System and Method for Organizing and Displaying Contacts

• US 20190155466A1
• Filed: 08/17/2018
• Published: 05/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/20/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Romek Figa
• Original Assignee: Romek Figa
• Inventors: Figa, Romek
• Granted Patent: US 10,642,457 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/08 Sorting, i.e. grouping record carriers in numerical or other ordered sequence according to the classification of at least some of the information they carry by merging two or more sets of carriers in ordered sequence G06F7/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A contact management system such as in a telephone or CRM system displays contact information from contact records based on a combination of contact record fields. In certain exemplary embodiments, contact records identified according to a Last Contacted field are prioritized based on a Last Activity field and are displayed in prioritized order via a graphical user interface, where the Last Contacted field of a record indicates the last time communication was made with that contact (e.g., via email or phone) and the Last Activity field of a record indicates the last time the contact record was updated in any of a variety of ways (e.g., last date of contact, or last time information in the record was edited by a user).

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising a tangible, non-transitory computer-readable medium having embodied therein a computer program for prioritized display of contact records which, when executed on a computer processor, causes the computer processor to implement a contact manager that is configured to perform computer processes comprising:

storing the contact records in a contact database, each contact record including a Last Contacted field providing a date of last contact and a Last Activity field providing a date of last activity;

identifying a set of contact records in the contact database based on the date of last contact from the Last Contacted field of each of the contact records;

sorting the identified set of contact records into a first prioritized order based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

displaying the sorted identified contact records via a graphical user interface in the first prioritized order.

2. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

providing, via the graphical user interface, a mechanism for a user to touch a selected contact record from among the displayed contact records;

receiving a touch input via the graphical user interface selecting a given contact record from among the displayed contact records; and

updating the Last Activity field of the given contact record to a current date.

3. The computer program product according to claim 2, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by clicking on the given contact record.

4. The computer program product according to claim 2, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by selecting a touch option from a menu displayed by the contact manager.

5. The computer program product according to claim 2, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

re-sorting the identified set of contact records into a second prioritized order to prioritize the identified set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

re-displaying the identified contact records via the graphical user interface in the second prioritized order.

6. The computer program product according to claim 2, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

removing the given contact record from the set of identified contact records to produce an updated set of contact records;

sorting the updated set of contact records into a third prioritized order to prioritize the updated set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the updated set of contact records; and

displaying the updated set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the third prioritized order.

7. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein identifying the set of contact records comprises:

receiving, via the graphical user interface, a date or date range; and

identifying the set of contact records based on the date or date range.

8. A contact management system comprising:

a contact database stored in a computer-readable medium;

a graphical user interface; and

at least one processor implementing a contact manager configured to perform computer processes comprising;

storing contact records in a contact database, each contact record including a Last Contacted field providing a date of last contact and a Last Activity field providing a date of last activity;

identifying a set of contact records in the contact database based on the date of last contact from the Last Contacted field of each of the contact records;

sorting the identified set of contact records into a first prioritized order based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

displaying the sorted identified contact records via the graphical user interface in the first prioritized order.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

providing, via the graphical user interface, a mechanism for a user to touch a selected contact record from among the displayed contact records;

receiving a touch input via the graphical user interface selecting a given contact record from among the displayed contact records; and

updating the Last Activity field of the given contact record to a current date.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by clicking on the given contact record.

11. The system according to claim 9, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by selecting a touch option from a menu displayed by the contact manager.

12. The system according to claim 9, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

re-sorting the identified set of contact records into a second prioritized order to prioritize the identified set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

re-displaying the identified set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the second prioritized order.

13. The system according to claim 9, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

removing the given contact record from the set of identified contact records to produce an updated set of contact records;

sorting the updated set of contact records into a third prioritized order to prioritize the updated set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the updated set of contact records; and

displaying the updated set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the third prioritized order.

14. The system according to claim 8, wherein identifying the set of contact records comprises:

receiving, via the graphical user interface, a date or date range; and

identifying the set of contact records based on the date or date range.

15. The system according to claim 8, wherein the contact manager and the contact database run on separate devices in communication over a communication system.

16. The system according to claim 8, wherein the contact manager provides the graphical user interface.

17. A computer-implemented method for prioritized display of contact records, the method using computer processes comprising:

storing the contact records in a contact database, each contact record including a Last Contacted field providing a date of last contact and a Last Activity field providing a date of last activity;

identifying a set of contact records in the contact database based on the date of last contact from the Last Contacted field of each of the contact records;

sorting the identified set of contact records into a first prioritized order based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

displaying the identified set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the first prioritized order.

18. The computer-implemented method according to claim 17, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

providing, via the graphical user interface, a mechanism for a user to touch a selected contact record from among the displayed contact records;

receiving a touch input via the graphical user interface selecting a given contact record from among the displayed contact records; and

updating the Last Activity field of the given contact record to a current date.

19. The computer-implemented method according to claim 18, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by clicking on the given contact record.

20. The computer-implemented method according to claim 18, wherein the mechanism allows a user to select the given contact record via the graphical user interface by selecting a touch option from a menu displayed by the contact manager.

21. The computer-implemented method according to claim 18, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

re-sorting the identified set of contact records into a second prioritized order to prioritize the identified set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the identified set of contact records; and

re-displaying the identified set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the second prioritized order.

22. The computer-implemented method according to claim 18, wherein the computer processes further comprise:

removing the given contact record from the set of identified contact records to produce an updated set of contact records;

sorting the updated set of contact records into a third prioritized order to prioritize the updated set of contact records based on the date of last activity from the Last Activity field of each of the updated set of contact records; and

displaying the updated set of contact records via the graphical user interface in the third prioritized order.

23. The computer-implemented method according to claim 17, wherein identifying the set of contact records comprises:

receiving, via the graphical user interface, a date or date range; and

identifying the set of contact records based on the date or date range.

24. A computer-implemented method for prioritized display of contact records, the method using computer processes comprising:

storing the contact records in a contact database, each contact record including a Last Activity field for storing a date of last activity;

causing display of a set of contact records from the contact database via a graphical user interface;

providing, via the graphical user interface, a touch option to allow a user to touch a selected contact record from among the displayed set of contact records without the user opening or editing the touched selected contact record; and

setting the Last Activity field of the touched selected contact record to a current date without the user opening or editing the touched selected contact record.

25. The computer-implemented method according to claim 24, wherein providing the touch option comprises:

providing a selectable icon along with each displayed contact record.

26. The computer-implemented method according to claim 24, wherein each contact record includes a Last Contacted field providing a date of last contact and the Last Activity field providing a date of last activity, and wherein causing display of a set of contact records from the contact database via a graphical user interface includes displaying, for each of the displayed set of contact records, the date of last contact from the Last Contacted field and the date of last activity from the Last Activity field.