Remote read-write access to disparate data stores

• US 7,853,590 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2005
• Issued: 12/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simpson, Russell L. Jr., Van Eaton, James R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jalil; Neveen Abel
• Assistant Examiner(s): Veillard; Jacques
• Application Number:
  US11/293,698
• Publication Number:
  US 20070130108A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,838 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24556 Aggregation; Duplicate elimination
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/289 Object oriented databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Providing a rich user experience on a network client in which personal information management (PIM) data from a plurality of data sources is aggregated and displayed to the user. An aggregation system connects to data sources and maps attributes of PIM data in the data sources to a common object model. An object of aggregated PIM data is created according to the mapped attributes. The aggregation system generates user interface data representing the created object and sends the user interface data to the network client for rendering.

Claims

1. A computerized method of an aggregation server comprising:

connecting the aggregation server to a plurality of data sources and establishing a separate link only between the aggregation server and each one of the data sources, each said data source providing calendar attributes corresponding to personal information management (PIM) data, each of the plurality of data sources being remote from the aggregation server, said connecting further comprising;

connecting the aggregation server to at least one mail server via a MAPI protocol; and

connecting the aggregation server to a local client to access Personal Storage Table (pst) files stored on said local client via web services of the local client;

accessing by the aggregation server the calendar attributes from the plurality of data sources;

mapping by the aggregation server each of the accessed attributes to a calendar object model, said calendar object model defining a singular representation of the plurality of data sources;

creating by the aggregation server a single object of aggregated PIM data as a function of the calendar object model;

generating by the aggregation server user interface data representing the created object;

sending by the aggregation server the generated user interface data to a network client of the local client for display;

modifying by the aggregation server the created object on the aggregation server responsive to receiving a communication from the network client when a modification is performed by a user via the displayed user interface of the network client;

identifying by the aggregation server at least one of a plurality of modified attributes of the modified object, said identifying further comprising identifying, via the calendar object model, a corresponding data source for each identified modified attribute;

updating by the aggregation server via the separate link between the aggregation server and each identified data source wherein each data source is updated with the corresponding modified attributes in response to the user'"'"'s performed modification;

receiving a request from the network client to copy particular data from one of the plurality of data sources to another of the plurality of data sources in response to user input;

copying the particular data from the one of the plurality of data sources to the other of the plurality of data sources via the aggregation server and responsive to receiving the request;

updating the created object responsive to copying the particular data;

creating updated user interface data; and

sending the updated user interface data to the network client for display.

2. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein communicating with the network client to modify the created object comprises communicating with the network client to modify the created object responsive to a drag-and-drop operation performed by a user on the network client.

3. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the generated user interface data represents a single view of calendar data merged from the plurality of data sources.

4. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein connecting to the plurality of data sources comprises connecting to each of the plurality of data sources via a different communication protocol.

5. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein one or more computer-readable storage media have computer-executable instructions for performing the computerized method of claim 1.

6. A computer-implemented system comprising:

a memory area storing an object model having a plurality of object model attributes corresponding to personal information management (PIM) data, said memory area further storing schema maps each being associated with at least one of a plurality of data sources providing PIM data, said data sources remote from the computer-implemented system and from each other, said plurality of data sources comprising at least one mail server and one or more personal storage table (pst) files stored on a network client, wherein each of the schema maps correlates the plurality of object model attributes to data source attributes associated with each of the data sources; and

a processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions for;

connecting to the plurality of data sources;

mapping the data source attributes from the plurality of data sources to the object model attributes as a function of the schema maps stored in the memory area;

creating a mail server object of aggregated PIM data as a function of the mapped data source attributes, said created mail server object including means for providing remote read-write access to the plurality of data sources, said mail server object defining an abstracted representation of the plurality of data sources;

generating user interface data representing the created mail server object;

sending the generated user interface data to the network client for display;

modifying the created mail server object responsive to user input on the generated user interface of the network client;

identifying a set of modified object model attributes of the modified mail server object, said identifying further comprising identifying, via the object model attributes, a plurality of data source attributes and their associated data sources correlating to the modified object model attributes;

modifying at least one of the associated data sources in response to the user input;

receiving a request from the network client to copy particular data from one of the plurality of data sources to another of the plurality of data sources in response to user input;

copying the particular data from the one of the plurality of data sources to the other of the plurality of data sources and responsive to receiving the request;

updating the created object responsive to copying the particular data;

creating updated user interface data; and

sending the updated user interface data to the network client for display.

7. The computer-implemented system of claim 6, wherein the network client comprises one or more of the following:

a computing device, an application program, a personal digital assistant, a wireless device, a telephone, and a laptop computer.

8. The computer-implemented system of claim 6, wherein the PIM data comprises one or more of the following:

calendar data, contacts data, task data, documents, and electronic mail.

9. The computer-implemented system of claim 6, wherein the generated user interface data comprises one or more of the following:

hypertext markup language data, presentation data, and extensible markup language data.

10. The computer-implemented system of claim 6, wherein the generated user interface data comprises calendar data merged from a plurality of data sources.

11. The computer-implemented system of claim 6, further comprising means for mapping the data source attributes from the plurality of data sources to the object model attributes as a function of the schema maps stored in the memory area.

12. One or more computer-readable storage media having computer-executable components, said components comprising:

a network component for connecting to a plurality of data sources providing PIM data, said data sources comprising at least one web portal server and a local file share on a network client, each of said plurality of data sources remote from each other data source;

a schema component for mapping attributes from the plurality of data sources to a document object model via one or more schema maps, each of said schema maps corresponding to one of the plurality of data sources, said document object model defining an abstracted representation of the plurality of data sources;

an aggregation component for creating an object of aggregated PIM data as a function of the document object model mapped by the schema component;

a presentation component for generating user interface data representing the object created by the aggregation component, wherein the network component sends the user interface data generated by the presentation component to a network client for display; and

a manipulation component for modifying the created object responsive to user input on the network client, said user input including a command to copy PIM data from a first one of the plurality of data sources to a second one of the plurality of data sources wherein the manipulation component further identifies and copies the PIM data from the first one of the plurality of the data sources to the second one of the plurality of data sources, wherein at least one of the first one of the plurality of data sources and the second one of the plurality of data sources is the web portal server.

13. The computer-readable storage media of claim 12, wherein the PIM data further comprises contacts data, and wherein the aggregation component merges contacts data from the file share with contacts data from the web portal server.