System and method for providing collaboration communities in a computer portal environment

• US 9,665,833 B2
• Filed: 03/24/2006
• Issued: 05/30/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Beartusk, Brodi, Smith, Gregory P., Pearson, Shane, Breeden, Timothy, Jolley, Chris
• Primary Examiner(s): OUELLETTE, JONATHAN P
• Application Number:
  US11/388,606
• Publication Number:
  US 20060218000A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,085 Days
• Field of Search: 705 11-912
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services

Abstract

A system and method for providing collaboration communities in a computer portal environment. The system comprises a community portal tool for creating community portals, portal applications, or portal web applications. In one embodiment, the portal can be one of a number of enterprise applications on server software. The portal can include a community context that can have an indication of members of the community. The indication can be, for example, a list of the members or pointer to a list of members. The community portal can be constructed from portal elements and the community context. The community portal tool can also be used to select a community portal template from a portal component library. The template can include standard elements from the construction of a community portal. A standardized look and feel, layout, and components such as a calendars can be in a community template.

Claims

1. A system for developing a collaboration community portal web application for use in a computer portal environment, comprising:

a computer server comprising computer server software and a microprocessor;

a portal component library stored on the computer server, wherein the portal component library includes a plurality of community portal templates and community portal elements, wherein the community portal elements, include a plurality of pages and a plurality of portlets, and wherein each community portal template specifies a selection of community portal elements together with a standardized look-and-feel, layout, and components for that portal template, to be used as part of the portal applications;

a notification service operating on the computer server, wherein the notification service is configured to enable each of the portal applications and portlets therein to register with the notification service to produce and consume notifications and to communicate, to its associated community members, notifications of changes that occur within the portal application, by various communication methods including email, internet messaging, or html specified for each member;

a community context operating on the computer server, wherein the community context comprises an application programming interface (API) that provides an indication of members of a collaboration community accessible to said plurality of portlets via said API such that the plurality of portlets have capabilities and behaviors which depend upon the community context; and

a community portal development tool operating on the computer server, wherein the community portal development too is configured to enable community portal developers to select from, and use the community portal templates to create the collaboration community portal web application to facilitate constructing said collaboration community portal web application from the community context and the plurality of community portal elements to include a plurality of said pages and a plurality of said portlets;

whereby the community portal development tool is configured to develop the portal applications such that the portal applications each present multiple portlet views within a single web interface simultaneously and wherein said multiple portlet views depend upon the community context accessed via said API; and

whereby the collaboration community portal web application is configured for use by and associated with said collaboration community, and has the look-and-feel, layout, and components of its associated portal template.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the indication is a pointer to a list of members.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the indication is a list of members.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each portlet of the plurality of portlets is implemented as a Java server page referenced by metadata in the portal application.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein:

one or more of the plurality of portlets is implemented as a Java server page (JSP); and

wherein said one or more of the plurality of portlets utilizes the community context via one of Java scriptlets and JSP tags.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the community context comprises a Java API which provides access to said indication of members of a collaboration community accessible to said plurality of portlets.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the community context is used to enable titlebars of one or more portlets to display symbols to a member based on whether other members are online.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the API of the community context defines functions which provide access to community identification, community membership, community lifecycle, and meta-information specific to the collaboration community.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein notifications are sent to community members who have subscribed to receive notifications when collaboration community portal web application content is changed.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the system includes a notification table that contains an entry for each user for each notification, and wherein a payload and other characteristics of the notification that are identical for each user is stored only once per notification to minimize redundancy.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein for each notified user, a particular notification contains a namespace, name, scope, payload and time-to-live specified by the producer, and wherein the particular notification can remain active until explicitly consumed by recipient, or until the time-to-live specified in the notification expires.

12. A method for supporting development of a collaboration community portal web application for use in a computer portal environment on a computer server comprising computer server software and a microprocessor, comprising the steps of:

providing a portal component library stored on the computer server that includes a plurality of community portal templates and community portal elements,

wherein the community portal elements, include a plurality of pages and a plurality of portlets, and

wherein each community portal template specifies a selection of community portal elements together with a standardized look-and-feel, layout, and components for that portal template, to be used as part of the collaboration community portal web application;

providing a notification service operating on the computer server, wherein the notification service is configured to enable each of the portal applications and portlets therein to register with the notification service to produce and consume notifications and to communicate, to its associated community members, notifications of changes that occur within the collaboration community portal web application, by various communication methods including email, internet messaging, or html specified for each member;

providing a community context operating on the computer server, wherein the community context comprises an application programming interface that provides an indication of members of a collaboration community accessible to said plurality of portlets via said API such that the plurality of portlets have capabilities and behaviors which depend upon the community context; and

providing a community portal development tool operating on the computer server, wherein the community portal development too is configured to enable community portal developers to select from, and use the community portal templates to create a plurality of portal applications;

wherein the community portal development tool is configured to facilitate constructing the collaboration community portal web application from the community context and the community portal elements including a plurality of said pages and a plurality of said portlets;

whereby the community portal development tool is configured to develop the collaboration community portal web application such that the collaboration community portal web application presents multiple portlet views within a single web interface simultaneously and wherein said multiple portlet views depend upon the community context accessed via said API, and

thereby creating a collaboration community portal web application which is configured for use by and associated with said collaboration community, and has the look-and-feel, layout, and components of its associated portal template, and wherein each member of the community as indicated by the community context thereafter receives the notifications via the notification service and communication method specified for that member.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the indication is a pointer to a list of members.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the API of the community context defines functions which provide access to community identification, community membership, community lifecycle, and meta-information specific to the collaboration community.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising implementing each portlet of the plurality of portlets as a Java server page referenced by metadata in collaboration community portal web application.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

implementing one or more of the plurality of portlets as a Java server page referenced by metadata in collaboration community portal web application;

wherein said one or more of the plurality of portlets utilizes the community context via one of Java scriptlets and JSP tags.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing a Java API for the community context wherein the Java API provides access to said indication of members of a collaboration community accessible to said plurality of portlets.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising utilizing the community context to enable titlebars of one or more portlets to display symbols to a member based on whether other members are online.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing a notification table that contains an entry for each user for each notification, and wherein a payload and other characteristics of the notification that are identical for each user is stored only once per notification to minimize redundancy.

20. A computer system for developing a collaboration community portal web application for use in a computer portal environment by a collaboration community, the computer system comprising:

a computer server comprising one or more microprocessor and server software operating on said one or more microprocessor;

a portal component library stored on the computer server, wherein the portal component library, includes a plurality of community portal templates and community portal elements, wherein the community portal elements, include a plurality of pages and a plurality of portlets, and wherein each community portal template specifies a selection of community portal elements together with a standardized look-and-feel, layout, and components for that portal template, to be used as part of the community portal web application;

a notification service operating on the computer server, wherein the notification service is configured to enable each of the plurality of portlets to register with the notification service to produce and consume notifications, and to communicate, to members of the collaboration community, notifications of changes that occur within the collaboration community portal web application;

a community context operating on the computer server, wherein the community context comprises an application programming interface that provides an indication of the members of a collaboration community accessible to said plurality of portlets via said API such that the plurality of portlets have capabilities and behaviors which depend upon the community context; and

a community portal development tool operating on the computer server, wherein the community portal development too is configured to enable community portal developers to select from, and use the community portal templates to create the collaboration community portal web application, and wherein the community portal development tool is configured to facilitate constructing said collaboration community portal web application from the community context and the plurality of community portal elements;

whereby the community portal development tool is configured to develop said collaboration community portal web application such that the collaboration community portal web application presents multiple portlet views within a single web interface simultaneously and wherein said multiple portlet views depend upon the community context accessed via said API; and

whereby the collaboration community portal web application is configured for use by and associated with said collaboration community, is configured to present multiple portlet views within a single web interface, and has the look-and-feel, layout, and components of its associated portal template.