Annotating documents in a collaborative application with data in disparate information systems

• US 20070061296A1
• Filed: 09/09/2005
• Published: 03/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tennisberg, Targo, Kapadia, Arshish, Burke, Jonah, Kauffman, Jonathan, Crow, Howard
• Granted Patent: US 7,424,670 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

Systems and methods for annotating documents in provided in a collaborative application with data from disparate information systems are provided. The collaborative application enables the annotation of a document with data provided by another application. Particularly, the collaborative application enables a user to pick an item from a data store associated with another application. An association is established between the document and the picked item and retrieves data associated with the picked item from the data store. The document is annotated with the retrieved data. Because of the association, the collaborative application can determine that the picked item in the data store has been modified by the other application. The collaborative application may retrieve modified data associated with the picked item from the data store and update the annotation data associated with the document with the modified data.

Claims

1. One or more device-readable media encoded with device-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

identifying a document handled by a collaborative application;

creating an association corresponding to the document;

picking an item from a data store associated with another application;

relating the association to the picked item;

retrieving data associated with the picked item from the data store; and

annotating the document with the retrieved data.

2. The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving modified data associated with the picked item from the data store; and

updating the annotation data associated with the document with the modified data.

3. The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a plurality of fields associated with the item;

receiving a selection of at least one of the fields; and

displaying data in the selected field as annotation of the document.

4. The one or more device-readable media as recited in claim 1, wherein the collaborative application is a collaborative application.

5. A computing device configured to read the device-readable media and performing the steps as recited in claim 1.

13. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

means for determining that the picked item has been modified by the other application;

means for retrieving data associated with the picked item that has been modified; and

means for updating the annotation data with the modified data.

6. A method for a collaborative application to interact with a user, the method comprising:

providing a user interface associated with the collaborative application;

displaying information associated with a document provided by the collaborative application;

enabling items provided by another application to be picked;

in response to receiving a selection of an item,

retrieving data associated with the selected item from the other application; and

displaying the data as annotation to the document in the user interface.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising displaying information associated with the document in the user interface as data in a plurality of columns.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, further comprising:

enabling annotation data to be added to the document;

in response to receiving a selection of add the annotation data,

adding at least one new column to the user interface; and

displaying the annotation data in the new column.

9. The method as recited in claim 8, further comprising:

identifying a plurality of fields associated with the selected item;

enabling a selection of a set of the fields;

adding a new column to the user interface for each of the selected fields; and

displaying the data associated with each field in the corresponding columns.

10. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising:

determining that the selected item has been modified by the other application;

retrieving the modified data from the data store; and

displaying the modified data in the user interface.

11. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the collaborative application is a portal application.

14. The apparatus as recited in claim 11, further comprising:

means for displaying the annotation data in a user interface;

means for determining a plurality of fields associated with the picked item; and

means for displaying data from each of the fields as data in columns in the user interface.

12. An apparatus for providing a collaborative application, the apparatus comprising:

means for communicating with a data store associated with another application;

means for determining items provided by the data store that are available for picking;

means for picking at least one of the items;

means for associating the picked item with a document provided by the collaborative application;

means for retrieving data associated with the picked item; and

means for annotating the document with the retrieved data.