Systems and methods for managing affiliations

• US 7,730,014 B2
• Filed: 03/25/2004
• Issued: 06/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Time Eclipse, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Time Eclipse, Inc.
• Inventors: Hartenstein, Mark A., Roosevelt, Nicholas M
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham; Khanh B
• Application Number:
  US10/811,327
• Publication Number:
  US 20050192822A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,259 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 3, 707 9- 10, 707/100, 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/200, 705 7- 9, 705/1, 705/5, 709217-220, 709225-229, 715/530, 715/963, 715/853, 715/751, 379/88.17, 379/88.22, 379/88.25
• US Class Current: 707/713
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

An affiliation manager provides each of typically hundreds of users with a calendar of appointments and a task list each including icons for capturing time and expenses accrued by the user when attending a particular appointment or performing a particular task. A subset of collected captured time and expenses may be transferred to each requesting client for use by independent accounting systems. Management of appointments and tasks from a central database promotes collaboration among users, simplifies sharing of schedule information among users, and provides context for data entry. Each user may create any number of affiliations, each affiliation describing affiliations of the user in numerous projects, organizations, employments, and activities. Each user may admit other users to share his or her affiliations, thereby promoting collaboration of many users for jointly attending meetings and jointly performing tasks. Context permits automatic intuitive association of email, chat messages, notes, and documents to records for persons, locations, resources, appointments, tasks, and projects for integrated affiliation management services. Requests for queries and forms are interpreted according to the context in which the user issued the request. Requests are made via a common set of icons and links on each item of a list provided by a prior query.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions recorded therein for being performed by a server and for providing a client browser with information regarding a plurality of affiliations, the browser operated by a user for accurately collecting time billable to an affiliation of the plurality of affiliations, the medium comprising:

a. instructions for presenting to the user via the browser a first text box, a first icon, and a view region;

b. instructions for receiving from the user via the browser an operation of the text box that specifies a name of the affiliation;

c. instructions for obtaining first results of a first query of a database in response to receiving from the user via the browser an operation of the first icon, a first limit of the first query being in accordance with the name of the affiliation;

d. instructions for presenting to the user via the browser in the view region a first plurality of rows in accordance with the first results, each row presenting a respective portion of the first results and presenting a respective second icon having functionality in accordance with the respective portion of the first results;

e. instructions for obtaining second results of a second query of the database in response to receiving from the user via the browser an operation of the respective second icon of a first row of the first plurality of rows, a plurality of limits of the second query being in accordance with the name of the affiliation and with the respective portion of the first results presented in the first row;

f. instructions for presenting in the view region a second plurality of rows in accordance with the second results, each row of the second plurality presenting a respective portion of the second results and presenting a respective third icon; and

g. instructions for beginning an accounting of time presently being spent by the user in association with the respective portion of the second results presented in a second row of the second plurality of rows in response to receiving from the user via the browser an operation of the respective third icon of the second row of the second plurality of rows;

wherein

h. the database provides access by query to a plurality of email messages for the user and respective information for each affiliation; and

i. each respective information includes a plurality of person records, a plurality of appointment records, a plurality of projects referring to a plurality of task records, and a plurality of account records wherein at least one account record is adjusted in accordance with the accounting of time.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein a second limit of the first query is in accordance with the first icon.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the first text box comprises a text entry box having a drop down menu for supplying the name of the affiliation.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the second plurality of rows is appended to the first plurality of rows in the view region.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the third plurality of rows is appended to the second plurality of rows in the view region.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the second plurality of rows replaces the first plurality of rows in the view region.