PRE-POPULATED AND ADMINISTRATOR DEFINED GROUPS IN CONTACTS LISTS

• US 20100299363A1
• Filed: 05/24/2009
• Published: 11/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Amit, Kwan, Cindy, Bhattacharjee, Avronil
• Granted Patent: US 8,117,201 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/796
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/45 Network directories; Name-to-address mapping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4594 Address books, i.e. directories containing contact information about correspondents telephone directories in user terminals H04M1/27453

Abstract

A contacts list for a subscriber is pre-populated based on information received from various data stores, data mining of applications associated with the subscriber, and administrator defined contacts. The list may be further maintained dynamically based on changes to contact information and/or subscriber attributes.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for managing contacts list information in a multimodal communication system, the method comprising:

determining an attribute of a subscriber;

receiving contact information associated with the subscriber from a plurality of sources;

receiving administrator defined contacts for the subscriber;

pre-populating a contacts list for the subscriber based on the received contact information and the administrator defined contacts; and

presenting the pre-populated contacts list to the subscriber.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining at least one data source associated with the subscriber to be data mined; and

data mining the at least one data source to derive additional contact information for pre-populating the contacts list for the subscriber.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one data source includes usage history and communication patterns associated with the subscriber employing a communication application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein plurality of sources includes at least one from a set of:

an organizational directory, a personal directory, and a custom directory.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the attribute of the subscriber includes at least one from a set of:

a location, an organizational position, a permission level, a relationship within an organization, a preference, and a communication pattern.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

dynamically updating the contacts list based on at least one from a set of;

a change in the subscriber'"'"'s attribute, a change in received contact information, and a change in subscriber'"'"'s location.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the contacts list is pre-populated in response to one of:

the subscriber joining the multimodal communication system, activation of a new account for the subscriber, and a request from the subscriber.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing, categorizing, and customizing the received contact information to derive contacts list entries for the subscriber.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the analysis, categorization, and customization are performed based on the subscriber'"'"'s attribute.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the contacts list entries include dynamically updated presence information.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the multimodal communication system is configured to facilitate at least one from a set of:

audio communication, video communication, electronic mail exchange, text messaging, conferencing, application sharing, and data sharing.

12. A communication system for managing contacts list information in a multimodal communication system, the system comprising:

a first server configured to;

determine an attribute of a subscriber;

determine a plurality of contact information sources associated with the subscriber based on the attribute;

receive contact information associated with the subscriber from the plurality of sources;

derive entries for a contacts list for the subscriber based on the received contact information;

receive administrator defined contacts for the subscriber;

pre-populate the contacts list for the subscriber based on the derived entries and the administrator defined contacts; and

render the pre-populated contacts list available to a client application of the subscriber for use in multimodal communications.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the first server is further configured to derive the entries from the received contact information based on at least one of:

data mining usage and communication pattern records associated with the subscriber and analyzing the contact information based on the subscriber'"'"'s attribute.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the first server is further configured to derive the entries from the received contact information by categorizing the contacts list entries based on at least one from a set of:

a subscriber preference, an organizational default rule, and attributes of the contacts list entries.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the first server is further configured to receive the contact information from at least one from a set of:

a directory server, a database server, and an endpoint of the communication system.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the first server is further configured to dynamically update the contacts list entries based on at least one from a set of:

organization level rules, changes to the subscriber'"'"'s attribute, changes in the received contact information, changes in the subscriber'"'"'s location, and a subscriber preference.

17. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for managing contacts list information in a communication system, the instructions comprising:

determining a plurality of contact information sources associated with a subscriber based on at least one from a set of;

a location, an organizational position, a permission level, a relationship within an organization, a preference, and a communication pattern of the subscriber;

receiving contact information associated with the subscriber from the plurality of sources comprising at least one from a set of;

an organizational directory server, a personal directory server, a custom directory server, and a communication server;

deriving entries for a contacts list for the subscriber by analyzing, categorizing, and customizing the received contact information;

receiving administrator defined contacts for the subscriber, wherein the administrator defined contacts are customized based on the subscriber'"'"'s location, organizational position, and permission level; and

pre-populating the contacts list for the subscriber based on the derived entries and the administrator defined contacts upon one of;

activation of the subscriber'"'"'s subscription and a request by the subscriber.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising:

dynamically updating the contacts list in response to a change in the received contact information, wherein the received contact information includes presence information.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the contacts list is configured to enable the subscriber to facilitate multimodal communications in a social networking environment.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the plurality of contact information sources is determined based on at least one of:

analyzing usage and communication patterns of the subscriber and receiving input from the subscriber.