LIMITING ACCESS TO ASSET MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

• US 20130191417A1
• Filed: 03/12/2013
• Published: 07/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trimble Inc.
• Original Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Petrie, Robert William, Wallace, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 9,753,970 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/783
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A system for limiting access to asset management information is disclosed. According to one embodiment, information is received from a first reporting source about an asset. Information from a second reporting source about the asset is also recited. The information from the first reporting source and the information from the second reporting source is stored in a database such that the information from the first reporting source and the information from the second reporting source can be accessed from the database. A first entity is enabled to access a first subset of the information stored in the database while a second entity is not allowed to access the first subset of the information stored in the database.

Claims

1. An asset management system comprising:

an information storer for storing information from a first reporting source about an asset and information from a second reporting source about the asset in a database; and

a selective information access provider comprising a permission module configured to enable a first entity to access a first subset of the information stored in the database while not allowing a second entity to access the first subset of the information stored in the database, wherein the selective information access provider is coupled to the information storer.

2. The asset management system of claim 1, wherein the permission module uses permissions to enable the first entity to access the first subset while not allowing the second entity to access the first subset.

3. The asset management system of claim 2, wherein associations between control fields and data fields are used to implement the permissions and wherein the data fields include the stored information about the assets.

4. The asset management system of claim 3, wherein control fields for the first entity and the second entity include unique passwords.

5. The asset management system of claim 1, wherein the selective information access provider uses user preferences to determine what subset of the stored information will be accessed.