Method and system for on-demand communities

• US 20080275884A1
• Filed: 05/05/2008
• Published: 11/06/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Lin, Likuo, Lin, Justin, Yoshida, Norimasa, Grenney, Jamie Veere Coleman
• Granted Patent: US 8,706,696 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/437 Administration of user profiles, e.g. generation, initialisation, adaptation, distribution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0483 Interaction with page-structured environments, e.g. book metaphor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 2230/00 Voting or election arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services
• 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 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

In an embodiment, communities are generated on demand. In this specification a community is a group of webpages in which users share ideas with one another by posting ideas and sending messages for one another to read. An on-demand community is a community that may be created via tools specialized for creating communities, with just a few keys strokes and/or mouse clicks and by adding information (e.g., about the members and/or the topic or set of topics that the community is focused upon), such that a community maybe established within a short amount of time, such as a few minutes or a few hours. Optionally, the communities may be initially populated with ideas related to a particular topic or set of topics. Optionally, each member may be provided with tools for establishing one or more profile page and/or one or more friend pages.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method for enabling creating on-demand communities by a tenant of a multi-tenant database, comprising:

sending a tenant-webpage from a multi-tenant database to a user associated with a tenant of the multi-tenant database,

sending software tools, in association with the tenant-webpage, from the multi-tenant database to the user, the tools being for creating community webpages including at least

information about a subject, and

tools for members to leave messages in locations, each member having a location

for messages specific to that member; and

the representative creating the webpages that enable a community.

2. The method of claim 1, the user being an employee of the tenant.

3. The method of claim 1, the user being a customer of the tenant.

4. The method of claim 1, the user being an administrator that administrates the tenant'"'"'s portion of the multi-tenant database.

5. The method of claim 1, the software tools including an icon which when selected creates one or more of the community webpages.

6. The method of claim 1, the tenant webpages including one or more webpages having one or more snippets in a format appropriate for copying the one or more code snippets.

7. The method of claim 1, the tenant webpages including one or more webpages having one or more URLs in a format appropriate for copying the one or more URLs.

8. The method of claim 1, the locations including at least one or more webpages having at least information about the user.

9. The method of claim 1, the information about the subject including a webpage listing an initial set of ideas posted for community members to view, each community member receiving tools for adding ideas to the webpage having the initial set of ideas.

10. A machine-implemented method of adding an idea to a profile page in a community having an idea page, the community being associated with a tenant of a multi-tenant database, the method comprising:

sending an idea webpage to a user having ideas posted thereon and having tools for receiving votes for the ideas posted;

receiving a request to post an idea on a profile page; and

in response to receiving the request, sending the profile page with the idea posted on the profile page.

11. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for method and system for on-demand communities in a multi-tenant database system, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the method comprising:

sending a tenant-webpage from a multi-tenant database to a user associated with a tenant of the multi-tenant database,

sending software tools, in association with the tenant-webpage, from the multi-tenant database to the user, the tools being for creating community webpages including at least

information about a subject, and

tools for members to leave messages in locations, each member having a location

for messages specific to that member; and

the representative creating the webpages that enable a community.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the user being an employee of the tenant.

13. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the user being a customer of the tenant.

14. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the user being an administrator that administrates the tenant'"'"'s portion of the multi-tenant database.

15. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the software tools including an icon which when selected creates one or more of the community webpages.

16. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the tenant webpages including one or more webpages having one or more snippets in a format appropriate for copying the one or more code snippets.

17. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the tenant webpages including one or more webpages having one or more URLs in a format appropriate for copying the one or more URLs.

18. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the locations including at least one or more webpages having at least information about the user.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 11, the information about the subject including a webpage listing an initial set of ideas posted for community members to view, each community member receiving tools for adding ideas to the webpage having the initial set of ideas.

20. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions for on-demand communities in a multi-tenant database system, which instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to carry out the method comprising:

sending an idea webpage to a user having ideas posted thereon and having tools for receiving votes for the ideas posted;

receiving a request to post an idea on a profile page; and

in response to receiving the request, sending the profile page with the idea posted on the profile page.