Modeling Data for Enterprise Systems with Memories

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are widely used but notoriously difficult to learn and master. The authors propose that a database approach to representing the system's tasks, interface components, and usage logs in conjunction with the ERP domain data can serve as a foundation for improving system usability. The framework the authors designed supports automatic logging of user-system interactions and automated analysis of the logged data for enabling a variety of interface enhancements and assessments that can be performed dynamically by the system. Compared to existing work on usage logging, the authors' framework expands the logging capabilities of ERP systems while providing a unifying basis for many different kinds of applications of log data.