Method and Apparatus for Providing Automation to an Internet Navigation Application

• US 20070180380A1
• Filed: 04/03/2007
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/1998
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Yodlee Incorporated (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Yodlee.com, Inc. (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Inventors: Armandpour, Tim, Khavari, Sam
• Application Number:
  US11/695,684
• Publication Number:
  US 20070180380A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/704
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/41 where a single sign-on provides access to a plurality of computers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2119 Authenticating web pages, e.g. with suspicious links
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/131 Fragmentation of text files, e.g. creating reusable text-blocks; Linking to fragments, e.g. using XInclude; Namespaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/154 Tree transformation for tree-structured or markup documents, e.g. XSLT, XSL-FO or stylesheets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0815 providing single-sign-on or federations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A software application for enabling creation and execution of an automated browser navigation sequence is provided. The software application comprises a session recording module for recording parameters associated with a manual navigation sequence, a file creation module for converting data of a manual session into data comprising an executable sequence of instructions for conducting an automated navigation sequence, and an application-program-interface module for integrating a functional capability with the automated navigation sequence. The automated navigation sequence is characterized in that a completely automated browser-navigation sequence performed by the browser application is enabled through execution of the executable instruction sequence created from the recorded parameters of the manual navigation sequence.

Claims

1. A software application for creating and executing an automated browser navigation sequence comprising:

a session recording module for recording parameters associated with a manual navigation sequence;

a file creation module for converting data of a manual session into data comprising an executable sequence of instructions for conducting an automated navigation sequence; and

an application-program-interface module for integrating a functional capability with the automated navigation sequence, characterized in that a completely automated, browser-navigation sequence performed by the browser application is enabled through execution of the executable instruction sequence created from the recorded parameters of the manual navigation sequence.

2. The software application of claim 1, wherein the automated browser-navigation sequence is executed to run on a data-packet-network.

3. The software application of claim 2, wherein the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

4. The software application of claim 3, wherein the file-creation module includes a function for creating an executable icon for launching the automated browser-navigation sequence.

5. The software application of claim 4, wherein the executable sequence of instructions are XML instructions.

6. The software application of claim 5, wherein the automated-navigation sequence enables automation of one or more of form-population, data-downloading, media-interaction, data-searching, and hyper-linking.

7. The software application of claim 6, wherein the application is implemented as a browser plug-in containing a user-configuration tool.

8. The software application of claim 6, wherein the application is implemented as a standalone program containing a user-configuration tool.

9. The software application of claim 1, wherein the automated navigation-sequence is created as a result of manual user programming as an alternative option to recording a manual sequence.

10. The software application of claim 7, wherein the automated navigation-sequence includes an embedded request to one or more proxy services to be performed by a service provider operating on and accessible via the Internet network.

11. The software application of claim 10, wherein the embedded request is automatically sent to the service provider during execution and performance of an automated navigation sequence.

12. The software application of claim 11, wherein the embedded request is received by virtue of an opened communication channel established between communicating navigation applications while the sending application is performing an automated navigation sequence.

13. A method for creating an executable instruction file for performing an automated navigation sequence on a data-packet-network using a browser application comprising steps of:

(a) invoking the browser application and connecting to the network;

(b) invoking and activating a session-recording module for recording a manual navigation sequence;

(c) performing a desired manual navigation sequence, the sequence recorded by the recording function;

(d) activating a stop-record function to defined the end of the manual sequence; and

(e) converting the recorded manual sequence into the executable instruction enabling the automated sequence, the conversion performed by software.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein in step (a), the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein in step (e), the software converting data from the recorded session into the executable instruction prompts a user to name the executable instruction and to name an icon created and associated with instruction.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein a step is added for prompting the user with a list of options to add proxy services to the executable instruction.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the executable instruction is an XML template.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the executable instruction contains data personal to the user.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the personal data includes one or a combination of user names, passwords, credit card numbers, user location information, and Social Security information.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the personal data remains encrypted until use.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the personal data is stored in a secure location and accessed by virtue of a pointer to the information, the pointer embedded in the instruction file.