Facilitating access to restricted functionality

• US 10,049,226 B1
• Filed: 11/12/2013
• Issued: 08/14/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Franklin, Patrick G., Li, Zheyin, Keiger, James K., Kumar, Suresh
• Primary Examiner(s): Haq, Naeem U
• Application Number:
  US14/078,318
• Time in Patent Office: 1,736 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers

Abstract

Techniques are described for facilitating access of computing system users to restricted functionality, such as internal functionality of a business or other organization (e.g., internal systems and/or confidential information available to some or all business employees or other organization members). The restricted functionality access may in some situations be provided in conjunction with publicly available information from the organization, such as to use that publicly available information as part of a user interface that allows an authorized subset of users to access the restricted functionality. In some situations, the restricted functionality access may be facilitated by an access provider system that executes on a client computing system of an authorized user, such as a program operating in conjunction with another presentation program that presents publicly available information (e.g., as an extension program for the presentation program), and that modifies the interactions available to the user when using the presentation program.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that cause a client computing system of a user to perform automated operations that include at least:

obtaining, by the client computing system, and over one or more computer networks, information stored by a server computing system that is publicly available to customers of a business and that is related to one or more items available via the business, and storing a local copy of the obtained information on the client computing system that is separate from the information stored by the server computing system;

determining, by the client computing system, that the user is associated with the business in a predefined manner that authorizes the user to obtain access to one or more types of restricted functionality from the business that are not publicly available to the customers of the business, the one or more types of restricted functionality being related to the one or more items;

modifying, by the client computing system and in response to the determining, the stored local copy of the obtained information to cause one or more user interface elements to be added when presented that provide access to the one or more types of restricted functionality related to the one or more items, wherein the modifying is performed without persistently modifying the information stored by the server computing system;

presenting, from the modified stored local copy, the obtained information to the user on the client computing system, including providing to the user, by a program executing on the client computing system and in response to the determining, access from the presented information to the one or more types of restricted functionality related to the one or more items via the added one or more user interface elements to temporarily modify interactions that are available to the user for selection via the presented information; and

providing to the user, by the client computing system and in response to a selection by the user of at least one of the added one or more user interface elements from the presented information, the one or more types of restricted functionality.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the obtained information to the user includes displaying, by the program executing on the client computing system, the obtained information to the user on a display screen of the client computing system, and wherein the temporarily modified interactions are available while the obtained information is presented to the user on the display screen.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the determining that the user is associated with the business in the predefined manner includes determining that the user is an employee of the business, and wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality from the business includes providing the user with confidential information of the business that is not available to non-employee customers of the business.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the stored contents include instructions that, when executed, further cause at least one computing system to present the information stored by the server computing system to a second user distinct from the user, and to, in response to determining that the second user is not associated with the business in the predefined manner, prevent access of the second user to the one or more types of restricted functionality.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the stored contents include instructions that, when executed, further cause the client computing system to present to the user a group of information distinct from the obtained information, to determine that the one or more types of restricted functionality do not correspond to an identified subject area of the group of information, and to prevent, in response to the determining that the one or more types of restricted functionality do not correspond to the identified subject area, access of the user to the one or more types of restricted functionality while the group of information is presented.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the presenting of the obtained information is performed by a Web browser program executing on the client computing system, and wherein the obtained information is a Web page obtained from a Web server on the server computing system.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 6 wherein the providing of the access to the user to the one or more types of restricted functionality is performed by a toolbar extension program for the Web browser program via a displayed user interface of the toolbar extension program.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes providing to the user a menu of user-selectable options that correspond to the one or more types of restricted functionality.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the providing of the menu is performed by the client computing system in response to an initial interaction by the user with the presented information.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes providing, by the client computing system and to the user, access to one or more internal systems of the business that are not publicly accessible.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes persistently modifying, by the client computing system and in response to instructions from the user, information stored by the business related to at least one of the one or more items.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes providing, by the client computing system and to the user, confidential business information of the business related to at least one of inventory or sales of at least one of the one or more items.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the determining that the user is associated with the business in the predefined manner includes determining that the user is associated with a second business that has a defined type of business relationship with the business or includes determining that the user is a preferred customer of the business.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 wherein the stored contents include instructions that, when executed, further cause the client computing system to automatically identify that the obtained information is related to the one or more items based on content of the obtained information or on metadata associated with the obtained information, and wherein the providing to the user of the access to the one or more types of restricted functionality is further performed based on the identifying.

15. A computer-implemented method comprising:

obtaining, by a configured computing device, and over one or more computer networks from a server computing system, a Web page that is publicly available to customers of a business and that includes information about one or more items available via the business, and storing a local copy of the obtained Web page on the configured computing device that is separate from a copy of the Web page provided by the server computing system;

determining, by the configured computing device, that a user is associated with the business in a predefined manner that authorizes the user to obtain access to one or more types of restricted functionality from the business that are not publicly available to the customers of the business, the one or more types of restricted functionality being related to the one or more items and not being available to users who are not associated with the business in the predefined manner;

modifying, by the configured computing device and in response to the determining, the stored local copy of the obtained Web page to cause one or more user-selectable user interface elements to be added when presented that provide access to the one or more types of restricted functionality, wherein the modifying is performed without persistently modifying the copy of the Web page provided by the server computing system;

initiating presenting, by a program executing on the configured computing device and from the modified stored local copy, the Web page to the user, including providing, in response to the determining, access to the user from the presented Web page to the one or more types of restricted functionality by temporarily modifying interactions that are available to the user for selection via the added one or more user-selectable user interface elements; and

providing to the user, by the configured computing device and based on a selection by the user of at least one of the added one or more user-selectable user interface elements, the one or more types of restricted functionality.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the determining that the user is associated with the business in the predefined manner includes determining that the user is an employee of the business, and wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality include providing the user with confidential information of the business that is not available to customers of the business that are not employees.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the temporarily modifying interactions that are available includes, in response to an initial interaction by the user with the presented Web page, presenting to the user the one or more user-selectable interface elements.

18. The method of claim 15 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes persistently modifying, by the configured computing system and in response to instructions from the user, information stored by the business related to at least one of the one or more items.

19. The method of claim 15 wherein the providing to the user of the one or more types of restricted functionality includes providing, by the configured computing system, the user with confidential business information of the business related to inventory and sales of at least one of the one or more items.

20. A computing device comprising:

one or more processors;

storage; and

one or more memories with stored instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the computing device to perform automated operations that include at least;

obtaining, over one or more computer networks from a server computing system, a page of information that is publicly available to customers of a business and that includes information about one or more items available via the business, and store a local copy of the obtained page of information on the storage of the computing device that is separate from a copy of the page of information provided by the server computing system;

determining that a user is associated with the business in a predefined manner that authorizes the user to obtain access to one or more types of restricted functionality from the business that are not publicly available to the customers of the business;

modifying, in response to the determining, the stored local copy of the obtained page of information to cause one or more user-selectable user interface elements to be added when presented that provide access to the one or more types of restricted functionality, wherein the modifying is performed without persistently modifying the copy of the page of information provided by the server computing system; and

presenting the modified stored local copy of the obtained page of information to the user, including providing the user with the access to the one or more types of restricted functionality via the added one or more user-selectable user interface elements.

21. The computing device of claim 20 wherein the determining that the user is associated with the business in the predefined manner includes determining that the user is an employee of the business, and wherein the stored instructions further cause the computing device to, after the user interacts with at least one of the added one or more user-selectable user interface elements, provide to the user at least one of the one or more types of restricted functionality, including providing the user with confidential information of the business that is available only to employees of the business.