Social project management system and marketplace

• US 9,766,881 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2013
• Issued: 09/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Wong, Belinda
• Primary Examiner(s): JEON, JAE UK
• Application Number:
  US13/917,289
• Publication Number:
  US 20140007038A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,559 Days
• Field of Search: 717101
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method executable by a multi-tenant server system to manage a project is provided. The method includes receiving user input data indicating project data that includes at least one of project information, task information, and details information associated with the project; associating tenant-specific metadata with the project data; and storing the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata in a project data datastore.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method executable by a multitenant server system to manage a project datastore of automatically-generated data templates each representing a project to be executed by a tenant of the multi-tenant server system, the method comprising:

receiving, at the multi-tenant server system, project data from the tenant of the multi-tenant server system, the project data tasks associated with the project;

automatically retrieving, by the multi-tenant server system, tenant-specific metadata and associating the tenant-specific metadata with the project data;

the tenant specific metadata describing parameters of the project that are specific to the tenant of the multi-tenant server system;

analyzing, by the multi-tenant server system, the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata to thereby automatically select a critical path and critical task data for the project, wherein the analyzing identifies the critical task of the project based on connecting activities in the project into a network plan and allowing users to identify tenant-specific activity durations and different dependency relationships between the activities and wherein the analyzing further evaluates relationships between the critical task data of the project to identify the critical path;

anonymizing at least some of the tenant-specific metadata in the project by the multi-tenant server system to thereby remove the parameters that are specific to the tenant;

automatically tagging the project by the multi-tenant server system according to a predetermined categorization scheme of projects in the project datastore, wherein the categorization scheme leverages inputs from task descriptions, key words and crowd-sourced data to group similar project data tasks together for the purpose of averaging the activity durations and comparing the dependency relationships;

storing, by the multi-tenant server system, the anonymized, tagged data from the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata as a template in the project datastore; and

publishing the template for use in a marketplace of the multi-tenant server system to thereby allow other tenants of the multi-tenant server system to retrieve the template from the project datastore and to re-use the critical path and critical task data of the project without sharing the parameters of the project that are specific to the tenant.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving user input data indicating a search request; and

generating results including the template based on the search request.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the receiving the user input data indicating the search request is via a marketplace user interface of the multi-tenant server system.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the project data is received via a project management user interface of the multi-tenant server system.

5. A computer program product for managing a project in a multi-tenant server environment, comprising:

a non-transitory tangible storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising;

receiving user input data indicating project data that includes project information, task information, and details information, the details information describing features associated with the project;

automatically retrieving tenant-specific metadata and associating the tenant-specific metadata with the project data, the tenant specific metadata describing parameters of the project that are specific to a tenant of the multi-tenant server system;

analyzing the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata to thereby automatically select a critical path and critical task data for the project, wherein the analyzing identifies the critical task of the project based on connecting activities in the project into a network plan and allowing users to identify tenant-specific activity durations and different dependency relationships between the activities and wherein the analyzing further evaluates relationships between the critical task data of the project to identify the critical path;

anonymizing at least some of the tenant-specific metadata in the critical path and critical task data by removing the parameters that are specific to the tenant;

automatically tagging the critical path and critical task data based on a categorization scheme, wherein the categorization scheme leverages inputs from task descriptions, key words and crowd-sourced data to group similar project data tasks together for the purpose of averaging the activity durations and comparing the dependency relationships;

storing the anonymized, tagged data from the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata as at least one of a task template and a project template in a project datastore; and

publishing the at least one of a task template and a project template for use in a marketplace of the multi-tenant server system to thereby allow other tenants of the multi-tenant server system to retrieve the at least one of a task template and a project template from the project datastore and to re-use the critical path and critical task data of the project without sharing the parameters of the project that are specific to the tenant.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the method further comprises identifying at least one of a standard task template and a standard project template based the grouping.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the receiving user input data indicating a search request is a via a marketplace user interface of the multi-tenant server system, and wherein the receiving the user input data indicating the project data is via a project management user interface of the multi-tenant server system.

8. A multi-tenant server system for managing a datastore of different projects, wherein each of the different projects is associated with one of a plurality of different tenants of the multitenant server system, the multi-tenant server system comprising:

a database that stores the datastore, wherein the datastore comprises data and metadata associated with each of the plurality of tenants; and

a server system having a hardware processor that;

receives project data from a first tenant of the multi-tenant server system, the project data describing tasks associated with a first project to be performed by the first tenant;

automatically retrieves tenant-specific metadata associated with the first tenant from the database;

automatically associates the tenant-specific metadata with the project data, the tenant specific metadata describing parameters of the first project that are specific to the first tenant of the multi-tenant server system;

analyzing the project data and the associated tenant-specific metadata to thereby automatically select a critical path and critical task data for the first project, wherein the analyzing identifies the critical task of the project based on connecting activities in the project into a network plan and allowing users to identify tenant-specific activity durations and different dependency relationships between the activities and wherein the analyzing further evaluates relationships between the critical task data of the project to identify the critical path;

anonymizes at east some of the tenant-specific metadata from the first project to thereby remove the parameters that are specific to the first tenant;

automatically tags the first project by the multi-tenant server system according to a predetermined categorization scheme of projects in the project datastore, wherein the categorization scheme leverages inputs from task descriptions, key words and crowd-sourced data to group similar project data tasks together for the purpose of averaging the activity durations and comparing the dependency relationships;

stores the anonymized data as a template in the datastore;

publishes the template for use in a marketplace of the multi-tenant server system to retrieve the template from the project datastore in response to a subsequent request received from a second tenant that is different from the first tenant to thereby allow the second tenant to use the automatically-identified critical path and critical task data of the first project without sharing the parameters of the project that are specific to the first tenant of the multitenant server system.