Interactive activity interface for managing personal data and performing transactions over a data packet network

• US 7,672,879 B1
• Filed: 10/27/2000
• Issued: 03/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Yodlee Incorporated (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Yodlee.com, Inc. (Envestnet Incorporated)
• Inventors: Hayward, Blake Earl, Scott, Jenny, Kumar, Srihari, Kelley, John, Desai, Satyen, Pandurangan, Senthil Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): Poinvil; Frantzy
• Application Number:
  US09/698,708
• Time in Patent Office: 3,413 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705 10- 44, 707/500, 707 8- 10
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/957 Browsing optimisation, e.g. caching or content distillation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers

Abstract

A software suite for enabling viewing and manipulation of multiple categories of aggregated data compiled from a plurality of data sources and accessible through a single interface operated on a data-packet-network is provided. The data sources are available for direct network-access through multiple access points available from within the interface. The software suite comprises, a calendar module having at least one display interface for enabling viewing and manipulation of time and date-sensitive calendar data, a transaction module having at least one display interface for enabling viewing and manipulation of financially oriented account data, a portfolio tracking module having at least one display interface for enabling viewing and manipulation of investment oriented account data, a net-worth reporting module having at least one display interface for displaying a solution-oriented net-worth report compiled from the aggregated data, a bill-payment module having at least one display interface for enabling viewing and initiation of payment action regarding current billing data and an account-alert module having at least one display interface for reporting time and event sensitive account alerts related to changes in account data due to occurring events or pre-configured time parameters.

Claims

1. A computerized appliance for controlling display, manipulation, and transaction parameters of aggregated data compiled from a plurality of data sources including a suite of software modules installed on and executing from a digital memory of the computer appliance, the suite comprising the following software modules:

a calendar software module having at least one display interface for viewing and manipulation of time and date-sensitive calendar data;

a transaction software module having at least one display interface for viewing and manipulation of financially oriented account data;

a portfolio tracking software module having at least one display interface for viewing and manipulation of investment oriented account data;

a net-worth reporting software module having at least one display interface for displaying a solution-oriented net-worth report compiled from the account data;

a bill-payment software module having at least one display interface for viewing of current billing data; and

an account-alert software module having at least one display interface for reporting time and event sensitive account alerts related to changes in account data due to occurring events or pre-configured time parameters;

wherein the data manipulated and displayed by the software modules is data retrieved from external business Web sites on a data-packet-network where an individual user holds accounts requiring at least the individual'"'"'s user name and password to access the data, and the software modules are selectively interlinked and enabled to communicate with other modules exchanging data in such a way that the data incorporated in the software modules may be affected by actions performed in the other related modules, and the user is enabled to navigate and conduct transactions and reporting between the modules via the single user interface.

2. The computerized appliance of claim 1, wherein the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

3. The computerized appliance of claim 2, wherein the plurality of data sources comprise service-access points maintained by service-hosting entities offering services accessible through the Internet.

4. The computerized appliance of claim 3, wherein the single interface is of the form of an Hypertext markup language HTML Web page served from a user-access point and downloaded by the accessing user to a Web browser.

5. The computerized appliance of claim 4, wherein a personal computer is operated as a user-access device for accessing the HTML Web page.

6. The computerized appliance of claim 4, wherein a handheld computer is operated as a user access-device for accessing the HTML Web page.

7. The computerized appliance of claim 4, wherein the computational functions of the software modules are enabled by a database reporting software communicating with the various modules through application-program-interface implementation.

8. The computerized appliance of claim 7, wherein the multiple-access points are URLs enabling system navigation, log-in and data access on behalf of the individual user embedded within the at least one interface associated with each of the plurality of modules.

9. The computerized appliance of claim 8, further comprising:

a communications software module having at least one interface for reporting existence of new communications events;

an account-bookmarks software module having at least one interface for listing uniform resource locator URLs of the plurality of data sources; and

a travel-planning software module having at least one interface for enabling configuration and initiation of travel plans.

10. A network-based control system for controlling display, manipulation, and transaction parameters of aggregated data compiled from a plurality of data sources, the control capability extended through a single software interface operated on a data-packet-network comprising:

a portal server operating on the network for enabling user-access to the system through the single interface, the single software interface comprising a plurality of control and report software modules for controlling categorization, viewing, reporting and manipulation aspects of the aggregated data;

a mass data repository for storing the aggregated data;

a database reporting software for accepting input from the software interface through individual ones of the control and report software modules and for performing calculations, manipulations, and ordering transactions based on the received input; and

a user-access device connected to the network for accessing the portal server and receiving the single user software interface;

wherein the data sources are external business Web sites where individual users hold accounts requiring at least the individual'"'"'s user name and password to access the data and the software modules are selectively interlinked and enabled to communicate with other modules exchanging data in such a way that the data incorporated in the software modules may be affected by actions performed in the other modules, and the individual user is enabled to navigate and conduct transactions and reporting between the modules via the single user interface.

11. The network-based control system of claim 10, wherein the network is the Internet network.

12. The network-based control system of claim 11, further comprising multiple points of direct network-access to the plurality of data sources embedded into interfaces invoked by individual ones of the control and report modules.

13. The network-based control system of claim 12, wherein the aggregated data is personalized to the individual user and limited to display in a personalized interface.

14. The network-based control system of claim 13, wherein the multiple points of direct network access comprise embedded URLs enabling system navigation, log-in and data access on behalf of the individual user.

15. The network-based control system of claim 14, wherein the control and report modules available through the single interface are capable of initiating service of at least one additional interface associated with an invoked module, the additional interface providing a more detailed accounting of the categorized data associated with the invoked module.

16. The network-based control system of claim 10 wherein the user-access device is a personal computer.

17. The network-based control system of claim 10 wherein the user access-device is a handheld computer.

18. A method for enabling single-point control over various display, reporting, computation, and transactional aspects of data aggregated on behalf of a user from a plurality of data sources operating on a data-packet-network comprising steps of:

(a) providing a network-interface vehicle having a software suite comprising a plurality of control and report software modules embedded therein, the interface serving as a single-point control apparatus;

(b) connecting the plurality of control and report modules to a database reporting software through application-program-interface implementation;

(c) providing additional display interfaces launch-able from individual ones of the plurality of control report modules, the display interfaces containing interactive links to utilities for configuring the aspects of data display and for ordering transactions through the modules;

(d) interlinking selected ones of the software modules with other selected ones of the software modules; and

(e) rendering the network-interface vehicle accessible to the user operating a remote data-access device connected to the network;

wherein the data sources are external business Web sites where individual users hold accounts requiring at least the individual'"'"'s user name and password to access the data and the interlinked software modules are enabled to communicate with other software modules exchanging data in such a way that the data incorporated in the interlinked modules may be affected by actions performed in other modules, and the individual user navigates, conducts transactions, data processing and generates reports containing the data via access to all of the software modules via the single user interface.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the data-packet-network is the Internet network.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein in step (a), the network-interface vehicle is of the form of an Hypertext markup language HTML Web page served from a user-access point and downloaded by the accessing user to a Web browser.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein in step (d), the data-access device is a personal computer.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein in step (d), the data-access device is a handheld computer.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein in step (b), the computational functions of the software modules are enabled and performed by the database reporting software.

24. The method of claim 23 wherein in step (c), the additional display interfaces are linked to the individual control modules through hyper linking.