Systems and methods for managing affiliations
First Claim
1. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
- a step for providing a store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks; and
indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for managing user sessions, each user session identified to a respective person of the first plurality of records;
a step for providing a first presentation in a first user session identified to a first person, the first presentation comprising field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a first identified affiliation;
a step for providing a control in the first user session;
a step for creating a second identified affiliation in response to operation of the control; and
a step for providing a second presentation in accordance with the second identified affiliation in a second user session identified to a second person.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An affiliation manager provides each of typically hundreds of users with a calendar of appointments and a task list each including icons for capturing time and expenses accrued by the user when attending a particular appointment or performing a particular task. A subset of collected captured time and expenses may be transferred to each requesting client for use by independent accounting systems. Management of appointments and tasks from a central database promotes collaboration among users, simplifies sharing of schedule information among users, and provides context for data entry. Each user may create any number of affiliations, each affiliation describing affiliations of the user in numerous projects, organizations, employments, and activities. Each user may admit other users to share his or her affiliations, thereby promoting collaboration of many users for jointly attending meetings and jointly performing tasks. Context permits automatic intuitive association of email, chat messages, notes, and documents to records for persons, locations, resources, appointments, tasks, and projects for integrated affiliation management services. Requests for queries and forms are interpreted according to the context in which the user issued the request. Requests are made via a common set of icons and links on each item of a list provided by a prior query.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
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a step for providing a store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks; and
indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for managing user sessions, each user session identified to a respective person of the first plurality of records;
a step for providing a first presentation in a first user session identified to a first person, the first presentation comprising field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a first identified affiliation;
a step for providing a control in the first user session;
a step for creating a second identified affiliation in response to operation of the control; and
a step for providing a second presentation in accordance with the second identified affiliation in a second user session identified to a second person. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
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a step for providing a store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
first indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks;
a third plurality of records each describing a charge of at least one of a time period and an expense;
second indicia of associations between records of the first plurality, records of the second plurality, and records of the third plurality; and
third indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for managing user sessions, each user session identified to a respective person of the first plurality of records;
a step for providing in a first user session identified to a first person;
a first presentation comprising field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality according to an identified affiliation;
a first control; and
a second control;
a step for creating a record of the third plurality in response to user operation of the first control;
a step for receiving a request in response to user operation of the second control, the request comprising indicia of criteria; and
a step for downloading in a format for accounting a multiplicity of field values of records of the third plurality of records in accordance with the criteria.
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6. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
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a step for providing a store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks; and
indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for managing user sessions, each user session identified to a respective person of the first plurality of records;
a step for providing a first presentation in a first user session identified to a first person, the first presentation comprising a first multiplicity of field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a first identified affiliation; and
a step for providing a second presentation in a second user session identified to a second person, the second presentation comprising a second multiplicity of field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a second identified affiliation;
wherein the second multiplicity includes at least one field value of the first multiplicity and at least one field value not of the first multiplicity.
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7. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
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a step for providing a store of identified affiliation information, the store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks; and
indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for managing user sessions, each user session identified to a respective person of the first plurality of records;
a step for providing a first presentation in a first user session identified to a first person, the first presentation comprising field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a first identified affiliation;
a step for providing a control in the first user session for beginning a chat session; and
a step for providing a list of persons identified to other active user sessions selected from records of the first plurality in accordance with the criteria of the first identified affiliation. - View Dependent Claims (8)
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9. A store comprising:
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a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks;
a third plurality of records each describing a note;
indicia of associations between records of the third plurality and at least one of records the first plurality and records of the second plurality;
indicia of subject for associating records of the first plurality, the second plurality, and the third plurality, each respective association in accordance with a common subject; and
indicia of affiliations, each affiliation being associated with a multiplicity of the first plurality, the second plurality, and the third plurality of records. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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13. A method for affiliation management, the method comprising:
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a step for providing a store comprising;
a first plurality of records each describing a respective person;
a second plurality of records wherein each record of the second plurality describes a respective item comprising at least one of a task and an appointment;
indicia of associations between records of the first plurality and records of the second plurality to associate at least one of attendees to appointments and assignees to tasks; and
indicia of a plurality of identified affiliations;
a step for providing a first presentation comprising field values of records selected from the first plurality and the second plurality in accordance with a first identified affiliation and a first aggregation;
a step for receiving a request to edit a field value of a record of the store thereby creating a modified field value; and
a step for providing a control comprising a list of alternate aggregations for user activation in place of the first aggregation, the list including a particular aggregation operative in accordance with the modified field value. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for communicating among users of a plurality of users, the method performed by a server, the method comprising:
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providing a list of items to any particular user of the plurality, wherein;
each item is of a common type, the common type being of a set of types including a contact, an appointment, and a task; and
each item is associated with a respective set of controls, wherein;
each respective set of controls comprises respective controls of common appearance as respective controls of each other set of controls; and
each respective control of each set, when activated by a user, performs a function in accordance with the item to which it is associated; and
accepting input of the particular user to activate a particular control to facilitate at least one of the creation of a new item, accessing a created item, and accessing a second list of created items, the second list prepared according to the method. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification