SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR INTERACTING WITH RECORDS VIA A PUBLISHER AND AN INFORMATION FEED

• US 20140282101A1
• Filed: 07/16/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Beechuk, Scott D., Tamm, Steven, Kjellberg, Orjan, Hale, Shannon, Nguyen, Khanh Kim P., Gradin, William, Mieritz, Anna Bonner, Maples, Beril Guvendik, Johnson, Gregg, Waite, Andrew, Krishnan, Arvind, Snyder, Benjamin, Ball, Luke A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,063,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/14 Tree-structured documents parsing G06F40/205; validation G06F40/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/01 Customer relationship services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/00 Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits

Abstract

Disclosed are methods, apparatus, systems, and computer readable storage media for interacting with one or more records via a single user interface. The user interface includes a publisher and an information feed. A user may request to interact with a first record from the publisher. Information may be submitted through the publisher to interact with the first record to update the record. A feed item may be presented for inclusion in the information feed based on the update, where the feed item includes one or more actionable selections providing a reference to the first record. When a user selects one of the actionable selections, the user can perform additional interactions with the first record or perform a new interaction with a second record.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of interacting with one or more records from a single user interface in an online social network, comprising:

providing, by a computing device, data to generate a user interface including a publisher, wherein the publisher is configured to publish information to an information feed;

receiving, at the computing device, a request to interact with a first record from the publisher, wherein the first record is related to a parent record stored in a database system;

receiving, at the computing device, first information associated with the first record from the publisher;

updating the database system based on the first information associated with the first record;

presenting a feed item associated with the update based on the first information for inclusion in the information feed in the user interface, the feed item including one or more actionable selections providing a reference to the first record;

receiving a user input selecting at least one of the one or more actionable selections;

receiving, at the computing device, second information associated with the first record or a second record from the publisher; and

updating the database system based on the second information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the first record and the second record is a customer relationship management (CRM) object, wherein the CRM object is one of:

a lead, a case, an account, an opportunity, a task, a contact, a campaign, a contract, an event, a custom object, and a Visualforce page.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the request to interact with the first record, causing the publisher to display one or more data fields of the first record, the one or more data fields configured to receive the first information associated with the first record.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the user input selecting the at least one of the one or more actionable selections, causing the publisher to display one or more publisher actions of the second record; and

receiving a request to interact with the second record in response to selection of at least one of the one or more publisher actions of the second record, wherein the second record is related to at least one of the first record or the parent record stored in the database system.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the user input selecting at least one of the one or more actionable selections, performing an operation having reference to the first record using the second information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the operation includes at least one of creating a task, updating a task, creating an opportunity, updating an opportunity, creating a contact, updating a contact, creating a case, updating a case, creating an account, updating an account, creating an event, updating an event, logging a call, logging a task, logging a bug, creating an email, writing a note, creating a poll, closing a case, completing a task, closing a bug, sending an email, submitting an email for approval, posting to a portal, posting to a social network, adding a link, and adding a “

Thanks”

.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein updating the database system based on the first information includes at least one of:

creating the first record, deleting the first record, editing data associated with the first record, logging an action to the first record, converting the first record, attaching a file to the first record, and viewing information associated with the first record.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the publisher includes a custom action configured to interact with the first record, and wherein the request to interact with the first record includes:

receiving, at the computing device, a first user input selecting the custom action.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the user has permission to interact with the first record.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein determining that the user has permission includes:

identifying one or more user attributes of a profile of the user;

identifying one or more record attributes of the first record; and

comparing the one or more user attributes with the one or more record attributes to determine that the user has permission to interact with the first record.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

presenting another feed item associated with the update based on the second information for inclusion in the information feed, wherein said another feed item includes another one or more actionable selections providing another reference to the publisher and the second record.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the publisher includes:

one or more publisher actions;

a message body configured to provide a message content in the feed item;

a publisher space associated with the one or more publisher extensions and configured to provide the first information or the second information; and

a publisher component configured to transmit the message content with the first information or the second information to the database system.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining, by the computing device, dimensions of the publisher in the user interface; and

defining, by the computing device, a layout of the publisher in the user interface.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the feed item associated with the update based on the first information is included in at least one of:

a record feed having a parent-child relationship with the first record, a record feed of the first record, a news feed of the user, a news feed of an entity following the user, and a news feed of an entity subscribing to the first record.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the feed item associated with the update based on the second information is included in at least one of:

a record feed having a parent-child relationship with the second record, a record feed of the second record, a news feed of the user, a news feed of an entity following the user, and a news feed of an entity subscribing to the second record.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the publisher is configured to transmit the first information or the second information to update the database system via an application programming interface (API).

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the API is configured for mobile display devices.

18. One or more computing devices for interacting with one or more records from a single user interface in an online social network, the one or more computing devices comprising:

one or more processors configured to execute one or more instructions to;

provide data to generate a user interface including a publisher, wherein the publisher is configured to publish information to an information feed;

receive a request to interact with a first record from the publisher, wherein the first record is related to a parent record stored in a database system;

receive first information associated with the first record from the publisher;

update the database system based on the first information associated with the first record;

present a feed item associated with the update based on the first information for inclusion in an information feed in the user interface, the feed item including one or more actionable selections providing a reference to the first record;

receive a user input selecting at least one of the one or more actionable selections;

receive second information associated with the first record or a second record from the publisher; and

update the database system based on the second information.

19. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein each of the first record and the second record is a customer relationship management (CRM) object, wherein the CRM object is one of:

a lead, a case, an account, an opportunity, a task, a contact, a campaign, a contract, an event, a custom object, and a Visualforce page.

20. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute one or more instructions to:

after receiving the request to interact with the first record, cause the publisher to display one or more data fields of the first record, the one or more data fields configured to receive the first information associated with the first record.

21. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors configured to execute the one or more instructions to update the database system based on the first information include one or more instructions to perform at least one of:

create the first record, delete the first record, edit data associated with the first record, log an action to the first record, convert the first record, attach a file to the first record, and view information associated with the first record.

22. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the publisher includes a custom action configured to interact with the first record, and wherein the one or more processors configured to execute one or more instructions to receive a request to interact with the first record includes one or more instructions to:

receive a first user input selecting the custom action.

23. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors are configured to execute one or more instructions to:

determine that the user has permission to interact with the first record.

24. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the feed item associated with the update based on the first information is included in at least one of:

a record feed having a parent-child relationship with the first record, a record feed of the first record, a news feed of the user, a news feed of an entity following the user, and a news feed of an entity subscribing to the first record.

25. The one or more computing devices of claim 18, wherein the publisher is configured to transmit the first information or the second information to update the database system via an application programming interface (API).

26. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by a computing device to perform a method to interact with one or more records from a single user interface in an online social network, the method comprising:

providing, by a computing device, data to generate a user interface including a publisher, wherein the publisher is configured to publish information to an information feed;

receiving, at a computing device, a request to interact with a first record from the publisher, wherein the first record is related to a parent record stored in a database system;

receiving, at the computing device, first information associated with the first record from the publisher;

updating the database system based on the first information associated with the first record;

presenting a feed item associated with the update based on the first information for inclusion in an information feed in the user interface, the feed item including one or more actionable selections providing a reference to the first record;

receiving a user input selecting at least one of the one or more actionable selections;

receiving, at the computing device, second information associated with the first record or a second record from the publisher; and

updating the database system based on the second information.

27. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein each of the first record and the second record is a customer relationship management (CRM) object, wherein the CRM object is one of:

a lead, a case, an account, an opportunity, a task, a contact, a campaign, a contract, an event, a custom object, and a Visualforce page.