Integrated systems for providing communications network management services and interactive generating invoice documents

A method for enabling management of communications network assets, said method comprising:

• enabling interactive communications with a customer over a data network with a protocol invoked from within a client web browser;
• managing a plurality of customer sessions over the data network with a secure web server providing session encryption;
• initiating a download of a web-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) from said secure web server, said downloaded web-based GUI for launching one or more of a plurality of client applications available to a customer;
• providing a customer interface integrated within said web-based GUI upon which to launch a selected client application, said customer interface enabling interactive communication of request messages with one or more of a plurality of communications network management resources capable of providing a selected communications network management function;
• receiving, at a communications network management resource, said request messages, generating a response, and communicating said response to said secure web server for secure uploading to said client workstation for display via said integrated interface,
• downloading a logon object to be launched by said web-based GUI for accepting logon transactions from the customer and communicating with said authentication server to provide said customer authentication and for sending a command to the authentication server to download said one or more client applications, upon successful authentication of the customer;
• providing a dispatch server for communicating with said secure web server and each of said plurality of said network management resources, said dispatch server verifying system access and proxy generation for said system resources after said customer's entitlements have been verified,
• wherein said downloaded web-based GUI comprises a backplane object downloaded with, and launched by said web based GUI, said backplane object launching said client applications programs upon initiation by said customer, wherein said backplane object and the client applications interoperate with one another to provide said integrated customer interface to a plurality of communications network management products and services subscribed by the customer;
• upon succesful authentication of the customer, sending a command to the authentication server to download said web-based GUI having the backplane object;
• providing a customer object for representing a current customer, the customer object communicating with said authentication server to determine the customer's entitlements to the web enabled communications network management services,
• wherein the backplane uses the entitlements to display via said integrated interface only those web enabled services to which the customer has privilege;
• executing one or more of said plurality of client applications directly by the backplane object when the customer selects one or more of said plurality of client applications associated with a desired communications network management service, the selected client application running in a frame independent from a web browser's window;
• maintaining session information received from at least one of said one or more network management resources in static memory for the duration of a session, and enabling the client applications to access the static memory,
• wherein at lest one of said one or more network management resources comprises a report manager server for providing a customer data report management function and a database for maintaining an inventory of reports associated with a customer;
• providing a report requestor client application enabling creation and scheduling of customer specific reports pertaining to usage of their switched communications networks and initiating generation of report request messages for said one or more network management resources via said integrated interface;
• providing a report viewer application enabling display of reports in accordance with customer-entitled reporting options;
• accessing report items from said database of inventory reports according to a received report request message;
• generating a response message including a metadata description of reporting items to be included in said report,
• wherein customer-specific data from a network management resource and said metadata description of customer-selected reporting items are utilized to generate a completed report for presentation to said customer via said integrated interface;
• providing a report scheduler system for initiating periodic generation of reports from network management resources at a customer-specified frequency,
• wherein at least one of said one or more network management resources includes a database for storing and maintaining customer specific report data to be reported to said customer, and, a centralized inbox server for receiving a report availability response from said report management server including a metadata description for displaying said report;
• and
• uploading said stored customer specific report data and the metadata description associated with the report data from said inbox server to said client workstation via said secure web server for generation and presentation of a customer report via said integrated interface.