THIRD PARTY MENUS FOR ENABLING COLLABORATION

• US 20080229239A1
• Filed: 03/12/2007
• Published: 09/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Elumalai, Arulkumar, Shtiegman, Eran, Rollin, Kelly Elizabeth, Deshpande, Vinit Chandrakant
• Granted Patent: US 8,555,176 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/810
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066

Abstract

The claimed subject matter can provide an architecture and various mechanism whereby a communication client can facilitate a more robust collaboration experience. The communication client can provide configurable menus for launching third-party resources locally and transmitting resource invites to remote entities along with appropriate information to enable the remote entities to launch the resource locally as well. The architecture can provide for peer-to-peer collaboration sessions as well as server directed collaboration sessions.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system that facilitates a more integrated collaboration experience, comprising:

a user-interface menu configured to display a menu item associated with a disparate resource; and

a communication client that launches the disparate resource in accordance with a session type, the communication client launches the disparate resource with a set of tokenized input parameters that includes a user ID and a contact ID.

2. The system of claim 1, the communication client populates the user-interface menu with information from a configurable registration key included in a registration store.

3. The system of claim 2, the registration key includes at least one of a name field, a tooltip field, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) field, a resource type field, a path field, a server integration field, or a session type field.

4. The system of claim 2, the registration key corresponds to a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) associated with the disparate resource.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising a resource invite that facilitates a collaboration session, the resource invite includes the GUID and the set of tokenized parameters.

6. The system of claim 5, the resource invite is included in a body field and propagated by way of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).

7. The system of claim 5, the communication client transmits the resource invite to a remote entity.

8. The system of claim 7, the remote entity is associated with the contact ID.

9. The system of claim 7, the remote entity is a communication server that allocates resources for the collaboration session between entities associated with the user ID and the contact ID.

10. The system of claim 9, the communication server forwards the resource invite to entities associated with the contact ID.

11. The system of claim 10, the set of tokenized input parameters included in the resource invite further includes a conference Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) associated with the communication server.

12. The system of claim 5, the communication client receives the resource invite from a remote entity and launches the disparate resources that corresponds to the GUID included in the resource invite.

13. The system of claim 12, the communication client is configured to download or install the disparate resource based upon information included in the resource invite.

14. The system of claim 1, the contact ID is associated with one or more user contacts.

15. The system of claim 1, the disparate resource is at least one of designed, created, distributed, or managed by a third party.

16. The system of claim 1, the disparate resource is an application.

17. The system of claim 1, the disparate resource is a web page.

18. A computer-implemented method for facilitating a more robust collaborative experience by requesting a collaboration session, comprising:

accessing a registration key associated with a GUID;

populating a client menu with a menu item for a disparate resource associated with the GUID;

launching the disparate resource locally with a set of input parameters;

generating a resource invite for facilitating a collaboration session, the resource invite including the GUID and the set of input parameters; and

transmitting the resource invite based upon information included in the registration key.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

receiving the resource invite at a communication server;

allocating server resources for the collaboration session; and

forwarding the resource invite to designated entities.

20. A computer-implemented method for facilitating a more robust collaborative experience by establishing a collaboration session, comprising:

receiving a resource invite including a GUID and a set of input parameters;

accessing a registration store for retrieving information relating to a disparate resource associated with the GUID;

launching the disparate resource locally with the set of input parameters; and

establishing a collaboration session for the disparate resource with a remote entity.