ENTERPRISE SOCIAL NETWORKING SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

• US 20090222750A1
• Filed: 02/29/2008
• Published: 09/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jiang, Ning, Caldwell, Gary L., Veeraraghavan, Venkatesh, Giacobbe, Gail Borod, Jain, Sandhya D., Ramsay, Donald A. JR.
• Granted Patent: US 8,788,942 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/767
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking 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 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

An enterprise-based social networking application. Events for individuals may be collected from various enterprise-based information systems automatically using adaptors that are specially tailored for particular types of information systems. Such events may then be used to populate event feeds regarding individuals in that enterprise. A filtering model for formulating event feeds identifies events by individual, event type, and event time. The filter also identifies which individuals are in which group of a participant, and identifies which groups correspond to which event types. Incoming events may then be filtered into the event feeds depending on the group to which the individual belongs. A user interface for a participant to view and edit group membership is also provided.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable media having thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one of more processors of the computing system, cause the computing system to instantiate the following:

a collector module that is responsive to configuration information to instantiate and support a plurality of adaptor modules, wherein each adaptor module is configured to collect events regarding a plurality of individuals from an information system of a particular type, wherein not all of the plurality of adaptor modules are for collecting events from an information system of the same particular type; and

an events pool into which the events detected by the plurality of adaptor modules are stored, and from which the events may be drawn to formulate event feeds regarding the plurality of individuals.

2. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, further comprising:

an event feed construction mechanism configured to extract events from the events pool.

3. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the events pool is a database.

4. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of adaptors have common core functionality, also have custom functionality used to interact the their corresponding information system.

5. A computer program product in accordance with claim 4, wherein one function of the core functionality is to identify a plurality of individuals in an enterprise served by an enterprise-based social networking program.

6. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the collector module is configured to start each of the plurality of adaptors at periodic intervals in response to configuration information.

7. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein the collector module notifies each of the plurality of adaptor modules of the identity of the events pool.

8. A computer program product in accordance with claim 1, wherein a first of the plurality of adaptors is configured to extract events from an information system of a first type, and a second of the plurality of adaptors is configured to extract events from an information system of a second type.

9. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the particular type of information systems is selected from the group consisting of:

administrative human resources system;

enterprise directory system;

instant messaging system;

enterprise calendar system;

document management system;

financial management system or

one or more other enterprise information systems.

10. A method for preparing to provide an event feed to a participant in a social networking application, the event feed prepared from events in an events pool, the events pool containing events regarding a plurality of individuals, the method comprising:

an act of tracking events regarding an individual by identifying an individual, an event type, and a time for each event;

an act of a recording a group membership for a plurality of groups for the participant, each of at least two of the plurality of groups including one or more individuals for which the participant is to receive event feeds; and

an act of deciding for the plurality of groups, which event types are to be fed to the participant, wherein the event types for individuals in one group of the plurality of groups at least partially differ from event types for individuals in another group of the plurality of groups.

11. A method in accordance with claim 10, wherein the events include custom fields that may differ depending on the event type.

12. A method in accordance with claim 10, wherein the social networking application tracks events for individuals in an enterprise.

13. A method in accordance with claim 10, further comprising:

an act of extracting an event from the events pool;

an act of determining which individual the event is about;

an act of determining which of one or more groups of the plurality of groups for the participant that the individual belongs to; and

an act of determining that the event is of an event type that corresponds to a group to which the individual belongs for the participant.

14. A method in accordance with claim 13, further comprising:

in response to the act of determining that the event is of an event type that corresponds to the group to which the individual belongs for the participant, an act of providing the event in an event feed provided to the participant.

15. A method for presenting a user interface to a participant in an enterprise-based social networking application, the method comprising:

an act of representing a plurality of groups of individuals within the user interface;

an act of representing at least some of the individuals in each of the groups in the user interface in a manner that the individuals in a group are shown associated with the group; and

an act of providing an input mechanism that permits a participant to change the individuals that are included in at least one of the groups of the plurality of groups.

16. A method in accordance with claim 15, wherein the input mechanism is a drag and drop input mechanism whereby a user may drag a representation of an individual from one group to another.

17. A method in accordance with claim 15, wherein the input mechanism is a drag and drop input mechanism whereby a user may drag a representation of an individual from a pool of individuals into a group of the plurality of groups.

18. A method in accordance with claim 15, wherein representations of individuals are illustrated differently for one group as compared to another.

19. A method in accordance with claim 18, wherein representations of individuals in one group of the plurality of groups are shown larger as compared to representations of individuals in another group of the plurality of groups.

20. A method in accordance with claim 15, wherein the user interface is a Web interface.