PERSISTENT USER PERSONALIZATION

• US 20160149988A1
• Filed: 11/25/2014
• Published: 05/26/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Pang, Li
• Granted Patent: US 10,452,757 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• 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 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating personalization of one or more multi-instance software applications in a networked enterprise computing environment. An example method includes providing a first user option to specify one or more adjustments to a rendering of a software application; identifying one or more servers that are employed to obtain content for the rendering; and selectively providing information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers, such that the one or more adjustments appear in a rendering provided when a user accesses the software application from any of the one or more servers. In a more specific embodiment, the information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers include customization metadata (also called personalization metadata) stored on a first server, called the gateway server.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating customizing of one or more software applications in an enterprise computing environment, the enterprise computing environment including one or more client devices in communication with a server system, wherein the server system executes webpage software, wherein the webpage software provides webpage information accessible to the one or more client devices, wherein one or more servers of the server system perform the following:

providing a first user option to specify one or more adjustments to a rendering of a multi-instance software application;

identifying the one or more servers, which are employed to obtain content for the rendering; and

selectively providing information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers to enable the one or more servers to implement the one or more adjustments to the rendering in accordance with the information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a User Interface (UI) display screen of the software application is adapted to display the rendering and is user accessible via a client device in communication with one or more servers hosting the software application.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers include customization metadata stored on a first server.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first server includes a gateway server.

5. The method of claim 3, further including:

receiving user input to customize a User Interface (UI) display screen that displays content derived from plural servers; and

synchronizing customization metadata between the plural servers, wherein each of the plural servers is adapted to provide a portion of content that is user accessible via an aggregated UI display screen.

6. The method of claim 5, further including:

accumulating webpage metadata from the plural servers, resulting in accumulated metadata;

combining the accumulated metadata with synchronized user customization metadata; and

employing the combined metadata to render the aggregated UI display screen.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the plural servers include one or more servers that are part of a same or similar server cluster.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more servers form part of a server cluster.

9. The method of claim 8, further including providing the first user option to specify one or more adjustments, via a User Interface (UI) display screen rendered in response to communication of the client device with a first server of the server cluster.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first server of the server cluster includes a gateway server.

11. The method of claim 8, further including providing second user option to access a UI screen presenting aggregated content from plural servers of the server cluster.

12. The method of claim 11, further including automatically accessing customization metadata representing the information specifying one or more adjustments for each application of the server cluster for which content and functionality thereof is to be rendered in an aggregated User Interface (UI) display screen.

13. The method of claim 12, further including collecting accessed customization metadata, and omitting redundant customization metadata from collected customization metadata, resulting in merged customization metadata in response thereto.

14. The method of claim 13, further including collecting content to be rendered via an aggregated UI display screen from one or more servers of the server cluster, resulting in collected content in response thereto.

15. The method of claim 14, further including employing the merged customization metadata and the collected content to facilitate rendering the aggregated UI display screen.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the software application includes:

an interaction hub running on a first server system;

a financials application running on a second server system;

a human resources application running on a third server system; and

an enterprise learning application running on a fourth server system of the server cluster.

17. The method of claim 1, further including pushing customization metadata for an aggregated User Interface (UI) display screen to all servers that act as content sources for content presented via the UI display screen.

18. The method of claim 17, further including:

employing a content server to adjust UI display screen content and customization information; and

employing an access gateway server to;

collect UI display screen metadata with customization data applied for the access gateway server;

get UI display screen metadata from UI display screen metadata handlers in all content servers serving content for the aggregated UI display screen;

merge UI display screen metadata and customization metadata and remove duplicate data;

merge UI display screen content (removing duplicate content), resulting in merged UI display screen content; and

employ merged UI display screen metadata, customization data, and merged content to generate UI display screen markup.

19. An apparatus for facilitating customization of one or more software applications in an enterprise computing environment, the enterprise computing environment including one or more client devices in communication with a server system, wherein the server system executes webpage software, wherein the webpage software provides webpage information accessible to one or more client devices, one or more servers of the server system configured to perform the following acts:

providing a first user option to specify one or more adjustments to a rendering of a software application;

identifying the one or more servers, which are employed to obtain content for the rendering; and

selectively providing information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers to enable the one or more servers to implement the one or more adjustments to the rendering in accordance with the information.

20. A tangible storage medium including instructions executable by one or more servers of a server system for facilitating customization of one or more software applications in an enterprise computing environment, the enterprise computing environment including one or more client devices in communication with the server system, wherein the server system executes webpage software, wherein the webpage software provides webpage information accessible to one or more client devices, the tangible storage medium including instructions for:

providing a first user option to specify one or more adjustments to a rendering of a software application;

identifying the one or more servers, which are employed to obtain content for the rendering; and

selectively providing information specifying the one or more adjustments to the one or more servers to enable the one or more servers to implement the one or more adjustments to the rendering in accordance with the information.