Collection of intranet activity data

• US 9,477,574 B2
• Filed: 05/12/2011
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Tumanov, Ilya, Wana, John, Perantatos, George, Meyers, Brian R., Caldwell, Gary
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Tuan A
• Application Number:
  US13/106,113
• Publication Number:
  US 20120290545A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,993 Days
• Field of Search: 707661-694
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

Systems, methods and computer program products for facilitating the collection of data within a computer network (especially an intranet) while complying with applicable privacy laws and regulations, as well as individual organizations'"'"' rules addressing intranet users'"'"' privacy are disclosed. Such systems, methods and computer program products allow for the collecting of activity information related to computer-based activities performed by users while logged into an organization'"'"'s intranet. Such activity includes navigating to URLs, opening and editing documents, writing, opening and reading email and instant messages, and the like. The collecting, consolidating, storing and exposing of such activity information—while ensuring privacy requirements—serves as a basis for high-value services (e.g., augmenting documents with extra information, improving search results, automatic news feeds, social networking announcements, etc.) to be offered and provisioned to such users.

Claims

1. A system for collection of activity data related to a plurality of authenticated computer network users, comprising:

a data collection server, deployed within said computer network, configured to collect raw activity data related to said plurality of users from sources within said computer network, wherein said sources include at least some of a web content management server, a document management server, a web server, a proxy server, a directory service information server, an email server, or a client-side logging application, the data collection server being configured to normalize the raw activity data to provide normalized activity data associated with the document, wherein normalization of the raw activity data resolves differences of actions on the document by unifying saving the document, directly opening the document, and opening the document via textually different URLs such that the activity data reflects activity data associated with the document, wherein the textually different URLs are resolved to be logically equivalent by disassembling the textually different URLs and reconstructing a URL having a unified format; and

a control server coupled to said data collection server, said control server having a processor and a memory storing at least one configuration table containing at least one rule based on which said control server is configured to regulate the collection, transformation, aggregation, and anonymization of said raw activity data related to said plurality of users to generate user activity data on said computer network in compliance with at least one privacy law and/or at least one organizational privacy policy, wherein personally identifiable information is removed from the user activity data, wherein said at least one rule includes a schedule to collect activity data from said sources and an exclusion rule which defines a subset of said plurality of users and/or sources from which collection of activity data is not allowed.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one rule contained in said at least one configuration table is one of:

an access rule;

an aggregation rule;

a transformation rule;

an exclusion rule; and

a consent rule.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

means for providing a graphical user interface to allow the editing of said at least one configuration table in order to comply with at least one of;

a change in the at least one privacy law; and

the at least one organizational privacy policy.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for providing at least one of:

augmenting documents with extra information;

improving search results;

automatic news feeds; and

social networking announcements to said plurality of users based on said user activity data stored in said database.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said activity data is data related to one of the plurality of users and results from said one of the plurality of users:

navigating to a URL;

opening a document;

editing a document;

writing an email;

opening an email;

reading an email;

sending an instant message; and

receiving an instant message.

6. A computer-implemented method for collecting activity data related to a plurality of authenticated computer network users, said method comprising:

collecting, by a processor, raw activity data related to said plurality of users from sources within said computer network, wherein said sources include at least some of a web content management server, a document management server, a web server, a proxy server, a directory service information server, an email server, or a client-side logging application;

regulating, by a processor, collection, transformation, aggregation, and anonymization of said raw activity data related to said plurality of users from said sources based on at least one rule in a configuration table to generate user activity data on said computer network in compliance with at least one privacy law and/or at least one organizational privacy policy, wherein personally identifiable information is removed from said user activity data, wherein said at least one rule includes an exclusion rule that defines a subset of said plurality of users from whom collection of activity data is not allowed, said subset of said plurality of users being from a particular geographical location or a group within an organization;

normalizing, by a processor, the raw activity data to provide normalized activity data associated with the document, wherein normalizing the raw activity data resolves differences of actions on the document by unifying saving the document, directly opening the document, and opening the document via textually different URLs such that the activity data reflects activity data associated with the document, wherein the textually different URLs are resolved to be logically equivalent by disassembling the textually different URLs and reconstructing a URL having a unified format; and

storing, by a processor, said user activity data in a database.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said at least one rule contained in said at least one configuration table is one of:

an access rule;

an aggregation rule;

a transformation rule;

an exclusion rule; and

a consent rule.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said at least one rule includes an exclusion rule which defines a subset of said plurality of users from whom collection of activity data is not allowed, said subset of said plurality of users being from a particular geographical location.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising

receiving an edit, via a graphical user interface, of said at least one configuration table in order to comply with at least one of:

a change in the at least one privacy law; and

the at least one organizational privacy policy.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said activity data is data related to one of the plurality of users and results from said one of the plurality of users:

navigating to a URL;

opening a document;

editing a document;

writing an email;

opening an email;

reading an email;

sending an instant message; and

receiving an instant message.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein said at least one rule specifies a pre-determined schedule to collect activity data from said at least one source.

12. A computer-implemented method for collecting activity data related to a plurality of authenticated computer network users, said method comprising:

collecting, by a processor, raw activity data of said plurality of users from sources within said computer network, wherein said sources include at least some of a web content management server, a document management server, a web server, a proxy server, a directory service information server, an email server, or a client-side logging application, and wherein said activity data include data corresponding to at least one of navigating to a URL, opening a document, editing a document, writing an email, opening an email, reading an email, sending an instant message, or receiving an instant message;

generating, by a processor, user activity data in compliance with at least one privacy law and/or at least one organizational privacy policy via transformation, aggregation, and anonymization of said raw activity data based on at least one rule in a configuration table such that personally identifiable information is removed from the user activity data, wherein said at least one rule includes an access rule, an aggregation rule, a transformation rule, an exclusion rule, or a consent rule, wherein the exclusion rule defines

a subset of said plurality of users from whom collection of activity data is not allowed, said subset of said plurality of users being from a particular geographical location or a group within an organization;

normalizing, by a processor, the raw activity data to provide normalized activity data associated with the document, wherein normalizing the raw activity data resolves differences of actions on the document by unifying saving the document, directly opening the document, and opening the document via textually different URLs such that the activity data reflects activity data associated with the document, wherein the textually different URLs are resolved to be logically equivalent by disassembling the textually different URLs and reconstructing a URL having a unified format; and

storing, by a processor, said user activity data in a database.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein said at least one rule includes an exclusion rule which defines that at least one of a web content management server, a document management server, a web server, a proxy server, a directory service information server, an email server, or a client-side logging application from which collection of activity data is not allowed.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein said at least one rule includes a consent rule that provides notice of data collection to said users and allows said users to choose whether to participate.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein collecting raw activity data includes receiving said raw activity data from a client-side logging application executing on a computing device associated with one of said plurality of users.