ASYNCHRONOUSLY GENERATED MENUS

• US 20080163260A1
• Filed: 12/29/2006
• Published: 07/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Business Financial Management Corporation (Verizon Communications Inc.), Verizon Data Services India Pvt Limited (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: LIN, Chi-Hwei, Kalyanasundaram, Nandakumar, Mohan, Manoj J., Sridharan, Prakash, Rajaraman, Sankar
• Granted Patent: US 8,645,833 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/320
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03

Abstract

Techniques described herein may provide web pages to customers describing various accounts of the customers. In one implementation, a system receives a request for a web page from a client relating to an account of the client, and generates a document in response to the request. The document includes a reference to a script configured to display a context menu for the account in the web page. The script receives, asynchronously with the display of the context menu in the web page, a menu object representing actions for the context menu that are valid for the account. The system transmits the document and the script to the client.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a request for a web page from a client relating to an account of the client;

generating a document in response to the request, the document including a reference to a script configured to display a context menu for the account in the web page, the script being further configured to receive, asynchronously with display of the context menu in the web page, a menu object representing actions for the context menu that are valid for the account; and

transmitting the document and the script to the client.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request from the script for the valid actions for the account, the request being made by the script in response to user selection of the account.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the menu object by looking up attributes associated with the account in a database that relates sets of account attributes to valid menu actions.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

validating the menu object to ensure that the client has permission to perform the actions represented by the menu object.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the attributes associated with the account are included in the generated document.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is for a web page that includes information relating to a plurality of accounts associated with the client, each of the plurality of accounts being associated with a context menu.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a customer profile database that includes customer profiles that describe available actions for different combinations of attributes describing the client or an account associated with the client.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the script uses Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX) web development techniques.

9. A system comprising:

a web server configured to communicate with a client to;

receive a first request from the client for a web page that includes information about accounts of the client,

transmit the web page to the client, and

receive a second request from the client for valid menu actions associated with a selected first account of the client;

a customer profile database configured to store a set of valid menu actions for each of a plurality of attributes associated with accounts or the client; and

an application server configured to receive the second request from the web server and to lookup the valid menu actions in the customer profile database based on a plurality of attributes associated with the selected first account.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the customer profile database stores at least one table that enumerates menu actions that are available for the accounts given a set of values of the plurality of attributes.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the plurality of attributes are included in the web page sent to the client and are received in the second request from the client.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the second request is received from a script associated with the web page.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the script presents the menu actions as a context menu that is displayed in response to selection of the first account.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the second request is generated by the client in response to user selection of the first account in the web page.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the application server is additionally configured to validate the looked-up menu actions to ensure that the client has permission to perform the menu actions.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the web page transmitted to the client includes Asynchronous JavaScript And XML (AJAX) web development techniques.

17. A device comprising:

means for receiving a request for a web page from a client relating to an account of the client;

means for generating a document in response to the request, the document including a reference to a script configured to display a context menu for the account in the web page, the script being further configured to receive, asynchronously with the display of the context menu in the web page, a menu object representing actions for the context menu that are valid for the account; and

means for transmitting the document and the script to the client.

18. The device of claim 17, further comprising:

means for generating the menu object by looking up attributes associated with the account in a database that relates sets of account attributes to valid menu actions.

19. The device of claim 18, further comprising:

means for validating the menu object to ensure that the client has permission to perform the actions represented by the menu object.

20. The device of claim 18, further comprising:

means for maintaining a customer profile database that includes customer profiles that describe available actions for different combinations of attributes describing the client or an account associated with the client.