METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REAL-TIME BLOCKING OF CONTENT FROM AN ORGANIZATION ACTIVITY TIMELINE

• US 20190005454A1
• Filed: 06/29/2017
• Published: 01/03/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: HILCKOX, ELI SPENCER, DENNISON, CHRISTIANNE BRITTANY
• Granted Patent: US 10,686,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1275 Print workflow management, e.g. defining or changing a workflow, cross publishing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0227 Filtering policies mail message filtering H04L51/212
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/108 when the policy decisions are valid for a limited amount of time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1079 of unsolicited session attempts, e.g. SPIT

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for real-time blocking of content from an organization activity timeline of an organization. The content blocked can be, for example, activities, or contributions to those activities. The organization activity timeline is displayed within a user interface to show activities involving a particular external contact and one or more users of the organization. The disclosed methods and systems can be used to control which activities or contributions to activities are displayed in the organization activity timeline. One or more identifiers can be added to one or more blacklists. New activities are evaluated for inclusion in the organization activity timeline. Any new activity that includes an identifier (or contributions to that new activity) can be blocked so that it does not appear in the organization activity timeline.

Claims

1. A method for controlling which contributions are displayed in an organization activity timeline of an organization, wherein the organization activity timeline is a visual component displayed within a user interface that shows activities involving a particular external contact and one or more users of the organization, the method comprising:

adding an identifier to a blacklist; and

blocking, based on the identifier, at least one contribution to a new activity that includes the identifier so that the contribution does not appear in the organization activity timeline.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the blacklist is a user-level blacklist, and wherein the identifier is associated with the particular external contact and is specified by a user of the organization, and further comprising:

determining whether the user and the particular external contact are the only participants for the new activity that includes the identifier; and

wherein blocking comprises;

blocking the new activity from appearing in the organization activity timeline when the user and the particular external contact are the only participants for the new activity.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein blocking comprises:

blocking the user'"'"'s contribution to the new activity from appearing in the organization activity timeline when the user and the particular external contact are not the only participants for the new activity so that the user'"'"'s contribution does not appear to other users of the organization while allowing contributions from the other users of the organization to the new activity to remain and continue to appear in the organization activity timeline.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the blacklist is a user-level blacklist and the identifier is associated with the particular external contact and is specified by a user of the organization, and further comprising:

removing the identifier from the user-level blacklist; and

allowing, after removing, any new activities that include new contributions by the user to appear in the organization activity timeline.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the blacklist is an organization-level blacklist, and wherein the identifier is associated with the particular external contact and is specified by an administrator of the organization, and wherein blocking comprises:

blocking any new activity that includes a contribution associated with the particular external contact associated with the identifier included in the organization-level blacklist from appearing in the organization activity timeline, and

further comprising;

permanently deleting the any new activity that includes a contribution associated with the particular external contact associated with the identifier in the organization-level blacklist.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the blacklist is an organization-level external domain blacklist, and wherein the identifier is an external domain specified by an administrator of the organization, and wherein blocking comprises:

blocking any new activity including any contribution having an external domain included in the organization-level external domain blacklist from appearing in the organization activity timeline; and

further comprising;

permanently deleting any new activity that includes the external domain included in the organization-level external domain blacklist.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the blacklist is an organization-level internal domain blacklist, and wherein the identifier is an internal domain specified by an administrator of the organization, and wherein blocking comprises:

blocking any new activity where all contributors belong to an internal domain included in the organization-level internal domain blacklist so that the new activity does not appear in the organization activity timeline; and

further comprising;

permanently deleting any new activity where all contributors belong to an internal domain included in the organization-level internal domain blacklist.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein the organization activity timeline comprises a chronological record of activities each having at least one contributor that is a user from the organization.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein each activity comprises:

a recording of a communication between one or more users of the organization and a particular external contact, and wherein the communication comprises;

an email;

a calendar meeting;

a phone call;

a task;

a note;

a change to an internal representation of an external person;

or

an internal representation of a need or change of that need to follow-up with an external person.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein the identifier comprises:

any identifier associated with the particular external contact that can be used to identify that particular external contact.

11. A computing system for controlling which contributions are displayed in an organization activity timeline of an organization, the computing system comprising:

a distributed database management system (DDMS) configured to store one or more blacklists each including at least one identifier;

an organization activity timeline generator configured to generate the organization activity timeline for the organization, wherein the organization activity timeline is a visual component displayed within a user interface that shows activities involving a particular external contact and one or more users of the organization, wherein the organization activity timeline generator comprises;

a real-time activity evaluator configured to ingest new activities received from data sources of the user, determine which new activities include an identifier specified by the one or more blacklists, and block at least one contribution to any new activity that is determined to include an identifier specified by the one or more blacklists so that the contribution does not appear in the organization activity timeline.

12. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein one of the blacklists is a user-level blacklist that includes an identifier that is associated with the particular external contact and that is specified by a user of the organization, and wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

determine, for each new activity that is determined to include the identifier specified by the user-level blacklist, whether the user and the particular external contact are the only participants for that new activity; and

block each new activity, that includes the identifier specified by the user-level blacklist and that is determined to have the user and the particular external contact as the only participants, from appearing in the organization activity timeline for the new activity.

13. A computing system according to claim 12, wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

block a contribution of the user to each new activity, that includes the identifier specified by the user-level blacklist and that is determined to have other users as participants, from appearing in the organization activity timeline so that the user'"'"'s contribution does not appear to other users of the organization while allowing contributions from the other users of the organization to the new activity to remain and continue to appear in the organization activity timeline.

14. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein one of the blacklists is a user-level blacklist that includes an identifier that is associated with the particular external contact and that is specified by a user of the organization, and wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

allow, after removing the identifier from the user-level blacklist, any new activities that include new contributions by the user to appear in the organization activity timeline.

15. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein one of the blacklists is an organization-level blacklist that includes an identifier that is associated with the particular external contact and that is specified by an administrator of the organization, and

wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

block any new activity, that includes a contribution associated with the particular external contact, from appearing in the organization activity timeline, and

permanently delete any new activity that is blocked.

16. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein one of the blacklists is an organization-level external domain blacklist that includes an identifier for an external domain that is specified by an administrator of the organization, and

wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

block any new activity, that includes any contribution associated with the external domain included in the organization-level external domain blacklist, from appearing in the organization activity timeline; and

permanently delete any new activity that is blocked.

17. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein one of the blacklists is an organization-level internal domain blacklist that includes an identifier for an internal domain that is specified by an administrator of the organization, and

wherein the real-time activity evaluator is further configured to:

block any new activity where all contributors belong to the internal domain included in the organization-level internal domain blacklist so that those new activities do not appear in the organization activity timeline; and

permanently deleting any new activity that is blocked.

18. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein the organization activity timeline comprises a chronological record of activities each having at least one contributor that is a user from the organization.

19. A computing system according to claim 11, wherein each activity comprises:

a recording of a communication between one or more users of the organization and a particular external contact, and wherein the communication comprises;

an email;

a calendar meeting;

a phone call;

a task;

a note;

a change to an internal representation of an external person;

or

an internal representation of a need or change of that need to follow-up with an external person.

20. A computing system comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory comprises computer-executable instructions that are capable of execution by the processor, and that when executed by the processor, cause the computing system to:

process new activities to determine whether each new activity includes an identifier from a blacklist; and

block at least one contribution to each new activity that includes the identifier so that the contribution does not appear in an organization activity timeline of an organization, wherein the organization activity timeline is displayed within a user interface to show activities involving a particular external contact and one or more users of the organization.