Method and system for managing a portal

• US 20050182742A1
• Filed: 02/18/2004
• Published: 08/18/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shieh, Guo-Wei, Griffin, William James, Crow, Howard M. III
• Application Number:
  US10/781,970
• Publication Number:
  US 20050182742A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing

Abstract

A system and method for managing a portal is described. A portal server application includes a portal manager in communication with a user interface of a web browser. The portal manager includes a database for storing metadata related to elements accessible from a portal. The user interface displays a navigational hierarchy of the elements that a user is authorized to access from the portal. The navigational hierarchy of elements is arranged in accordance with metadata in the database.

Claims

1. A method for managing a portal, comprising:

selecting an element from a navigational hierarchy, the selected element being associated with a location accessible from the portal, the navigational hierarchy being identified with metadata in a database;

selecting an interaction to be performed on the selected element;

retrieving metadata associated with the selected interaction and the selected element;

when the interaction corresponds to an action, performing the action with the retrieved metadata and updating the metadata in the database based on the performed action; and

accessing a feature associated with the interaction when the interaction does not correspond to an action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the element is at least one of an area, a subarea, a listing, an intranet site, and an extranet site.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the element comprises a listing, and wherein the listing is arranged to provide access to at least one of a link, a resource and a page from the portal.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the listing is arranged to provide access to at least one of the link, the resource, and the page external to the portal.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the feature is at least one of a link, a resource and a page.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying the navigational hierarchy in accordance with the updated metadata.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising authorizing user access to the element in the navigational hierarchy.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising displaying the element in the navigational hierarchy that a user is authorized to access.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising inheriting user authorization to access the element from a parent element, wherein metadata identifies the parent element and the inherited user authorization.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the element and selecting the action is performed using a web browser.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting the element and selecting the action is performed by a direct link provided in a uniform resource locator in a web browser.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the action comprises adding an element to the navigational hierarchy.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein adding the element further comprises adding an element to the navigational hierarchy at a pre-assigned time.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the action comprises removing an element from the navigational hierarchy.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein removing the element further comprises removing the element from the navigational hierarchy at a pre-assigned time.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the action comprises filtering the element.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the action comprises storing a subset of the retrieved metadata in a cache.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein retrieving metadata comprises retrieving metadata associated with the element from the cache.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing subareas and listings associated with a currently selected element in a cache.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising retrieving the subareas and listings that a user is authorized to access from the cache.

21. A system for managing a portal, comprising:

a portal manager comprising an element database, the element database storing metadata associated with elements accessible from the portal; and

a user interface in communication with the portal manager, the user interface displaying a navigational hierarchy of the elements accessible from the portal, wherein the navigational hierarchy of the elements is arranged in accordance with metadata in the element database.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the element database comprises an area database and a listing database, the area database storing metadata associated with areas accessible in the portal, the listing database storing metadata associated with links accessible from the portal.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the portal manager further comprises an area cache and a listing cache, the area cache storing a subset of metadata retrieved from the area database, the listing cache storing a subset of metadata retrieved from the listing database.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein metadata associated with the element is retrieved from the area cache and the listing cache.

25. The system of claim 21, wherein the portal manager further comprises a security module, wherein the security module is configured to:

identify a user requesting access; and

authenticate access to at least one of an element and metadata based on the identified user.