Managing changes in a relationship management system

• US 7,590,663 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2003
• Issued: 09/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RELX Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Original Assignee: RELX Inc. (RELX PLC)
• Inventors: Hamer, Terry
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz; Apu M
• Assistant Examiner(s): DAYE, CHELCIE L
• Application Number:
  US10/675,431
• Publication Number:
  US 20040128321A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,177 Days
• Field of Search: 707/101, 707/104.1, 709/200
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A relationship management system stores multiple versions of contact information for a particular contact by storing the contact information that is available to all of the users of system that know a particular contact in a firm collection and by storing information about the particular contact that is available to a limited number of users that know the particular contact in one or more user collections. When changes are made to the firm collection for a particular contact, which can occur automatically when any user changes the contact file for that contact within his or her user collection, the change is reflected back to each of the users a having contact file for that contact within their user collection. The same change may be automatically made to each of the contact files within the user collections or may be reported to the users and allow the users to accept or reject the same change to the user collections owned by those users. Preferably, each user can control or specify, on a contact by contact basis, how a change to the firm collection for a contact effects or is reflected within the contact file for that contact within that user'"'"'s user collection.

Claims

1. A relationship management system, comprising:

a first database that stores a plurality of user collections, wherein each user collection is accessible by a user of the system and includes one or more first contact files, each different first contact file within a particular user collection including contact data that is unique to that first contact file;

a second database that stores a firm collection, wherein each firm collection is accessible by an administrator of the system, the firm collection including a second contact file for each different first contact file included in the plurality of user collections, each second contact file having at least a portion of data in common with one of the first contact files; and

an administration routine stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor to detect a change made to the common data of one of the first contact files within one or more of the plurality of user collections, to generate an event action in response to detecting the change, and to send a message including the event action to the administrator of the system, wherein the changed common data includes contact data pertaining to one or more contacts other than the user with access to the changed user collection;

a change management routine stored in the memory and adapted to be executed on the processor to receive a response to the event action from the administrator, and to process the response by

making the change to the common data of the corresponding second contact file within the firm collection and to provide an option to make the change to the common data of the remaining user collections.

2. The relationship management system of claim 1, wherein the change management routine includes a user collection change routine adapted to make a change to the common data of a contact file associated with the particular contact within a second one of the user collections based on the change made to the common data of the corresponding second contact file associated with the particular contact within the firm collection.

3. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the event action includes a message to the administrator reflecting the nature of the detected change made to one of the contact files associated with a particular contact within one or more of the plurality of user collections.

4. The relationship management system of claim 3, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to enable the administrator to accept or reject the detected change before the administration routine makes the change to the common data of the corresponding second contact file associated with the particular contact within the firm collection.

5. The relationship management system of claim 3, wherein the administration routine includes a rule database that stores rules pertaining to the manner in which the detected change is to be processed.

6. The relationship management system of claim 5, wherein the rules are changeable by the administrator.

7. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect a suspected error within the detected change.

8. The relationship management system of claim 7, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to provide a message to the administrator reflecting a description of the suspected error within the detected change.

9. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein each of the user collections includes a change attribute that specifies a manner in which a change made to the common data of the firm collection is to be reflected within the user collection.

10. The relationship management system of claim 9, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be automatically made to the user collection.

11. The relationship management system of claim 9, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be reported to a user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

12. The relationship management system of claim 9, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be accepted by the user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists before being made to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

13. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein each of the user collections includes a visibility field that specifies if a change made to a contact file within the user collection is to be shared with the firm collection.

14. The relationship management system of claim 13, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of one of the contact information fields.

15. The relationship management system of claim 13, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of an entire contact file.

16. The relationship management system of claim 1, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect the addition of the first contact file for a contact within one of the user collections for which the second contact file already exists within the firm collection.

17. The relationship management system of claim 2, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect a user request for the administrator to make a change to the firm collection.

18. A relationship management system, comprising:

a database that stores a plurality of user collections, wherein each user collection is accessible by a user of the system and includes one or more first contact files, with the different first contact files within a particular user collection having data pertaining to a different contact, the database further storing a firm collection, wherein the firm collection is accessible by an administrator of the system, the firm collection including a second contact file corresponding to each different first contact file included in the plurality of user collections, wherein each second contact file within the firm collection has data that matches one of the contacts for which a first contact file exists within one or more of the plurality of user collections;

an administration routine stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor to detect a change made to one of the first contact files associated with a particular contact within one or more of the plurality of user collections, to generate an event action in response to detecting the change, and to send a message including the event action to the administrator of the system, wherein the changed common data includes contact data pertaining to one or more contacts other than the user with access to the changed user collection; and

a change management routine stored in the memory and adapted to be executed on the processor to receive a response to the event action from the administrator, and to process the response by making the change to the corresponding second contact file within the firm collection and the common data of the second user collection.

19. The relationship management system of claim 18, wherein the change management routine includes a user collection change routine adapted to make a change to common data of a first contact file associated with the particular contact within a second one of the user collections based on the change made to the common data of the corresponding second contact file associated with the particular contact within the firm collection.

20. The relationship management system of claim 18, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to provide the message to the administrator at an administrator interface, the message reflecting the nature of the detected change made to one of the contact files associated with a particular contact within one or more of the plurality of user collections.

21. The relationship management system of claim 20, wherein the administrator interface is adapted to enable the administrator to accept or reject the detected change before the administration routine makes the change to the common data of the corresponding second contact file associated with the particular contact within the firm collection.

22. The relationship management system of claim 20, wherein the administration routine includes a rule database that stores rules pertaining to the manner in which the detected change is to be processed.

23. The relationship management system of claim 22, wherein the rules are changeable by the administrator.

24. The relationship management system of claim 19, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect a suspected error within the detected change.

25. The relationship management system of claim 24, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to provide a message to the administrator reflecting a description of the suspected error within the detected change.

26. The relationship management system of claim 19, wherein each of the user collections includes a change attribute that specifies a manner in which a change made to the firm collection is to be reflected within the user collection.

27. The relationship management system of claim 26, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be automatically made to the user collection.

28. The relationship management system of claim 26, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be reported to a user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

29. The relationship management system of claim 26, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be accepted by the user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists before being made to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

30. The relationship management system of claim 19, wherein each of the user collections includes a visibility field that specifies if a change made to a contact file within the user collection is to be shared with the firm collection.

31. The relationship management system of claim 30, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of one of the contact information fields.

32. The relationship management system of claim 30, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of an entire contact file.

33. The relationship management system of claim 19, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect the addition of the first contact file for a contact within one of the user collections for which the second contact file already exists within the firm collection.

34. The relationship management system of claim 19, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect a user request for the administrator to make a change to the firm collection.

36. The relationship management system of claim 34, wherein the administration routine includes a rule database that stores rules pertaining to the manner in which the detected change is to be processed.

37. The relationship management system of claim 36, wherein the rules are changeable by the administrator.

38. The relationship management system of claim 34, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to process the detected change to detect a suspected error within the detected change.

39. The relationship management system of claim 38, wherein the administration routine is further adapted to provide a message to the administrator reflecting the nature of the suspected error within the detected change.

35. A relationship management system, comprising:

a database that stores a plurality of first contact files accessible to a user of the system and a second contact file for each different first contact file, the second contact file accessible by an administrator of the system, wherein each of the second contact files includes data in common with a corresponding first contact file;

an administration routine stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor to detect a change made to the common data of one of the first contact files, to generate an event action in response to detecting the change, and to provide a message to the administrator of the system including the event action, wherein the changed common data includes contact data pertaining to one or more contacts other than the user with access to the changed plurality of first contact files; and

a change management routine stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor to receive a response to the event action from the administrator, and to process the response by making the change to the second contact file that includes the data in common with the corresponding first contact file.

40. A relationship management system, comprising:

a processor in communication with a memory and a server via an information network, the information network including a plurality of user interfaces and one or more administrator interfaces and employing a communication protocol to facilitate communication between the processor, the memory, the server, and the plurality of user and administrator interfaces, wherein each of the user and administrator interfaces includes a display routine for creating a user interface screen for display on a user interface display screen and an administrator interface screen for display on an administrator interface display screen and an access routine for communicating with the server via the information network, and the display routine and the access routine facilitate at least one of accessing, storing, deleting, changing, and managing a first database and a second database;

the first database stored in the memory and including a first user collection accessible to a first user of the system and second user collection accessible to a second user of the system, each user collection including one or more contact files, with the different contact files within each user collection having data pertaining to different contacts; and

the second database stored in the server and including a firm collection accessible to an administrator of the system, the firm collection including a duplicate contact file for each different contact file included in the first user collection and the second user collection, wherein each of the duplicate contact files within the firm collection includes data associated with one of the contacts for which a contact file exists within one or more of the first and second user collections;

wherein the first user collection stores one or more contact files associated with a particular contact, the second user collection stores one or more contact files associated with the particular contact, and the firm collection stores the duplicate contact file associated with the particular contact file stored within the first and second user collections;

an administration routine stored in the memory and executed by the processor, wherein the administration routine detects when the first user makes a change to the one or more contact files associated with the particular contact within the first user collection, generates an event action in response to detecting the change, the event action consisting of an accept action, a review action, a submit action, or a follow-up action, and sends a message including the event action to the administrator interface, wherein the changed contact file includes data pertaining to one or more contacts other than the first user with access to the changed first user collection;

wherein the message to the administrator interface includes information related to the nature of the change made to the one or more contact files associated with the particular contact within the first user collection;

a change management routine stored in the memory and executed by the processor wherein the change management routine receives a response to the event action from the administrator interface, and processes the response by one or more of approving, rejecting, or following-up on the event action with the second user having the second user collection that includes the common data;

wherein, upon approving the change, the relationship management system makes a corresponding change to the duplicate contact file associated with the particular contact within the firm collection.

41. The relationship management system of claim 40, wherein each user collection is accessible by a different user and further comprising a display routine stored on a computer-readable medium, wherein the display routine is adapted to display the data pertaining to different contacts stored within each user collection to the user having access to the user collection.

42. The relationship management system of claim 40, wherein the firm collection is administered by the administrator.

43. The relationship management system of claim 40, wherein each of the user collections includes a change attribute that specifies a manner in which a change made to the firm collection is to be reflected within the user collection.

44. The relationship management system of claim 43, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be automatically made to the user collection.

45. The relationship management system of claim 43, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be reported to a user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

46. The relationship management system of claim 43, wherein the change attribute, when set to a first value, specifies that a change to the firm collection is to be accepted by the user having access to the user collection for which the change attribute exists before being made to the user collection for which the change attribute exists.

47. The relationship management system of claim 40, wherein each of the user collections includes a visibility field that specifies if a change made to a contact file within the user collection is to be shared with the firm collection.

48. The relationship management system of claim 47, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of one of the contact information fields.

49. The relationship management system of claim 47, wherein each of the contact files includes a plurality of contact information fields and wherein the visibility flag specifies a visibility of an entire contact file.