Email and discussion forum system

• US 8,112,478 B2
• Filed: 03/13/2006
• Issued: 02/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/13/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Carrer, Marco, Arun, Gopalan, Lu, Xiaohua, Mor, David
• Primary Examiner(s): DOAN, DUYEN MY
• Application Number:
  US11/374,402
• Publication Number:
  US 20070214216A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,157 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/204
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation

Abstract

Systems, methods, and media associated with coordinating a discussion forum application and an email application are described. One example system includes a data store and a coordination logic. The data store may store a discussion forum message in a data structure accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic. The coordination logic may provide access to the discussion forum message for the email logic and the discussion forum logic. The coordination logic may also maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message and cause threading information associated with the discussion forum message to be honored.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a data store, embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, configured to store at least one discussion forum message and at least one email message in a data structure that is accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic, where a discussion forum message is a post to a discussion forum; and

a coordination logic operably connected to the data store, the coordination logic a being configured to provide shared access to the discussion forum message for both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, where the shared access provided by the coordination logic for the email logic includes providing the ability to perform one or more of, reading a discussion forum message, replying to a discussion forum message, deleting a discussion forum message, restoring a discussion forum message, blocking a discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with a discussion forum message using the email logic, to maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message in both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, where the read status consistency is maintained by one of updating a field in a data structure, manipulating a value in a database, and manipulating a value in the email logic or the discussion forum logic, and to honor threading information associated with the discussion forum message, where the threading information is used to maintain discussion forum messages in a tree structure in the email logic as organized in the discussion forum logic.

2. The system of claim 1, the discussion forum message including an RFC (Request For Comment) 822 reference header field and an RFC 822 in-reply-to header field.

3. The system of claim 2, where the data structure is an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) shared folder organized in the tree structure associated with the threading of the message.

4. The system of claim 3, the coordination logic being configured to provide shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges.

5. The system of claim 1, the email logic including one or more of, an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) logic and an SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) logic.

6. The system of claim 5, the discussion forum logic including one or more of, a web browser logic, and an RSS (Rich Site Summary) logic.

7. The system of claim 1, the data store being a database.

8. The system of claim 7, the database being configured to store the discussion forum message, a discussion forum message definition, a user setting, a forum definition, an access control definition, and a policy definition.

9. The system of claim 8, the database being configured to store an instance of a category datatype, a forum datatype, a thread datatype, and a message datatype.

10. The system of claim 1, the coordination logic being configured to perform one or more of, enforcing a policy, enforcing a privilege, controlling visibility of a message, and controlling membership in a discussion forum.

11. The system of claim 1, the coordination logic being configured to perform one or more of, selectively providing access to the discussion forum message for the email logic, and providing drag and drop functionality for a shared folder associated with the email logic.

12. The system of claim 1, the system including the email logic and the discussion forum logic, the coordination logic being configured with a business logic and an access logic.

13. A computer configured with an email and discussion forum logic, the computer comprising:

a database, embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, configured to store a discussion forum message, where a discussion forum message is a post to a discussion forum, having an RFC (Request For Comment) 822 reference header field and an RFC 822 in-reply-to header field and an email message in an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) shared folder that is accessible to both an email logic and a discussion forum logic, the database being configured to store a discussion forum message, a discussion forum message definition, a user setting, a forum definition, an access control definition, and a policy definition; and

a coordination logic operably connected to the database, the coordination logic being configured to provide shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges, to maintain read status consistency for the discussion forum message in both the email logic and the discussion forum logic, where the read status consistency is maintained by one of updating a field in a data structure, manipulating a value in a database, and manipulating a value in the email logic or the discussion forum logic, and to provide threading information associated with the discussion forum message used to maintain discussion forum messages in a tree structure in the email logic as organized by the discussion forum logic;

the shared access control providing for reading a discussion forum message and one or more of replying to a discussion forum message, deleting a message, restoring a discussion forum message, blocking a discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with a discussion forum message.

14. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

storing a discussion forum message, where a discussion forum message is a post to a discussion forum, and an email message in a shared folder;

providing an email client and a discussion forum client with access to the shared folder;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the email client;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the discussion forum client;

where manipulating a discussion forum message includes reading the discussion forum message and one or more of, replying to the discussion forum message, deleting the discussion forum message, restoring the discussion forum message, blocking the discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with the discussion forum message; and

maintaining read status consistency for the discussion forum message in the email client and the discussion forum client, where the read status consistency is maintained by one of updating a field in a data structure, manipulating a value in a database, and manipulating a value in a logic; and

providing threading information associated with the discussion forum message that is used to maintain the discussion forum message in a tree structure in the email client as organized in the discussion forum client.

15. The method of claim 14, the shared folder being an IMAP shared folder, the method including providing shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges.

16. The method of claim 15, the computer communication from the email client being received via one or more of, an IMAP communication, and an SMTP communication, the computer communication from the discussion forum client being received via one or more of, an HTTP communication, and an RSS communication.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing processor executable instructions operable to perform a method, the method comprising:

storing a discussion forum message in a shared folder, where a discussion forum message is a post to a discussion forum;

providing an email client and a discussion forum client with shared access to the shared folder;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the email client;

selectively manipulating the discussion forum message in response to a computer communication from the discussion forum client;

where manipulating a discussion forum message includes reading the discussion forum message and one or more of, replying to the discussion forum message, deleting the discussion forum message, restoring the discussion forum message, blocking the discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with the discussion forum message; and

maintaining read status consistency for the discussion forum message in the email client and the discussion forum client, where the read status consistency is maintained by one of updating a field in a data structure, manipulating a value in a database, and manipulating a value in a logic; and

providing threading information associated with the discussion forum message used to maintain the discussion forum message in a tree structure in the email client as organized in the discussion forum client.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, where the shared folder comprises an IMAP shared folder, the method including providing shared access control to the discussion forum message stored in the IMAP shared folder using RFC 2086 IMAP shared folder privileges.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, the computer communication from the email client being received via one or more of, an IMAP communication, and an SMTP communication, the computer communication from the discussion forum client being received via one or more of, an HTTP communication, and an RSS communication.

18. A system, comprising:

means for providing shared storage for an email application and a discussion forum application in a shared folder;

means for providing shared access control to a discussion forum message accessible to the email application and the discussion forum application through the shared folder, where a discussion forum message is a post to a discussion forum, and further where access control to a discussion forum message includes reading the discussion forum message and one or more of, replying to the discussion forum message, deleting the discussion forum message, restoring the discussion forum message, blocking the discussion forum message, and tracing a thread associated with the discussion forum message;

means for maintaining read status consistency for the discussion forum message using the means for providing shared access control, where the read status consistency is maintained by one of updating a field in a data structure, manipulating a value in a database, and manipulating a value in a logic; and

means for providing threading information associated with the discussion forum message used to maintain the discussion forum message in a tree structure in the email application as organized in the discussion forum application.