US 12,340,322 B2
Smart trip preapproval prediction
Dan Benson, San Clemente, CA (US); Choon Peck, Singapore (SG); Doug Benson, Burlingame, CA (US); Dawn Fink, Boise, ID (US); Alison Guilbeaux, Atlanta, GA (US); and Valerie Layman, Seattle, WA (US)
Assigned to Coupa Software Incorporated, Foster City, CA (US)
Filed by COUPA SOFTWARE INCORPORATED, San Mateo, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 20, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/948,901.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/247,251, filed on Sep. 22, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0087215 A1, Mar. 23, 2023
Int. Cl. G06Q 10/02 (2012.01); G06Q 30/0283 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 10/02 (2013.01) [G06Q 30/0283 (2013.01)] 14 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method executed using a server computer executing an e-procurement platform instance coupled to a relational database, the method comprising:
receiving from a user computer via a network one or more requests to create one or more subforms that are associated with an expense trip preapproval form digitally stored in the relational database, each of the subforms being associated with a different type of a travel expense item;
in a particular subform among the one or more subforms, receiving input from the user computer, in a graphical user interface having a plurality of fields, specifying a plurality of input values in the plurality of fields for attributes of the particular subform, the plurality of input values collectively specifying the travel expense item;
locking the plurality of fields and displaying an interstitial visualization to block subsequent input;
programmatically transmitting, to a price modeling server, a query comprising the plurality of input values and requesting a cost value for a travel item corresponding to the plurality of input values, and receiving in response to the query a predicted cost of the travel expense item;
automatically updating the particular subform to display the predicted cost in the particular subform and to populate the predicted cost into a total cost attribute of the particular subform, the total cost attribute being separate from the display of the predicted cost;
receiving, from the user computer, an updated value of the total cost attribute and updating the total cost attribute to specify the updated value;
in an approval graphical user interface comprising an approval view that shows values of the particular subform in a particular region of the approval graphical user interface, in response to determining that the updated value of the total cost attribute is different than the predicted cost, automatically generating and displaying a notification, in the particular region, specifying that the updated value is different and specifying an amount of difference between the updated value of the total cost attribute and the predicted cost;
programmatically associating the expense trip preapproval form with a draft trip report by creating rows in tables of the relational database to represent the draft trip report with column attributes that point to another row of another table that represents the expense preapproval form;
automatically associating one or more expense lines of the draft trip report with the plurality of input values for attributes of the particular subform using column attributes of tables of the relational database.