SECURE CROSS-DOMAIN COMMUNICATION

• US 20120317238A1
• Filed: 10/21/2011
• Published: 12/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Beard, Evan
• Application Number:
  US13/279,087
• Publication Number:
  US 20120317238A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers

Abstract

Methods, systems, and devices are provided for obtaining information from third-party domains over a network in a secure manner. One exemplary approach involves loading, by a first domain on a first computing system, a second domain in an inline frame within the first domain and providing a script location on a third domain to the second domain. The second domain executes the script location on the third domain, for example, by generating a cross-domain function call such as a JSONP request, to obtain object data and provides the object data to the first domain. In one embodiment, a virtual application on the first domain presents at least a portion of the object data from the third domain within a web browser on a client device concurrently to presenting tenant data obtained from a multi-tenant database.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of presenting information in a virtual application in a multi-tenant system, the virtual application being associated with a first domain, the method comprising:

loading, by the virtual application, a second domain within the virtual application;

providing, by the virtual application, a script location on a third domain to the second domain, wherein the second domain executes the script location on the third domain to obtain third-party data;

obtaining, by the virtual application, the third-party data from the second domain; and

presenting, by the virtual application, at least a portion of the third-party data within the virtual application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining, by the virtual application, second data from a multi-tenant database; and

presenting, by the virtual application, at least a portion of the second data within the virtual application concurrently to presenting the third-party data.

3. The method of claim 2, the virtual application comprises a customer relationship management application, wherein:

obtaining the second data comprises obtaining profile information for a selected contact from the multi-tenant database, the profile information including a third-party domain associated with the selected contact; and

providing the script location comprises providing the third-party domain to the second domain as the script location, wherein the second domain executes the third-party domain to obtain the third-party data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating, by a server coupled to a network, the virtual application within a web browser executing on a client device coupled to the network, the web browser accessing the first domain on the network, wherein;

the server is associated with the first domain on the network; and

presenting the portion of the third-party data within the virtual application comprises displaying the portion of the third-party data within the web browser on the client device.

5. The method of claim 4, the virtual application comprising a customer relationship management application, wherein the method further comprises:

obtaining, by the virtual application, profile information for a selected contact from a multi-tenant database coupled to the server;

generating, by the virtual application, a profile display for the selected contact within the web browser; and

displaying at least a portion of the profile information obtained from the multi-tenant database in a first region of the profile display, wherein;

the profile information includes a third-party domain associated with the selected contact;

providing the script location comprises providing the third-party domain to the second domain as the script location, wherein the second domain executes the third-party domain to obtain supplementary information associated with the selected contact from the third-party domain; and

displaying the portion of the third-party data within the web browser on the client device comprises displaying a portion of the supplementary information associated with the selected contact in a second region of the profile display.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein loading the second domain comprises loading an inline frame on the first domain having a source location corresponding to an addressed location on the second domain.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the inline frame comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) iframe element having its source (src) attribute equal to the addressed location.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein providing the script location comprises appending the script location to the addressed location as a hashtag parameter.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein providing the third-party data comprises:

setting a window name property of the inline frame to the third-party data; and

redirecting the inline frame to the first domain.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein executing the script location comprises generating a cross-domain call to the script location.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein executing the script location comprises making a JavaScript Object Notation with padding (JSONP) request to the script location.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein making the JSONP request comprises loading, by the second domain, a script corresponding to the script location.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the script comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) script element having its source (src) attribute equal to the script location.

14. A computing device comprising a processing system and a memory, wherein the memory comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, cause the computing device to:

provide a first domain on a network coupled to the computing device;

generate a virtual customer relationship management application on the first domain;

load, within the virtual customer relationship management application, a second domain on the network;

provide a script location on a third domain to the second domain, wherein the second domain executes the script location on the third domain to obtain object data; and

receive the object data from the second domain.

15. The computing device of claim 14, the virtual customer relationship management application being generated within a web browser on a client computing device coupled to the network, the web browser accessing the first domain, wherein the computer-executable instructions cause the computing device to display a graphical representation of the object data within the virtual customer relationship management application in the web browser.

16. A method of obtaining information over a network from a third-party domain for presentation by a virtual application generated by a server in a multi-tenant system, the virtual application being provided to a client device coupled to the network, the client device executing a web browser accessing a first domain on the network associated with the server, the method comprising:

loading, by the virtual application, a dummy web page on a dummy domain coupled to the network within a frame;

providing, by the virtual application, a script location on the third-party domain to the dummy web page, wherein the dummy web page executes the script location to obtain third-party data;

receiving, by the virtual application, the third-party data from the dummy web page; and

generating, by the virtual application, a display within the web browser, wherein the display includes a graphical representation of at least a portion of the third-party data.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising obtaining, by the virtual application, tenant data from a multi-tenant database coupled to the server, wherein the display includes a graphical representation of at least a portion of the tenant data.

18. The method of claim 17, the tenant data including an address on the third- party domain, wherein providing the script location comprises providing the address from the tenant data to the dummy web page, the dummy web page executing the address to obtain the third-party data.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the virtual application comprises a customer relationship management application configured to generate the display by:

displaying the portion of the tenant data in a primary region within the web browser; and

displaying the portion of the third-party data in a secondary region within the web browser.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the frame comprises a hypertext markup language (HTML) iframe element having its source (src) attribute equal to a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the dummy web page;

the script location comprises a second URL on the third-party domain; and

the dummy web page executes the script location by evaluating a HTML script element having its src attribute equal to the second URL.