Email and discussion forum system

• US 20070214216A1
• Filed: 03/13/2006
• Published: 09/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Lu, Xiaohua, Mor, David, Carrer, Marco, Arun, Gopalan
• Granted Patent: US 8,112,478 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation

Abstract

Systems, methods, and media associated with coordinating a discussion forum application and an email application are described. One example system includes a data store and a coordination logic. The data store may store a discussion forum message in a data structure accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic. The coordination logic may provide access to the discussion forum message for the email logic and the discussion forum logic. The coordination logic may also maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message and cause threading information associated with the discussion forum message to be honored.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a data store configured to store a discussion forum message in a data structure that is accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic; and

a coordination logic operably connected to the data store, the coordination logic being configured to provide shared access to the discussion forum message for both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, to maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message in both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, and to honor threading information associated with the discussion forum message.

2. The system of claim 1, the discussion forum message including an RFC (Request For Comment) 822 reference header field and an RFC 822 in-reply-to header field.

3. The system of claim 2, the data structure being an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) shared folder.

4. The system of claim 3, the coordination logic being configured to provide shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges.

5. The system of claim 1, the email logic including one or more of, an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) logic and an SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) logic.

6. The system of claim 5, the discussion forum logic including one or more of, a web browser logic, and an RSS (Rich Site Summary) logic.

7. The system of claim 1, where the shared access provided by the coordination logic for the email logic includes providing the ability to perform three or more of, reading a message, replying to a message, deleting a message, restoring a message, blocking a message, and tracing a thread associated with a message.

8. The system of claim 1, the data store being a database.

9. The system of claim 8, the database being configured to store a discussion forum message, a discussion forum message definition, a user setting, a forum definition, an access control definition, and a policy definition.

10. The system of claim 9, the database being configured to store an instance of a category datatype, a forum datatype, a thread datatype, and a message datatype.

11. The system of claim 1, the coordination logic being configured to perform one or more of, enforcing a policy, enforcing a privilege, controlling visibility of a message, and controlling membership in a discussion forum.

12. The system of claim 1, the coordination logic being configured to perform one or more of, selectively providing access to the discussion forum message for the email logic, and providing drag and drop functionality for a shared folder associated with the email logic.

13. The system of claim 1, the system including the email logic and the discussion forum logic, the coordination logic being configured with a business logic and an access logic.

14. A computer configured with an email and discussion forum logic, the logic comprising:

a database configured to store a discussion forum message having an RFC (Request For Comment) 822 reference header field and an RFC 822 in-reply-to header field in an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) shared folder that is accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic, the database being configured to store a discussion forum message, a discussion forum message definition, a user setting, a forum definition, an access control definition, and a policy definition; and

a coordination logic operably connected to the database, the coordination logic being configured to provide shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges, to maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message in both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, and to honor threading information associated with the discussion forum message,

the shared access control providing for reading a message, replying to a message, deleting a message, restoring a message, and tracing a thread associated with a message.

15. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

storing a discussion forum message in a shared folder;

providing an email client and a discussion forum client with access to the shared folder;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the email client;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the discussion forum client; and

maintaining read consistency for the discussion forum message in the email client and the discussion forum client.

16. The method of claim 15, the shared folder being an IMAP shared folder, the method including providing shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges.

17. The method of claim 16, the computer communication from the email client being received via one or more of, an IMAP communication, and an SMTP communication, the computer communication from the discussion forum client being received via one or more of, an HTTP communication, and an RSS communication.

18. The method of claim 17, where manipulating a discussion forum message includes reading the discussion forum message and one or more of, replying to the discussion forum message, deleting the discussion forum message, restoring the discussion forum message, blocking the discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with the discussion forum message.

19. A computer-readable medium storing processor executable instructions operable to perform a method, the method comprising:

storing a discussion forum message in an IMAP shared folder;

providing an email client and a discussion forum client with shared access to the IMAP shared folder;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the email client;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the discussion forum client; and

maintaining read consistency for the discussion forum message in the email client and the discussion forum client.

20. A system, comprising:

means for providing shared storage for an email application and a discussion forum application.

21. The system of claim 20 further comprising:

means for providing shared access control to a discussion forum message accessible to the email application and the discussion forum application through the means for providing shared storage; and

means for maintaining read consistency for the discussion forum message using the means for providing shared access control.