Method and system for communication prioritization
First Claim
1. A computer system for managing workflow information, the workflow relating to a topic shared among a team of users, comprising:
- a creation unit, configured to facilitate creating a plurality of topics, including assigning a priority to each of the topics;
a topic assignment unit, configured to facilitate tasking, responsive to an originator, a topic to an owner, and associating the topic with a team, the owner and the originator being members of the team; and
a communication production unit, configured to facilitate producing a plurality of communications, including at least one communication, responsive to the topic and automatically associated with the topic, the at least one communication being initiated by a team member, and being assigned an urgency reflecting a deadline and an importance selected by the team member, and automatically associated with the priority assigned to the topic, wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, wherein a ranking of the at least one communication relative to communications in the plurality of communications can be automatically calculated, in the computer, from a combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A computer system for managing workflow relating to a topic shared among a team of users includes a creation unit (109a, 109b, 109c). The creation unit (109a, 109b, 109c) facilitates creating topics (103) and assigning a priority to each of the topics. A topic assignment unit (111a, 111b, 111c) facilitates tasking a topic to an owner, and associating the topic with a team, the owner and the originator being members of the team. A communication production unit (113a, 113b, 113c) facilitates producing communications (101) responsive to the topic and automatically associated with the topic. The communication (101) is initiated by a team member, assigned an urgency reflecting a deadline and an importance selected by the team member, and automatically associated with the priority assigned to the topic. A ranking (115a, 115b, 115c) of the communication relative to the other communications can be automatically calculated
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. A computer system for managing workflow information, the workflow relating to a topic shared among a team of users, comprising:
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a creation unit, configured to facilitate creating a plurality of topics, including assigning a priority to each of the topics;
a topic assignment unit, configured to facilitate tasking, responsive to an originator, a topic to an owner, and associating the topic with a team, the owner and the originator being members of the team; and
a communication production unit, configured to facilitate producing a plurality of communications, including at least one communication, responsive to the topic and automatically associated with the topic, the at least one communication being initiated by a team member, and being assigned an urgency reflecting a deadline and an importance selected by the team member, and automatically associated with the priority assigned to the topic, wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, wherein a ranking of the at least one communication relative to communications in the plurality of communications can be automatically calculated, in the computer, from a combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions for execution by a computer, the instructions including a computer-implemented method for managing communications related to status of a plurality of topics, the instructions for implementing:
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accessing a plurality of communications, each communication having an urgency reflecting a deadline, an importance, and a priority, the priority being inherited from a corresponding topic of a plurality of topics, wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, each communication being associated with the corresponding topic, and each communication being associated with a communication originator;
each topic being associated with an owner, a team, and a topic originator and having a priority assigned thereto;
automatically ranking a portion of the communications by determining a combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance associated with each communication in the portion, and associating the ranking with each communication in the portion; and
providing a summary of the communications in the portion and an indication of the ranking associated with each communication in the portion. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A computerized method of distributing, communicating, and/or reporting topics shared among users, comprising:
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creating a plurality of topics including a topic, including assigning a priority to the topic, associating the topic with a team of users, and tasking the topic to an owner, the owner being one of the users of the team; and
producing a plurality of communications responsive to the topic, each of the communications being initiated responsive to a user of the team and being assigned, at least one of manually and semi-automatically responsive to the user, an urgency representative of a time for completion and an importance, the communication being automatically assigned the priority assigned to the topic, wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A computer system for managing communications related to status of a plurality of topics, comprising:
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a topic unit, configured to facilitate creating a plurality of topics, including assigning a priority to the topics, the priority being one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities;
tasking, responsive to an originator, one of the topics to an owner;
assigning a topic description to the topic; and
associating the topic with a team including the originator and the owner;
a communication production unit, configured to facilitate producing a plurality of communications, including at least one communication, the at least one communication being initiated by a member of the team and associated with one of the topics;
producing the communication further including assigning the at least one communication one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies reflecting a deadline and one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, the urgency and importance being responsive to the team member, automatically associating the at least one communication with the priority assigned to the topic, associating the at least one communication with a communication description, the communication description for the communication being limited to less than a pre-determined limited character length, associating the at least one communication with an action indication whether the at least one communication is for information or for action, and if for action, indicating an end date associated with the action; and
automatically routing the at least one communication to the owner.a communication reception unit associated with a particular user, the particular user being a member of the team, configured to facilitate receiving the at least one communication associated with topics associated with the team;
a ranking unit, configured to facilitate ranking a portion of the communications by automatically calculating a value for each communication in the portion from an equally-weighted combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance associated with each communication, the value indicating a rank of each communication in comparison to other communications; and
associating the rank with each communication in the portion; and
a report unit, configured to facilitate providing a report, responsive to a user, of communications for which the user is a team member of the associated topic, including an indication for each communication in the portion of;
the corresponding topic, the topic description associated with the corresponding topic, the communication description associated with the communication, the action indication, and if for action, the end date associated with the action;
wherein there are three pre-determined priorities, three pre-determined urgencies, and three pre-determined importances.
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Specification