Contact schema

• US 7,636,719 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2002
• Issued: 12/22/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Subotic, Dejan, Perlow, Jonathan D., Dunn, Melissa W., Thompson, J. Patrick, Cameron, Kim, Smith, Walter R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Breene; John E
• Assistant Examiner(s): COLAN, GIOVANNA B
• Application Number:
  US10/324,243
• Publication Number:
  US 20040122822A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,560 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/3, 707/104.1, 707/10, 707/5, 707/2, 707/100, 707/1, 705/1, 709/229, 709/204
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

A schema is provided that defines people, groups and organizations by their corresponding contact information and other related characteristics. The schema defines a person by personal data, name data, location data, and e-address data. A group is defined by group membership data and e-address data. An organization is defined by location data and by e-address data. The schema also defines role occupancies for interrelating the various contacts. The role occupancies are defined by role occupancy data that may include employee data, team member data, group membership data, family data, customer or business data, and other types of data that can link two or more contacts. By interrelating contacts based on role occupancies, the schema is able to provide rich querying of one or more databases for obtaining desired contact information.

Claims

1. A method for defining and relating a plurality of contacts having corresponding contact information stored on one or more storage media and based upon a predetermined schema, the method comprising:

an act of providing a predetermined schema for defining and interrelating a plurality of corresponding contacts, which include at least one person, at least one group and at least one organization, and based on the corresponding contact information stored in the one or more storage media;

an act of providing with the predetermined schema, data fields for defining a person with personal contact information within three person data elements, the three person data elements comprising;

an person e-address data element having an access point data field, an elocation descriptor data field, a start date data field and end date data field, a service type data field and a technology model category field;

a location data element having a region data field, a neighborhood data field, a street data field, a city data field, a postal code data field, a state or province data field, a country code data field and a mailstop data field, and

a name data element having a given name data field, a middle name data field, a surname data field, a title data field, a nickname data field, at least one phonetic yomi name data field;

a display name data field and a name type category data field;

wherein the three person data elements are hierarchically organized as children to a person class defined by a person name, a person type, a birthdate and a gender;

an act of providing with the predetermined schema, data fields for defining a group with group contact information within two group data elements, the two group data elements comprising;

a group e-address data element having an access point data field, an elocation descriptor data field, a start date data field and end date data field, a service type data field and a technology model category field, wherein the start date data field and the end date data field define a start and end date for which an e-address defined by the e-address data element is valid; and

a group membership data element having a capabilities data field for designating a person'"'"'s capability within the group and a membership type data field for defining a type of membership the person has within the group;

wherein the two group data elements are hierarchically organized as children to a group class defined by a group name and a group organization type;

an act of providing with the predetermined schema, data fields for defining an organization with organization contact information within two organization data elements, the two organization data elements comprising;

an organization e-address data element having an access point data field, an elocation descriptor data field, a start date data field and end date data field, a service type data field and a technology model category field; and

a location data element having a region data field, a neighborhood data field, a street data field, a city data field, a postal code data field, a state or province data field, a country code data field and a mailstop data field,

wherein the two organization data elements are hierarchically organized as children to an organization class defined by an organization name and an organization type,

an act of providing with the predetermined schema, role occupancies having corresponding role occupancy data fields for defining the role occupancies of the contacts, the role occupancies comprising relationships between contacts, and wherein at least one role occupancy and corresponding role occupancy data fields interrelate at least one person with at least one contact other than a person;

automatically defining at least one role occupancy for at least one contact that interrelates the at least one contact with at least one other contact and based on contact information extracted from at least one preexisting database; and

an act of accessing the predetermined schema with one or more interfaces to identify and display any of the person, group or organization contact information defined in accordance with the predetermined schema.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method further includes, for each person having contact information stored in the one or more storage media, an act using the predetermined schema to define corresponding personal data, name data, location data, and e-address data.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein the personal data includes birth date, gender designation, and an identity key.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method further includes an act, for each group having contact information stored in the one or more storage media, of defining corresponding group membership data and e-address data.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method further includes an act, for each organization having contact information stored in the one or more storage media, of defining corresponding location data and e-address data.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the relationship between the at least one person and at least one contact other than a person includes an employment relationship, and wherein the role occupancy data includes employee data corresponding with the at least one person.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the relationship between the at least one person and at least one contact other than a person includes a group relationship, and wherein the role occupancy data includes group membership data corresponding with the at least one person.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the relationship between the at least one person and at least one contact other than a person includes a team relationship, and wherein the role occupancy data includes team position data corresponding with the at least one person.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the relationship between the at least one person and at least one contact other than a person includes a family relationship, and wherein the role occupancy data includes family event data corresponding with the at least one person.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the relationship between the at least one person and at least one contact other than a person includes a business relationship, and wherein the role occupancy data includes at least one of consumer and provider data corresponding with the at least one person and the at least one contact other than a person.

11. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for implementing the method recited in claim 1.

12. A computer program product as recited in claim 11, wherein the one or more computer-readable media include system memory.

13. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein each contact defined by the predetermined schema is defined as a principal that is treated by the schema as a database item that can be copied, deleted, moved, opened and printed in a similar manner as a file and thereby enabling each contact to be categorized, placed in a folder, annotated, linked to, assigned properties and .made into an attachment.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the predetermined schema further includes additional data fields for defining the group comprising a data field for defining a size of the group and a data field for defining resources utilized by or available to the group.

15. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the a role occupancy data fields are contained within five role occupancy data elements, including an employee data element, a team member data element, a group member data element, a family data element and a customer data element.

16. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method includes using the schema to provide user access through the one or more interfaces to contact information stored in a plurality of different databases.

17. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the method includes using the schema to provide user access to the membership type data field that defines a type of membership a person has within a group membership data element and to thereby identify the membership the person has within the group to the user and wherein the method includes using the schema to provide user access to the neighborhood data field that defines a neighborhood a contact corresponds to and to thereby identify the corresponding neighborhood of the contact to the user.

18. The method recited in claim 1, wherein the method further includes assigning a valid term to the at least one role occupancy based on a start date and an end date for the at least one role occupancy.