Workstation management application

• US 8,271,879 B2
• Filed: 07/16/2010
• Issued: 09/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Southern Company Services, Inc. (Southern Company)
• Original Assignee: Southern Company Services, Inc. (Southern Company)
• Inventors: Bush, Thomas Shane
• Primary Examiner(s): Pesin, Boris
• Assistant Examiner(s): BADAWI, ANGIE M
• Application Number:
  US12/837,700
• Publication Number:
  US 20120017157A1
• Time in Patent Office: 795 Days
• Field of Search: 715/736
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for a workstation management application. An identification of a user is obtained in a user interface. A listing of workstations that the user has accessed is rendered in the user interface. A selection of one of the workstations is obtained in the user interface. A listing of management tasks configured for the workstation is rendered in the user interface. One of a plurality of management tools is launched to perform a selected one of the management tasks for the workstation.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device, the program comprising:

code that obtains a username associated with a user account in a network page;

code that determines a plurality of workstations that the user account has logged into and logged out from based at least in part on a log file associated with the user account;

code that renders a listing of the workstations in the network page, the listing comprising a plurality of workstation entries, each workstation entry including an expand component, a workstation name, a logon event, and a time associated with the logon event; and

code that renders additional information in the network page when the expand component of one of the workstation entries is selected, the additional information including a plurality of components for launching a plurality of management tasks associated with the corresponding one of the workstations.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the additional information is rendered in an elastic display region of the network page between the corresponding one of the workstation entries and an adjacent one of the workstation entries.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the program further comprises code that updates a detailed workstation information region in the network page for one of the workstations when the workstation name corresponding to the one of the workstations is selected.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the detailed workstation information region includes at least one component for editing at least one system environment variable associated with the one of the workstations.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the detailed workstation information region includes at least one component for editing at least one system environment variable associated with the one of the workstations.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the detailed workstation information region includes at least one component for verifying an administrator status of a current user of the one of the workstations.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 3, wherein the program further comprises code that obtains information from the one of the workstations.

8. A System, comprising:

at least one processor, and

a workstation management application executable in the at least one processor, the workstation management application comprising;

logic that obtains an identification of a user interface;

logic that renders in the user interface a listing of workstations that the user has logged into and logged out from based at least in part on a log file associated with the user, the listing including, for each of the workstations, a respective expand component, a respective workstation name, a respective logon event, and a time associated with the respective logon event;

logic that obtains a selection of the respective expand component of one of the workstations in the user interface;

logic that renders in the user interface a listing of management tasks configured for the one of the workstations in response to the selection; and

logic that launches one of the plurality of management tools to perform a selected one of the management tasks for the one of the workstations.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the user interface comprises at least one network page.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the logic that renders in the user interface the listing of workstations that the user has logged into further includes logic that renders in the user interface information relating to the user.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the listing of workstations includes a copy component for each respective one of the workstations, each copy component being configured to copy information associated with the respective one of the workstations to a system clipboard of the at least one computing device when the copy component is selected by a management user.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the listing of workstations includes at least one entry corresponding to the user logging into a workstation and at least one entry corresponding to the user logging out from the workstation.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the one of the plurality of management tools comprises a file system browser configured to browse at least one file system of the one of the workstations.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the one of the plurality of management tools comprises a remote registry editor configured to edit a system registry of the one of the workstations.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein the one of the plurality of management tools comprises a remote assistance application configured to enable a management user to provide remote assistance to a current user of the one of the workstations.

16. The system of claim 8, wherein the listing of workstations comprises a listing of a proper subset of a plurality of workstations that the user has logged into.

17. The system of claim 8, wherein the respective expand component corresponds to a selectable workstation identification in the listing of workstations.

18. The system of claim 8, wherein another selection of the one of the workstations is obtained when a management user inputs a name associated with the one of the workstations.

19. The system of claim 8, wherein the workstation management application further comprises:

logic that executes a network performance measurement for the one of the workstations in response to obtaining the selection of the one of the workstations; and

logic that renders a result of the network performance measurement in the user interface in association with the listing of management tasks.

20. A method, comprising the steps of:

obtaining, in at least one computing device comprising at least one processor, an identification of a user account from a form embedded in a network page;

determining, in the at least one computing device, a plurality of workstations that the user account has logged into and logged out from based at least in part on a log file associated with the user account;

displaying, in the at least one computing device, a list of workstation accesses in the network page, each of the workstation accesses including a respective expand component, a respective workstation name, a respective logon event associated with the user account, and a time associated with the respective logon event;

obtaining, in the at least one computing device, a selection of one of the workstations from a component in the network page that corresponds to the respective expand component of the one of the workstations;

obtaining, in the at least one computing device, data from the one of the workstations; and

displaying, in the at least one computing device, a management menu configured for the one of the workstations in the network page in response to the selection, the management menu indicating a status associated with the one of the workstations based at least in part on the data, the management menu including a plurality of components for launching a plurality of management tools for remotely managing the one of the workstations.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising the step of copying, in the at least one computing device, information related to the one of the workstations to a system clipboard when a copy button associated with the one of the workstations is selected.