User Interface For Variable Access Control System

• US 20070234218A1
• Filed: 03/28/2007
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Niresip LLC
• Original Assignee: Niresip LLC
• Inventors: Baschy, Leo M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,202,068 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database

Abstract

To balance a tendency towards faceless decisions in using role based access control, photographic likenesses of people in roles can be used in access control user interface. For a meaningful representation of different people being in a role at a different times, a near future time chart of people who are predicted to be in roles to access a document or a resource can be displayed next to document contents and resource representations.

Claims

1. A graphical user interface for comprehensibly displaying who will be allowed to access a document while at the same time displaying document contents, comprising:

a display region for document contents; and

a display region indicating different sets of people who will be allowed to access the document at different times.

2. The user interface of claim 1, wherein people are indicated by display elements comprising, at least in part, likenesses of those people.

3. The user interface of claim 1, wherein time spans during which an individual person will be allowed to access the document are laid out in an intelligible chart format.

4. The user interface of claim 1, wherein input data for determining its display comprises:

access control settings for the document;

data that defines role memberships; and

temporal information.

5. The user interface of claim 4, wherein temporal information comprises calendar entries.

6. A graphical user interface for comprehensibly displaying who will be allowed to access a resource, comprising a display region indicating different sets of people who will be allowed to access the resource at different times.

7. The user interface of claim 6, wherein people are indicated by display elements comprising, at least in part, likenesses of those people.

8. The user interface of claim 6, wherein each individual person is indicated by a display element comprising, at least in part, an individual likeness of the person.

9. The user interface of claim 6, wherein time spans during which an individual person will be allowed to access the resource are laid out in an intelligible chart format.

10. The user interface of claim 6, wherein input data for determining its display comprises:

access control settings for the resource;

data that defines role memberships; and

temporal information.

11. The user interface of claim 10, wherein temporal information comprises calendar entries.

12. A graphical user interface for comprehensibly displaying what real persons effectively will be acting in a role at future points in time.

13. The user interface of claim 12, wherein people are indicated by display elements comprising, at least in part, likenesses of those people.

14. The user interface of claim 12, wherein time spans during which an individual person will be acting in the role are laid out in an intelligible chart format.

15. The user interface of claim 12, wherein input data for determining its display comprises:

data that defines role memberships; and

temporal information.

16. The user interface of claim 15, wherein temporal information comprises calendar entries.