Organizing scenario-related information and controlling access thereto

• US 7,797,311 B2
• Filed: 03/19/2007
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/19/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Field, Scott A., Cross, David B., Kurien, Thekkthalackal Varugis, Jackson, Steven E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ali; Mohammad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Shanmugasundaram; Kannan
• Application Number:
  US11/688,062
• Publication Number:
  US 20080235229A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,275 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707999101-105, 707/999.01, 707/999.1, 707/722, 707/758, 707/781, 707999001- 5
• US Class Current: 707/722
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2147 Locking files

Abstract

Mechanisms for organizing scenario solution-related information based upon a user'"'"'s locality are provided. Locality refers to a collection of metadata created based upon scenario solutions executed by a user and/or enablers acquired by a user during scenario solution execution. Such metadata may be stored in association with a scenario solution execution workspace and/or in association with a user-specific information store. Once such information is acquired, a user may desire to share the information, or a portion thereof, with one or more other users, for instance, the members of a user group. However, often times, the user would prefer that the information not be made available to the general public. Thus, mechanisms for controlling access to user-specific information are also provided.

Claims

1. One or more tangible computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for organizing scenario-related information, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of executable scenario solutions, an executable scenario solution comprising a series of steps implemented by a workflow and a scenario description that describes the executable scenario solution;

associating each received executable scenario solution with at least one of a namespace and a keyword space;

receiving, by the same entity that received the plurality of executable scenario solutions, a scenario-related query;

determining that at least one namespace or keyword space associated with one or more received executable scenario solutions is relevant to the scenario-related query;

analyzing metadata associated with the at least one determined namespace and/or keyword space to identify one or more executable scenario solutions associated therewith that are relevant to the scenario-related query;

providing the one or more identified executable scenario solutions in response to the scenario-related query;

receiving user selection of a first scenario solution, the first scenario solution being part of the one or more provided executable scenario solutions and being associated with a first namespace or a first keyword space;

determining that one or more software object enablers are required to complete execution of the selected scenario solution;

analyzing metadata associated with the first namespace or the first keyword space to determine if the one or more required software object enablers are available;

creating an instance on a user device of the first namespace and/or first keyword space associated with the selected first scenario solution;

associating the selected first scenario solution with the created namespace and/or keyword space instance;

creating a workspace;

associating metadata related to the created namespace and/or keyword space instance with the workspace; and

controlling access to the workspace metadata with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

2. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1,

wherein a second namespace or a second keyword space are not associated with the selected first scenario solution, and

wherein metadata associated with the second namespace or the second keyword space is not analyzed.

3. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein metadata related to a plurality of local namespace and/or keyword instances is associated with the workspace, wherein the method further comprises controlling access to the metadata associated with each local namespace and/or keyword instance with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

4. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises controlling access to the selected first scenario solution with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

5. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein at least one executable scenario solution is associated with the workspace, wherein the method further comprises controlling access to the executable scenario solution with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

6. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, further comprising controlling access to the software object enabler-metadata with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

7. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, further comprising restricting access to the software object enabler-metadata with respect to security principals, and wherein the security principals comprise one or more of a user, a machine, an application, and any combination thereof.

8. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a scenario query for enabler acquisition based on the metadata analysis; and

acquiring a software object enabler based on the identified second scenario query.

9. The one or more tangible computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein analyzing metadata associated with the first namespace or the first keyword space to determine if the one or more required software object enablers are available comprises analyzing metadata associated with a corresponding local instance of the first namespace or the first keyword space in a user local data store.