Task completion through inter-application communication

• US 10,528,385 B2
• Filed: 12/13/2012
• Issued: 01/07/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Kumar, Amit, Sadhukha, Shajib, Jiang, Zhaowei
• Primary Examiner(s): Cao, Diem K
• Application Number:
  US13/713,375
• Publication Number:
  US 20140173625A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,581 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system

Abstract

Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems for facilitating task completion through inter-application communication and/or for registering a target application for contextually aware task execution are provided. That is, a current application may display content comprising an entity (e.g., a mapping application may display a restaurant entity). One or more actions capable of being performed on the entity may be exposed (e.g., a reserve table action). Responsive to selection of an action, one or more target applications capable of performing the action on the entity may be presented. Responsive to selection of a target application, contextual information for the entity and/or the action may be passed to the target application so that the target application may be launched in a contextually relevant state to facilitate completion of a task. For example, a dinning application may be launched to a table reservation form for the restaurant entity.

Claims

1. A system for facilitating task completion through inter-application communication, comprising:

one or more processing units; and

memory comprising instructions that when executed by at least one of the one or more processing units implement a task execution component configured to;

identify an entity comprised within content of a first application, wherein the entity is identified based on a business name and a business location, and wherein the entity is a first business entity or a second business entity;

expose an action capable of being performed on the entity, wherein the exposed action is different based on whether the entity is the first business entity or the second business entity;

receive a selection of the action;

identify a target application capable of performing the action on the entity;

cause presentation of the identified target application;

receive a selection of the identified target application;

in response to receiving the selection of the identified target application, pass entity context information and action context information from the first application to the selected target application;

cause display of the selected target application; and

maintain a metrics log comprising analysis data including a number of times the identified target application is selected.

2. The system of claim 1, the task execution component comprising an operating system user interface, wherein the operating system user interface further comprises a share charm.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the executed instructions causing the task execution component to be configured to determine a user intent to accomplish a task based upon the entity context information associated with the entity and the action context information associated with the action.

4. The system of claim 1, the action embedded within the first application.

5. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

dynamically identify the action based upon the entity; and

cause display of the action.

6. The system of claim 1, at least one of the first application or the selected target application comprising at least one of a web browser, a marketplace application available for download, a cloud application, or a locally installed application.

7. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

determine that the selected target application is capable of performing the action on the entity based upon a data contract between the task execution component and the selected target application specifying that the selected target application supports the action and the entity.

8. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

cause the selected target application to launch within an overlay interface displayed side-by-side with the first application.

9. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

utilize an operating system communication model to pass the entity context information and the action context information to the selected target application.

10. The system of claim 1, the instructions when executed implement an analysis component configured to:

generate an entry within an entity action log, the entry specifying that the action was performed on the entity by the selected target application; and

expose the entity action log to a third party application.

11. The system of claim 1, the instructions when executed implement a contract component configured to:

generate a data contract specifying that a third party application supports performance of the action on the entity.

12. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

receive a back command associated with the selected target application; and

cause transition of the display of the selected target application to at least one of the first application or a task interface comprising the identified target application.

13. The system of claim 1, the task execution component configured to:

cause display of the identified target application based upon the identified target application having two data contracts, the two data contracts comprising a first data contract specifying support for the action and a second data contract specifying support for the entity.

14. The system of claim 1, the instructions when executed implement a definition component configured to:

generate an entity definition for the entity used to generate the entity context information, the entity definition comprising one or more entity parameters defining the entity, an entity parameter specifying that the action is capable of being performed on the entity; and

generate an action definition for the action used to generate the action context information, the action definition comprising one or more action parameters defining the action, an action parameter specifying information used to perform the action.

15. A method for facilitating task completion through inter-application communication, comprising:

identifying an entity comprised within content of a first application, wherein the entity is identified based on a business name and a business location, and wherein the entity is a first business entity or a second business entity;

exposing an action capable of being performed on the entity, wherein the exposed action is different based on whether the entity is the first business entity or the second business entity;

receiving a selection of the action;

identifying a target application capable of performing the action on the entity;

causing a presenting of the identified target application;

receiving a selection of the identified target application;

in response to receiving the selection of the identified target application, passing entity context information associated with the entity and action context information associated with the action from the first application to the selected target application;

causing a displaying of the selected target application; and

maintaining a metrics log comprising analysis data including a number of times the identified target application is selected.

16. The method of claim 15, the presenting comprising:

determining that the selected target application is capable of performing the action on the entity based upon a data contract with the selected target application specifying that the selected target application supports the action and the entity.

17. The method of claim 15, the passing comprising:

utilizing an operating system communication model to pass the entity context information and the action context information to the selected target application.

18. The method of claim 15, comprising:

responsive to the selected target application performing the action on the entity, generating an entry within an entity action log specifying that the action was performed on the entity by the selected target application.

19. A method for registering a target application for contextually aware task execution, comprising:

receiving a registration request to establish a data contract with a target application, the registration request comprising an entity and an action supported by the target application;

generating the data contract with the target application, the data contract specifying that the target application is capable of performing the action on the entity;

maintaining an entity definition for the entity, wherein the entity is a first business entity or a second business entity, the entity definition comprising one or more entity parameters defining the entity, the one or more entity parameters defining the entity based on a business name and a business location and including at least one entity parameter specifying that the action is capable of being performed on the entity; and

maintaining an action definition for the action, wherein the action is different based on whether the entity is the first business entity or the second business entity, the action definition comprising one or more action parameters defining the action, an action parameter specifying information used to perform the action;

identifying a target application capable of performing the action on the entity;

responsive to a selection of the action, causing a presenting of the identified target application;

responsive to the selection of the target application, causing a displaying of a populated action item within the selected target application, wherein the populated action item is populated with entity context information corresponding to the entity definition, and wherein the entity context information is received from another launched application; and

maintaining a metrics log comprising analysis data including a number of times the identified target application is selected.

20. The method of claim 19, comprising:

identifying the entity comprised within content of the another launched application;

specifying values for at least one entity parameter within the entity definition based upon the entity context information of the entity derived from the another launched application to generate an entity context;

exposing the action capable of being performed on the entity;

responsive to the selection of the action;

specifying values for at least one action parameter within the action definition based upon contextual information derived from the current application to generate an action context, and

responsive to a selection of the target application;

passing the entity context information and the action context to the selected target application so that the selected target application is launched according to the entity context information and the action context to complete a task.