System and Method of Handling Historical Activities for Membership Changes in Group Collaboration

• US 20080189301A1
• Filed: 02/05/2007
• Published: 08/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Chen, Li, Xiao, Lun, Li, Yongcheng, Facemire, Michael
• Application Number:
  US11/671,137
• Publication Number:
  US 20080189301A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A system and method of handling historical activities for membership changes in group collaboration is presented. A membership manager uses a register service to log group actions that components send to user groups. As such, when the register service receives a member change notification corresponding to a user group, the register service sends action redistribution requests to the components that instruct each of the components to resend the group actions to a new user group member. In one embodiment, the membership manager allows a user to select particular group actions to redistribute to a new member. In this embodiment, the user may also select whether to instruct a component to send event information corresponding to events that have passed, such as a prior month'"'"'s team meeting notifications, or to only send upcoming event information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving a group action from a component at a membership manager, the component also sending the group action to a plurality of user identifiers included in a user group;

storing the group action at the membership manager;

receiving a member change notification at the membership manager that includes a group identifier and a new member identifier, the new member identifier not included in the user group;

determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group; and

in response to determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group, sending an action redistribution request to the component that instructs the component to send the group action to the new member identifier.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, at the component, the action redistribution request; and

sending, from the component, the group action to the new member identifier in response to receiving the action redistribution request.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a plurality of group actions from each of a plurality of components, the group action included in the plurality of actions and the component included in plurality of components; and

storing each of the plurality of group actions in one of a plurality of component action sets, each of the plurality of component action sets corresponding to one of the plurality of components.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

displaying a user interface that includes each of the plurality of group actions sorted by each of the plurality of component action sets;

receiving a user selection that identifies one or more of the plurality of group actions to send to the new member identifier; and

sending one or more of the action redistribution requests to one or more of the plurality of components based upon the user selection.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the user selection includes a past event exclusion selection, the method further comprising:

including a past event exclusion indicator in one of the action redistribution requests, the past event exclusion identifier instructing the component to exclude events that have already occurred;

identifying, at the component, future events that correspond to the group action based upon the past event exclusion indicator; and

sending only the future events in the group action to the new member identifier.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the component is selected from the group consisting of an email component, a calendar component, and an instant messaging component.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the member change notification is sent from an address book that includes the user group, the user group accessed by a plurality of components that are different from each other.

8. A computer program product stored on a computer operable media, the computer operable media containing instructions for execution by a computer, which, when executed by the computer, cause the computer to implement a method to redistribute group actions to a new user group member, the method comprising:

receiving a group action from a component at a membership manager, the component also sending the group action to a plurality of user identifiers included in a user group;

storing the group action at the membership manager;

receiving a member change notification at the membership manager that includes a group identifier and a new member identifier, the new member identifier corresponding to the new user group member and not included in the user group;

determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group; and

in response to determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group, sending an action redistribution request to the component that instructs the component to send the group action to the new member identifier.

9. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the method further comprises:

receiving, at the component, the action redistribution request; and

sending, from the component, the group action to the new member identifier in response to receiving the action redistribution request.

10. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a plurality of group actions from each of a plurality of components, the group action included in the plurality of actions and the component included in plurality of components; and

storing each of the plurality of group actions in one of a plurality of component action sets, each of the plurality of component action sets corresponding to one of the plurality of components.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 wherein the method further comprises:

displaying a user interface that includes each of the plurality of group actions sorted by each of the plurality of component action sets;

receiving a user selection that identifies one or more of the plurality of group actions to send to the new member identifier; and

sending one or more of the action redistribution requests to one or more of the plurality of components based upon the user selection.

12. The computer program product of claim 11 wherein the user selection includes a past event exclusion selection, the method further comprising:

including a past event exclusion indicator in one of the action redistribution requests, the past event exclusion identifier instructing the component to exclude events that have already occurred;

identifying, at the component, future events that correspond to the group action based upon the past event exclusion indicator; and

sending only the future events in the group action to the new member identifier.

13. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the component is selected from the group consisting of an email component, a calendar component, and an instant messaging component.

14. The computer program product of claim 8 wherein the member change notification is sent from an address book that includes the user group, the user group accessed by a plurality of components that are different from each other.

15. An information handling system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory accessible by the processors;

one or more nonvolatile storage devices accessible by the processors; and

a set of instructions stored in the memory, wherein one or more of the processors executes the set of instructions in order to perform actions of;

receiving a group action from a component at a membership manager, the component also sending the group action to a plurality of user identifiers included in a user group;

storing the group action in one of the nonvolatile storage devices at the membership manager;

receiving a member change notification at the membership manager that includes a group identifier and a new member identifier, the new member identifier corresponding to the new user group member and not included in the user group;

determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group; and

in response to determining that the group identifier corresponds to the user group, sending an action redistribution request to the component that instructs the component to send the group action to the new member identifier.

16. The information handling system of claim 15 further comprising an additional set of instructions in order to perform actions of:

receiving, at the component, the action redistribution request; and

sending, from the component, the group action to the new member identifier in response to receiving the action redistribution request.

17. The information handling system of claim 15 further comprising an additional set of instructions in order to perform actions of:

receiving a plurality of group actions from each of a plurality of components, the group action included in the plurality of actions and the component included in plurality of components; and

storing each of the plurality of group actions in one of a plurality of component action sets located in one of the nonvolatile storage devices, each of the plurality of component action sets corresponding to one of the plurality of components.

18. The information handling system of claim 17 further comprising an additional set of instructions in order to perform actions of:

displaying a user interface on a display that includes each of the plurality of group actions sorted by each of the plurality of component action sets;

receiving a user selection that identifies one or more of the plurality of group actions to send to the new member identifier; and

sending one or more of the action redistribution requests to one or more of the plurality of components based upon the user selection.

19. The information handling system of claim 18 wherein the user selection includes a past event exclusion selection, the information handling system further comprising an additional set of instructions in order to perform actions of:

including a past event exclusion indicator in one of the action redistribution requests, the past event exclusion identifier instructing the component to exclude events that have already occurred;

identifying, at the component, future events that correspond to the group action based upon the past event exclusion indicator; and

sending only the future events in the group action to the new member identifier.

20. The information handling system of claim 15 wherein the component is selected from the group consisting of an email component, a calendar component, and an instant messaging component.