Method and apparatus for defining relationships between collaboration entities in a collaboration environment
First Claim
1. A method for defining relationships between collaborative entities in a collaborative environment comprising:
- identifying an association between a plurality of workspace artifacts in a collaborative workspace, the association indicative of a commonality between the workspace artifacts;
defining a relationship between the identified plurality of workspace artifacts, the workspace artifacts each having an entity type and a common relationship type corresponding to the identified association; and
capturing the relationship between the workspace artifacts, capturing denoting the workspace artifacts as participant entities in the defined relationship corresponding to the workspace.
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Abstract
In a software environment for team collaboration, a relationship processor defines relationships between collaboration entities (artifacts) in the collaboration environment. The relationship processor is operable to define, capture, and traverse relationships in a generic manner independently of the underlying types of artifacts included in the relationships. Accordingly, participant artifacts of such a relationship may be a set of workspace artifacts of dissimilar types, and may be associated by a 1:1, a 1:N, or an N:M relation. Therefore, relationships may include individual or sets of artifacts of various cardinality and directionality, as discussed further above. A relationship processor captures the defined relationships in a set of DB tables. The tables enumerate the related entities of the various types instantiated by the applications operative in the workspace. In this manner, the workspace employs a variety of type-unrestricted artifacts for further processing and/or organization.
56 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method for defining relationships between collaborative entities in a collaborative environment comprising:
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identifying an association between a plurality of workspace artifacts in a collaborative workspace, the association indicative of a commonality between the workspace artifacts;
defining a relationship between the identified plurality of workspace artifacts, the workspace artifacts each having an entity type and a common relationship type corresponding to the identified association; and
capturing the relationship between the workspace artifacts, capturing denoting the workspace artifacts as participant entities in the defined relationship corresponding to the workspace. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A collaboration server for defining relationships between collaborative entities in a collaborative environment comprising:
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at least one collaborative workspace having a plurality of workspace artifacts, each of the workspace artifacts operable to have an association to another of the plurality of workspace artifacts in the collaborative workspace, the association indicative of a commonality between the workspace artifacts;
a relationship processor operable to define a relationship between the identified plurality of workspace artifacts, the workspace artifacts each having an entity type and a common relationship type corresponding to the identified association; and
a collaboration storage repository operable to capture the relationship between the workspace artifacts, capturing denoting the workspace artifacts as participant entities in the defined relationship corresponding to the workspace. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A computer program product having a computer readable medium operable to store computer program logic embodied in computer program code encoded thereon, the computer program code receivable by a processor for executing computer program instructions for defining relationships between collaborative entities in a collaborative environment comprising:
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computer program code for identifying an association between a plurality of workspace artifacts in a collaborative workspace, the association indicative of a commonality between the workspace artifacts, identifying further comprising identifying the commonality between workspace artifacts of different types;
computer program code for defining a relationship between the identified plurality of workspace artifacts, the workspace artifacts each having an entity type and a common relationship type corresponding to the identified association;
computer program code for capturing the relationship between the workspace artifacts, capturing denoting the workspace artifacts as participant entities in the defined relationship corresponding to the workspace; and
computer program code for storing, for each participant in the relationships, an entry in a relationship artifact table indicative of each artifact and relationship to which it belongs.
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24. A computing device for performing fault tolerance in a collaboration environment comprising:
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means for identifying an association between a plurality of workspace artifacts in a collaborative workspace, the association indicative of a commonality between the workspace artifacts, identifying further comprising identifying the commonality between workspace artifacts of different types;
means for defining a relationship between the identified plurality of workspace artifacts, the workspace artifacts each having an entity type and a common relationship type corresponding to the identified association;
means for capturing the relationship between the workspace artifacts, capturing denoting the workspace artifacts as participant entities in the defined relationship corresponding to the workspace; and
means for identifying dynamic relationships operable to identify relationship participants based on a predetermined selection criteria applicable to the plurality of artifacts, the predetermined selection criteria operable to conditionally identify entities for inclusion in a relationship.
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Specification