METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ENABLING COLLABORATION BETWEEN ADVISORS AND CLIENTS

• US 20110137823A1
• Filed: 12/10/2010
• Published: 06/09/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 1, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Collaborate Solutions Incorporated
• Inventors: Robb, Paul H.
• Granted Patent: US 8,195,555 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/36.R
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

A common collaboration tool enables advisors, their clients and other participants to interact in a coordinated manner in various areas of interest. A client authorizes selected advisors as well as other participants to view, discuss, modify and perform other operations in response to the client'"'"'s request for services. A client defines the scope of authorization for advisors and/or other participants for security and confidentiality reasons. Advisors (and/or participants) access information submitted (or authorized) by the client to collaborate as a cohesive team in sharing information, devising a plan, addressing client'"'"'s concerns, drafting (or modifying) a document and performing other services for the client.

Claims

1-56. -56. (canceled)

57. A computer implemented method for enabling collaboration between advisors and clients, wherein one or more processors execute the method, which comprises:

receiving, from a client, one or more requests to define a collaboration team that includes one or more advisors associated with the client, wherein the one or more requests further define one or more scopes of authorization that provide the one or more advisors with selective authorization to access data associated with the client;

providing an electronic collaboration forum that stores the data associated with the client and enables collaboration between the one or more advisors and the client, wherein the electronic collaboration forum stores the data associated with the client and selectively provides the one or more advisors access to the stored data based on the one or more scopes of authorization defined in the one or more requests;

modifying one or more documents associated with the data stored in the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the one or more advisors access the one or more documents and modify the one or more documents via the electronic collaboration forum; and

providing the client access to the one or more modified documents via the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the electronic collaboration forum further selectively provides the one or more advisors access to the one or more modified documents based on the one or more scopes of authorization defined in the one or more requests.

58. The method of claim 57, wherein the one or more advisors download the data associated with the client from the electronic collaboration forum to access the data based on the one or more scopes of authorization.

59. The method of claim 57, further comprising tracking one or more actions associated with the one or more advisors accessing and modifying the one or more documents at the electronic collaboration forum.

60. The method of claim 57, further comprising scheduling one or more events associated with the collaboration team in response to one or more inputs that the client provides to a calendar function associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the one or more scheduled events relate to one or more advisor services that the client requests from the collaboration team.

61. The method of claim 60, further comprising scheduling interaction among the client and the collaboration team in response to one or more additional inputs that the one or more advisors provide to the calendar function associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the scheduled interaction relates to the collaboration team providing the one or more advisor services requested by the client.

62. The method of claim 61, further comprising providing the client and the collaboration team access to a chat board associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the client and the collaboration team interact with one another in a real-time online conference via the chat board to perform the scheduled interaction that relates to the one or more advisor services requested by the client.

63. The method of claim 62, further comprising displaying information associated with the client and the collaboration team performing the scheduled interaction that relates to the one or more advisor services requested by the client, wherein the electronic collaboration forum enables the client to view the displayed information associated with the client and the collaboration team performing the scheduled interaction.

64. The method of claim 61, wherein the one or more advisor services include the collaboration team collaboratively accessing and interacting with the stored data associated with the client to formulate a financial plan for the client.

65. The method of claim 57, further comprising:

defining one or more triggering events to alert the collaboration team in response to one or more inputs that the client provides to the electronic collaboration forum; and

notifying the collaboration team that the one or more triggering events have occurred in response to the electronic collaboration forum determining that the one or more triggering events have occurred.

66. The method of claim 57, wherein the one or more scopes of authorization provide the one or more advisors with read only access to the data associated with the client, read and write access to the data associated with the client, read, write, and delete access to the data associated with the client, or no access to the data associated with the client.

67. A computer implemented system for enabling collaboration between advisors and clients, wherein the system comprises one or more processors configured to:

receive, from a client, one or more requests to define a collaboration team that includes one or more advisors associated with the client, wherein the one or more requests further define one or more scopes of authorization that provide the one or more advisors with selective authorization to access data associated with the client;

provide an electronic collaboration forum configured to store the data associated with the client, enable collaboration between the one or more advisors and the client, and selectively provide the one or more advisors access to the stored data based on the one or more scopes of authorization defined in the one or more requests;

modify one or more documents associated with the data stored in the electronic collaboration forum in response to the one or more advisors accessing and modifying the one or more documents via the electronic collaboration forum; and

provide the client access to the one or more modified documents and selectively provide the one or more advisors access to the one or more modified documents via the electronic collaboration forum based on the one or more scopes of authorization defined in the one or more requests.

68. The system of claim 67, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to enable the one or more advisors to download the data associated with the client from the electronic collaboration forum to provide the one or more advisors access to the data based on the one or more scopes of authorization.

69. The system of claim 67, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to track one or more actions associated with the one or more advisors accessing and modifying the one or more documents via the electronic collaboration forum.

70. The system of claim 67, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to schedule one or more events associated with the collaboration team in response to the client providing one or more inputs to a calendar function associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the one or more scheduled events relate to one or more advisor services that the client requests from the collaboration team.

71. The system of claim 70, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to schedule interaction among the client and the collaboration team in response to the one or more advisors providing one or more additional inputs to the calendar function associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the scheduled interaction relates to the collaboration team providing the one or more advisor services requested by the client.

72. The system of claim 71, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to provide the client and the collaboration team access to a chat board associated with the electronic collaboration forum, wherein the access to the chat board enables the client and the collaboration team to interact with one another in a real-time online conference to perform the scheduled interaction that relates to the one or more advisor services requested by the client.

73. The system of claim 72, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to display information associated with the client and the collaboration team performing the scheduled interaction that relates to the one or more advisor services requested by the client and enable the client to view the displayed information associated with the client and the collaboration team performing the scheduled interaction.

74. The system of claim 71, wherein the one or more advisor services include the collaboration team collaboratively accessing and interacting with the stored data associated with the client to formulate a financial plan for the client.

75. The system of claim 67, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

define one or more triggering events to alert the collaboration team in response to the client providing one or more inputs to the electronic collaboration forum; and

notify the collaboration team that the one or more triggering events have occurred in response to determining that the one or more triggering events have occurred.

76. The system of claim 67, wherein the one or more scopes of authorization provide the one or more advisors with read only access to the data associated with the client, read and write access to the data associated with the client, read, write, and delete access to the data associated with the client, or no access to the data associated with the client.