to a server supporting the webpage for storage within an IIS log.

Use of internet information services logging to collect user information in an asynchronous manner

A method of testing a web service includes obtaining web service metadata from the web service. Test cases are generated automatically using the web service metadata, heuristic algorithm modules selected based on the contents of the web service metadata, and stochastic processes. Energy selection logic is used to update test parameters included in the test cases between rounds of testing until a set of test cases is generated that produces test results meeting one or more predetermined criteria. Testing is performed periodically using that set of test cases until the test results indicate that the web service has changed. New test cases are automatically generated and used to test the web service until test results meet the one or more predetermined criteria.

Integration testing method and system for web services

A reporting system is described herein that allows a report author to declare data reporting structures that specify to a reporting application how to dynamically categorize data with changing or potentially unknown characteristics. The reporting system may extend RDL and the data grouping provided by Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services by adding new elements to the XML-based RDL schema. The reporting system allows the report author to specify for the system to fill gaps in the data, so that the report has a similar layout even as data changes from period to period. The reporting system also allows the report author to specify whether data that does not fit any predefined group bucket is displayed in a report. Thus, the reporting system allows unsophisticated database users to define reports that group data consistently regardless of missing values or other changes in the underlying data.

Reporting including filling data gaps and handling uncategorized data

A location-related entity ranking technique is described that allows a user see the ranking of location-related entities near a desired location in response to a query. The technique can leverage the searches performed by a community of mobile device users at a given location and at a given time to infer the location-related entities that are popular at this specific location and time window. The technique can also filter out or re-rank these location-related entities based on the personal preferences of the person that submits the query and group preferences of a group to which the user belongs. The personal preferences can also be context specific (i.e. different restaurant preferences for lunch and dinner times).

Real-time personalized recommendation of location-related entities

A rendering system is provided. The rendering system includes a rendering component that receives a request to view a data set and provide output to drive a display application. A processing engine generates output data for the rendering component, where the output data is suitable to satisfy a present demand to render a subset of the data set.

Request-driven on-demand processing

A data access system which includes the capability to categorize subsets of the data in the data store, query result or other source of data as aggregate data or as detail data and also the ability to explicitly re-categorize the aggregate data as detail data, e.g., as part of execution of one or more processes on the data, so that operations that apply to detail data also apply to the re-categorized aggregate data. Additionally, automatic processes are provided for re-categorizing aggregate data as detail data based on data usage context, i.e., based upon how data in the data store is to be manipulated, processed and/or presented according to queries, commands, etc. received by the data store. Calculation of aggregations on top of already pre-aggregated data is enabled, and merging of designated aggregate data with detail data provides increased flexibility in a final dataset.

Re-categorization of aggregate data as detail data and automated re-categorization based on data usage context

An object data manipulation system is provided. The system includes a definition object model that includes a set of dynamic group definitions over a data hierarchy. A cursor component points to a subset of the data hierarchy, where the subset is loaded into memory for further processing.

Hierarchical cursor-based object model

Systems and methods for declaratively controlling the visual state of items in a report allow the visual state of any report item to be toggled from any other item. A set of declarative metadata may be associated with a report item. The declarative metadata may identify an initial visual state of the item, whether the item is a control item, and if so which other items are controlled from the item. The declarative metadata may further identify an initial visual state of a control image associated with a control item. Report processing software can initially display a report in accordance with the initial visual state specified in the declarative metadata. When a control item is activated, the software can change the visual state of identified items, as well as the visual state of the corresponding control image.

Systems and methods for declaratively controlling the visual state of items in a report

A system and methods providing a rendering independent persistence of information is provided. In an illustrative implementation, data is provided having some predefined structure. In operation, the data is processed such that the data and it's associated structure are represented in a data format that is persistent. In operation, the data is parsed according to one or more constraints and translated into the persistent data format.

System and method for rendering independent persistence of information by performing a time driven query on an aggregated schematized queryable report

A report definition is processed by a report processor to generate a report. The report definition includes a plurality of data regions arranged on a page, where the data regions as arranged on the page in the report definition extend in multiple dimensions selected from a group consisting of across the page, down page and layered on the page. The report processor has a data extension for accessing data for the report from a data source based on query information and data source information in the report definition. The report processor lays out the report in an intermediate format based on layout information in the report definition and the data accessed by the data extension. The report processor also has a rendering extension for rendering the report in a particular rendering format based on the intermediate format of the report.

Defining a report based on data regions and including custom data in a report definition

A computer-based report is generated based on report data and according to a report definition describing how to render the report on a page or screen or the like. The report definition may have standard data recognizable to a report processor, and may also have custom data not recognizable to the report processor but to, for example, a rendering extension of such processor. The report processor though not recognizing the custom data. does not delete or ignore but instead passes the custom data in an intermediate format. Thus, the rendering extension which does recognize the passed-through custom data can in fact interpret and act upon such custom data.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Fang Wang