DYNAMIC CONTACTS LIST MANAGEMENT

• US 20110231407A1
• Filed: 03/19/2010
• Published: 09/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Amit, Kwan, Cindy, Zhou, Dejun, Liang, Rui, Raghav, Amritansh
• Granted Patent: US 8,577,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/748
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/043 using or handling presence information
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/2746 Sorting, e.g. according to history or frequency of use

Abstract

Contacts lists are dynamically managed in association with communication and collaboration applications and devices. Automated and user defined factors are determined based on information from various resources such as user profile, contact information, past communication information, application/device types, and comparable ones. Factors may be weighted and employed to prioritize contacts lists under different circumstances. Prioritized contacts lists may be provided to a user, stored, updated, or otherwise processed.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for dynamically managing contacts lists information in a multimodal communication system, the method comprising:

determining a user'"'"'s profile;

determining contact information associated with contacts in a contacts list for the user;

computing weighted factors for each of the contacts based on the contact information;

computing an overall weight for each contact based on the weighted factors associated with each contact;

dynamically ordering the contacts list based on the overall weight of each contact in the contacts list; and

presenting the ordered contacts list to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s profile includes information associated with at least one from a set of:

relationships explicitly defined by the user, current time of day for the user, current day of week for the user, current location of the user, application capabilities for the user, device capabilities for the user, and explicit user preferences.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the contact information includes information associated with at least one from a set of:

relationships explicitly defined by the contacts, current time of day for the contacts, current day of week for the contacts, current location of the contacts, application capabilities for the contacts, device capabilities for the contacts, and past communication patterns with the contacts.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the past communication patterns include at least one from a set of:

a frequency of communication, a duration of each past communication session, a time of day for each past communication session, a day of week for each past communication session, a modality of each past communication session, a modality of future activities scheduled in the past, a number of participants in each past communication session, and an initiator of each past communication session.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the modality of the past communication sessions and future activities scheduled in the past includes one of:

a voice communication, a video communication, an email conversation, an instant message conversation, a data collaboration session, an application sharing session, a whiteboard sharing session, a multimodal conversation, and a multimodal conference.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the initiator of the past communication sessions includes one of:

the user, the contact, and a third party.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining additional information associated with the multimodal communication system for computing the weighted factors, wherein the additional information includes at least one of;

a network condition and an administrative rule.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

filtering the contact list based on a signaling protocol supported by a communication application of each contact and the user.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

categorizing contacts on the contacts list based on the weighted factors.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining infrequently communicated contacts based on the weighted factors; and

providing the user a reminder about the infrequently communicated contacts.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

automatically removing the infrequently communicated contacts from the contacts list.

12. A communication system for dynamically managing contacts lists in a multimodal communication system, the system comprising:

a server configured to;

determine a user'"'"'s profile;

determine contact information associated with contacts in a contacts list for the user;

compute weighted factors for each of the contacts based on the contact information;

compute an overall weight for each contact based on the weighted factors associated with each contact;

dynamically order the contacts list based on the overall weight of each contact in the contacts list;

make the contact list available in a unified contact store to a communication application associated with the user, wherein the contact list is reordered based on a capability of the communication application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the server is further configured to create a contact object with an extensible schema for each contact for storing weighted factors associated with each contact.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the server maintains a contacts list cache for computing the overall weight for each of the contacts, the cache being shared by a plurality of applications and devices associated with the user.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of applications and devices associated with the user are provided a user interface to modify the computation of the weighted factors and the overall weights of the contacts.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the contacts list is customized and reordered for each of the plurality of applications and devices rendering the contacts list.

17. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for dynamically managing contacts list information in a communication system, the instructions comprising:

determining a user'"'"'s profile;

determining contact information associated with contacts in a contacts list for the user;

determining additional information associated with past communication sessions between the user and the contacts;

computing weighted factors for each of the contacts based on the user'"'"'s profile, the contact information, and the additional information;

computing an overall weight for each contact based on the weighted factors associated with each contact;

dynamically maintaining the weighted factors and the overall weight for each contact in contact objects according to an extensible schema;

ordering the contacts list using the contact objects; and

presenting the ordered contacts list to the user.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

determining the user'"'"'s profile, the contact information, and the additional information includes retrieving data from a plurality of communication and collaboration applications associated with the user.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein plurality of communication and collaboration applications are associated with at least one from a set of:

an enterprise communication system, a social networking system, and a private communication system.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise performing one of:

adding a new contact, removing an infrequently communicated contact, and providing the user a reminder about an infrequently communicated contact based on the user'"'"'s profile, the contact information, and the additional information.