Method and system to facilitate electronic communication between internal teams and external contacts

• US 10,069,782 B2
• Filed: 08/12/2016
• Issued: 09/04/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xenovus Inc.
• Original Assignee: Xenovus Inc.
• Inventors: Jayam, Ramkumar, Kapatkar, Anil, Gargeya, Srini, Mukherjee, Arjun, Rao, T. V. P. Kameswar, Sabbu, Vijay Kumar, Kallempudi, Rajeev Kumar, Tatavarthy, Krishna Teja, Sharma, Sandeep, Amanchi, Anoop Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Meky, Moustafa M
• Application Number:
  US15/236,179
• Publication Number:
  US 20180048607A1
• Time in Patent Office: 753 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes

Abstract

A method is disclosed for facilitating electronic communication between an external contact and an internal point person and between the internal point person and one or more internal team members. An internal collaboration network is created based on a first e-mail received from or sent to the external contact. The membership of the internal collaboration network is based on recipient information from the first e-mail and includes the internal point person but excludes the external contact. A message from the internal point person is automatically sent to the members of the internal collaboration network for display in a private collaboration view of an app on a computing device. Later-sent e-mails from the external contact that have subjects matching the subject of the first e-mail are automatically sent to the membership for display in a customer view of the app.

Claims

1. A method of facilitating electronic communication between an external contact and an internal point person and between the internal point person and one or more internal team members, the method comprising:

identifying a membership for an internal collaboration network based on recipient information from a first e-mail received from or sent to the external contact, the membership including the internal point person and excluding the external contact;

storing, in memory, information identifying the membership and information identifying a subject of the first e-mail;

receiving, from a first computing device associated with the internal point person, a first message created by the internal point person, the first message for distribution to the membership;

based on the stored information identifying the membership, automatically sending the first message to a second computing device for display in a private collaboration view of an application on the second computing device, the second computing device being associated with one of the one or more internal team members, wherein the private collaboration view displays communications within the internal collaboration network;

receiving a second e-mail from the external contact, wherein a subject of the second e-mail matches the subject of the first e-mail; and

based on a determination that the subject of the second e-mail matches the subject of the first e-mail, automatically sending, to a plurality of computing devices including the first computing device and the second computing device, information configured to cause each of the plurality of computing devices to display content from the second e-mail in a respective customer view along with content from the first e-mail.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the membership for the internal collaboration network based on the recipient information from the first e-mail received from or sent to the external contact comprises examining metadata associated with the first e-mail or examining a list of one or more recipients of the first e-mail.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the membership for the internal collaboration network based on the recipient information from the first e-mail received from or sent to the external contact comprises searching the first e-mail for a domain name identifying a specified entity.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the specified entity is a company.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, from the first computing device, the first message from the internal point person comprises receiving a chat message.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the message comprises a file.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the first message to the second computing device comprises pushing the first message to the second computing device through a push notification service.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the first computing device, information identifying the one or more internal team members;

updating, in memory, the membership based on the information identifying the one or more internal team members.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving, from the first computing device, information establishing a privilege granted to or a restriction imposed on the one or more internal team members.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing, in memory, information identifying at least one privilege associated with the internal point person.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one privilege associated with the internal point person enables the internal point person to (a) communicate electronically with the external contact, (b) modify the membership, (c) grant or revoke one or more privileges of at least one of the one or more internal team members, or (d) any combination of these.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing, in memory, information identifying at least one privilege granted to or at least one restriction imposed on at least one of the one or more internal team members.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the at least one privilege granted to or the at least one restriction imposed on the at least one of the one or more internal team members is dependent on whether the at least one of the one or more internal team members is identified by the recipient information from the first e-mail received from or sent to the external contact.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a file from the second computing device, the file for distribution to the membership; and

automatically sending, to the first computing device, information enabling the internal point person to access the file from the private collaboration view of the first computing device.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a file from the first computing device, the file for distribution to the membership; and

automatically sending, to the second computing device, information enabling the one of the one or more internal team members to access the file from the private collaboration view of the second computing device.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, from the first computing device, a request to associate a friendly domain with the internal collaboration network;

storing, in memory, information identifying the friendly domain; and

adding, to the membership, an external collaborator, wherein the external collaborator is associated with the friendly domain.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein adding, to the membership, the external collaborator comprises storing, in memory, an e-mail address of the external collaborator, wherein the e-mail address identifies the external collaborator as associated with the friendly domain.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

storing, in memory, information identifying at least one privilege granted to or at least one restriction imposed on the external collaborator.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving, from a third computing device associated with the external collaborator, a second message for distribution to the membership; and

automatically sending, to the plurality of computing devices, information configured to cause each of the plurality of computing devices to display the second message in its private collaboration view along with the first message.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing one or more machine executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to execute the method of claim 1.