FILTERING RECORDS ON A UNIFIED DISPLAY

• US 20160026946A1
• Filed: 07/22/2014
• Published: 01/28/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/22/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gore, Abhijit Nemichand, Dalal, Monil, Kothari, Ashish
• Granted Patent: US 10,990,914 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/904 Browsing; Visualisation therefor for navigating the web G06F16/954; browsing optimisation for the web G06F16/957
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]

Abstract

An activity thread is displayed with display elements that represent different activities that correspond to a common identifier. The display includes filter user input mechanisms that are actuated to filter the display elements based on filter criteria.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

an in-line unification component that identifies activity inputs, indicative of activities of a plurality of different activity types, as corresponding to a common identifier in the computer system;

a thread generation component that generates a thread including display elements, each representing a different identified activity input;

a filter component that generates filter user input mechanisms actuatable to filter the display elements in the thread based on corresponding filter criteria; and

a user interface component that displays a unified display corresponding to the common identifier, including the display elements in the thread and the filter user input mechanisms.

2. The computer system of claim 1 wherein the user interface component receives user actuation of a selected one of the filter user input mechanisms, the filter component filters the display elements in the thread, to obtain a filtered set of display elements, based on the filter criteria corresponding to the selected filter user input mechanism.

3. The computer system of claim 2 wherein the user interface display displays the unified display showing only the filtered set of display elements.

4. The computer system of claim 2 wherein computer system comprises a business system that has internal workers and external users, and wherein the activity inputs represent internal activities and external activities, the internal activities being visible in the computer system to only internal workers and the external activities being visible to the external users.

5. The computer system of claim 4 wherein the filter component generates the filter user input mechanisms to include an internal filter mechanism actuatable to filter the display elements in the thread to show only display elements corresponding to internal activities.

6. The computer system of claim 4 wherein the filter component generates the filter user input mechanisms to include an external filter mechanism actuatable to filter the display elements in the thread to show only display elements corresponding to external activities.

7. The computer system of claim 2 wherein the filter component generates the filter user input mechanisms to include activity type filter mechanisms to filter the display elements based on the corresponding activity type.

8. The computer system of claim 7 wherein the activity type filter mechanisms include a plurality of different selectable activity type identifiers that each identify as different activity type, the filter component filtering the display elements to show only display elements in the thread corresponding to an activity type identified by the selected activity type identifiers.

9. The computer system of claim 7 wherein the activity type filter mechanisms include message source filter mechanisms that are actuatable to filter the display elements to show only messages from a selected source.

10. The computer system of claim 7 wherein the activity type filter mechanisms include communication type filter mechanisms that are actuatable to filter the display elements to show only communications of a selected type.

11. The computer system of claim 7 wherein the activity type filter mechanisms include a task filter mechanism that is actuatable to filter the display elements to show only display elements corresponding to task activities in the thread.

12. A method, comprising:

receiving a user input accessing a thread including display elements, the display elements in the thread representing activity inputs indicative of activities, of a plurality of different activity types, corresponding to a common identifier in a computer system; and

displaying a unified display showing the display elements in the thread and filter user input mechanisms that have corresponding filter criteria and that are actuatable to filter the display elements displayed in the thread based on the filter criteria.

13. The method of claim 12 and further comprising:

receiving user actuation of a given filter user input mechanism;

filtering the display elements in the unified display, based on the filter criteria corresponding to the given filter user input mechanism, to obtain a filtered set of display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the filtered set of display elements.

14. The method of claim 12 and further comprising:

receiving user actuation of a combination of the filter user input mechanisms;

filtering the display elements in the unified display, based on a combination of filter criteria corresponding to the combination of filter user input mechanisms, to obtain a filtered set of display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the filtered set of display elements.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein displaying filter user input mechanisms comprises displaying activity type filter mechanisms that have activity type filter criteria and further comprising:

receiving actuation of a given activity type filter mechanism;

filtering the display elements based on the activity type filter criteria corresponding to the given activity type filter mechanism to obtain a set of filtered display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the set of filtered display elements.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein displaying filter user input mechanisms comprises displaying an internal filter mechanism and further comprising:

receiving actuation of internal filter mechanism;

filtering the display elements, based on whether the corresponding activity input is available to external users, to obtain a set of filtered display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the set of filtered display elements.

17. The method of claim 12 wherein displaying filter user input mechanisms comprises displaying an external filter mechanism and further comprising:

receiving actuation of external filter mechanism;

filtering the display elements, based on whether the corresponding activity input is available to external users, to obtain a set of filtered display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the set of filtered display elements.

18. A computer readable storage medium that stores computer executable instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method, comprising:

receiving a user input accessing a thread including display elements, the display elements in the thread representing activity inputs indicative of activities, of a plurality of different activity types, corresponding to a common identifier in a computer system;

displaying a unified display showing the display elements in the thread and filter user input mechanisms that have corresponding filter criteria and that are actuatable to filter the display elements displayed in the thread based on the filter criteria;

receiving user actuation of a given filter user input mechanism; and

displaying the unified display based on the filtered set of display elements.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 18 wherein displaying filter user input mechanisms comprises displaying activity type filter mechanisms that have activity type filter criteria and further comprising:

receiving actuation of a given activity type filter mechanism;

filtering the display elements based on the activity type filter criteria corresponding to the given activity type filter mechanism to obtain a set of filtered display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the set of filtered display elements.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein displaying filter user input mechanisms comprises displaying internal/external filter mechanisms and further comprising:

receiving actuation of one of the internal/external filter mechanisms;

filtering the display elements, based on whether the corresponding activity input is available to external users, to obtain a set of filtered display elements; and

displaying the unified display based on the set of filtered display elements.