SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VARIANT CONTENT MANAGEMENT

• US 20150066801A1
• Filed: 09/02/2014
• Published: 03/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Messagepoint, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Prinova, Inc
• Inventors: WALLACE, Matthew, LEHMAN, Andrew, JANSSEN, Jeff
• Granted Patent: US 10,990,924 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/342
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements

Abstract

A machine implemented method and system for managing variation and customization of content or touchpoints for customer communications management. The touchpoint has a plurality of message zones able to receive messages from variants. Variants are selected from a database by a variant selector operating on a document composition server. The variants are selected based on selector data. The messages of the selected variant are placed into the message zones of the touchpoint and rendered for distribution to customer devices. When a variant at a higher level in the hierarchy is edited by the content creator, the system automatically updates dependent variants.

Claims

1. A system for composing a touchpoint, comprising:

a hierarchical database of variants having plurality of variants, the database stored on a computer readable medium and accessible by a document composition server;

wherein each of the variants comprises at least one message and variation selector data;

a set of selection data on the computer readable medium and accessible by the document composition server;

computer executable instructions on the computer readable medium for;

querying the database of variants by a variation selector that selects a variant based on a match between the variation selector data and the selection data;

retrieving the selected variant from the database of variants;

rendering the touchpoint by placing the messages of the selected variant into a plurality of message zones of the touchpoint; and

distributing the touchpoint to at least one customer device.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the variation selector iteratively removes data elements from the selection data until the selection data matches a variation selector data in order to select the variant.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein if the variation selector has removed all of the data elements from the selection data, choosing a default template having at least one default message and rendering the touchpoint by placing the messages of the default template into the plurality of message zones of the touchpoint.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy are inherited from the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy are customized from the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy suppress the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein the message comprises a message envelope and a message content.

8. The system according to claim 7, wherein the message envelope contains targeting criteria, timing criteria, and priority criteria.

9. The system according to claim 7, wherein the message content comprises:

graphical, audio, video, or textual data.

10. The system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one customer device is selected from at least one of a display, a laptop, a personal computer, a mobile phone, an AFP print streams for printing via high volume printers, and PDF output for archiving or electronic delivery.

11. A machine implemented method for composing a touchpoint comprising:

providing a database of variants having a hierarchy stored on a computer readable medium and accessible by a document composition server;

wherein each variant comprises at least one message and variation selector data;

providing a set of selection data on the computer readable medium and accessible by the document composition server;

querying the database of variants by a variation selector operating on the document composition server;

selecting a variant based on a match between the variation selector data and the selection data;

retrieving the selected variant from the database of variants;

rendering the touchpoint by placing the messages of the selected variant into a plurality of message zones of the touchpoint; and

distributing the touchpoint to at least one customer device.

12. The method according to claim 11, further comprising iteratively removing data elements from the selection data until the selection data matches a variant from the database of variants in order to select the variant.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising the step of:

when removing all of the data elements from the selection data, choosing a default template having at least one default message as the selected variant.

14. The method according to claim 11 further comprising the step of:

inheriting at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy from the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

15. The method according to claim 11 further comprising the step of:

customizing at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy from the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

16. The method according to claim 11 further comprising the step of:

suppressing at least a portion of the messages of variants lower in the hierarchy from the messages of variants higher in the hierarchy.

17. The method according to claim 11, wherein the message comprises a message envelope and a message content.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein the message envelope contains targeting criteria, timing criteria, and priority criteria.

19. The system according to claim 17, wherein the message content comprises:

graphical, audio, video, or textual data.

20. The system according to claim 11, wherein the at least one customer device is selected from at least one of a display, a laptop, a personal computer, a mobile phone, an AFP print streams for printing via high volume printers, and PDF output for archiving or electronic delivery.

21. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions thereon, which when executed by a computer system:

displays a user interface on a display for a user to modify a message contained in an edited variant;

queries a list of variants by a content creator computer for variants dependent on the edited variant; and

updates a corresponding message in each of the dependent variants by the content creator computer.

22. The computer readable medium according to claim 21, wherein the updating does not change messages that have a setting of suppress or customize.

23. The computer readable medium according to claim 21, wherein the updating changes the corresponding message of each of the descendent variants to match the modified message.