Digital workroom

• US 9,842,312 B1
• Filed: 08/08/2013
• Issued: 12/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Elance Incorporation
• Original Assignee: Upwork Global, Inc. (Upwork, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rosati, Fabio, Poon, Yuet Ping, Kovuru, Rajasekhar L., Sinha, Ved Ranjan, Arasu, Ayyappan, Gianola, Maurizio A., Hahn, Anthony M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mansfield, Jr., Thomas L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Gurski, Amanda
• Application Number:
  US13/962,795
• Time in Patent Office: 1,587 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1053 Employment or hiring

Abstract

A workroom is automatically established for each job created and is associated with a unique email address. The workroom allows members to hold live meetings, communicate in real-time, including via email, upload/manage/share files, and automatically provide transcripts of communication. The workroom also allows team members to launch work trackers directly from the workroom. A work tracker collects work information and directly generates one or more status reports based on the work information collected. A status report includes a back-end version viewable and modifiable by a service provider and a front-end version viewable by a buyer. The status report directly generates an invoice based on the information from the status report. The invoice is submitted to the buyer and allows the buyer to directly pay the service provider.

Claims

1. A system for optimizing performance of a services exchange medium for job seekers and job providers, the system comprising:

a computing system comprising a processor, a storage, and a communications interface coupled to a network,

wherein the computing system generates a platform to facilitate online work comprising a plurality of workrooms, each of the workrooms associated with a job,

wherein each workroom is automatically established and automatically assigned a unique email address upon creation of the job, and wherein each workroom is a private online workspace in the services exchange medium that includes a filing system and a message board to allow collaboration among team members of the job,

wherein contents sent as ingoing email messages to the unique email address associated with a first of the plurality of workrooms are sequentially posted to the message board of the first workroom and are interposed with postings posted directly from the first workroom, and

wherein outgoing email messages sent directly from the first workroom show the unique email address associated with the first workroom as the sender of the outgoing email messages, wherein the outgoing email messages are automatically created in response to messages, including the contents of the ingoing email messages, being posted to the message board such that the team members of the first workroom are aware of the contents of the messages being posted to the message board without viewing the message board from the first workroom and without requesting new client connections with the computing system, to improve overall throughput of the computing system by reducing the total number of simultaneous client connections with the computing system necessary for the team members to be aware of the contents of the messages.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each workroom is associated with a web address.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein content posted to a workroom cannot be removed from the workroom.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein content posted to a workroom is forwarded to a team member'"'"'s personal email address or is displayed in a popup message.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein each workroom has a plurality of customized views, wherein the customized views contain different viewable links that are generated based on a role of each viewer associated with each of the customized views.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein one view allows a service provider to directly launch a work tracker.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein one view allows a service provider to directly view and modify status reports.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein one view allows a buyer to directly view all team members working on a project.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein one view allows a buyer to directly view service providers working on all projects.

10. The system of claim 5, wherein one view allows a buyer to leave feedback for one or more service providers.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein each workroom comprises a real time meeting mode to allow for the exchange of messages and files in real time.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein each workroom comprises a rendering feature to provide transcripts of meetings.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the platform further comprises a plurality of work trackers, wherein each of the work trackers establishes an authenticated session with the services exchange medium to track work being completed between two jobs that are associated with two of the workrooms on a client computer separate from the computing system from the each of the work trackers, and to send and receive data to and from the two of the workrooms, wherein data collected by the each of the work trackers for a job is locally saved on the client computer and removed from the client computer after the data is transferred to a respective workroom, wherein each of the work trackers generates a subsequent window that extends out from and retracts towards a side edge of a corresponding work tracker such that content displayed on the corresponding work tracker is not obscured from view when the subsequent window is generated and displayed.

18. The system of claim 6, wherein the work tracker is configured to launch from one of the plurality of workrooms and on a remote end-user device, wherein the work tracker is displayed in separate window from the one of the plurality of workrooms from which the work tracker is launched from, wherein the work tracker generates a subsequent window that extends out from and retracts towards a side edge of the work tracker such that content displayed on the work tracker is not obscured from view when the subsequent window is generated.

14. A system for optimizing performance of a services exchange medium for job seekers and job providers, the system comprising:

a computing system comprising a processor, a storage, and a communications interface coupled to a network,

wherein the computing system generates a provider workroom for a job that a service provider is a team member of,

wherein the provider workroom is rendered in a viewable format on a remote end-user device used by the service provider, wherein the viewable format includes a link directly to another provider workroom of another job that the service provider is also a team member of, and

wherein the provider workroom comprises;

a message board;

a unique email address, wherein data sent to the unique email address becomes content of the provider workroom, wherein the data is sequentially posted to the message board and is interposed with postings posted directly from the provider workroom, wherein email messages sent from the provider workroom show the unique email address as a sender of the email messages, wherein the respective email message is automatically created in response to new content posted to the message board and is sent to all team members of the provider workroom except to the individual who added the new content such that all team members except the individual who added the new content are apprised of the new content added to the provider workroom without needing to view the message broad from the provider workroom and without requesting new client connections with the computing system, to improve overall throughput of the computing system by reducing the total number of simultaneous client connections with the computing system necessary for the team members to be apprised of the new content;

a chatting component configured to allow real time communication, wherein the communication becomes content of the provider workroom;

a tracker component configured to launch from the provider workroom and on the remote end-user device to collect work information for the job; and

a status report component configured to take the work information collected by the tracker to create/update a status report.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein content originated by the service provider is pushed to other team members of the job as an email and/or a pop-up message.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the status report is automatically populated by the tracker component, and wherein the status report is editable by a service provider of the job prior to submission to a buyer of the job.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein the contents in the provider workroom cannot be removed but can be restricted for viewing.

16. A system for optimizing performance of a services exchange medium for job seekers and job providers, the system comprising:

a computing system comprising a processor, a storage, and a communications interface coupled to a network,

wherein the computing system generates a first buyer workroom for a first job that a buyer wants completed,

wherein the first buyer workroom is rendered in a viewable format on a remote end-user device used by the buyer, wherein the viewable format includes a link directly to a second buyer workroom of a second job that the buyer wants completed, and

wherein the first buyer workroom comprises;

a message board;

a unique email address, wherein data sent to the unique email address becomes content of the first buyer workroom, wherein the data is sequentially posted to the message board and is interposed with postings posted directly from the first buyer workroom, wherein email messages sent from the first buyer workroom show the unique email address as a sender of the email messages, wherein the respective email message is automatically created in response to new content posted to the message board and is sent to all team members of the first buyer workroom except to the individual who added the new content such that all team members except the individual who added the new content are apprised of the new content added to the first buyer workroom without needing to view the message board from the first buyer workroom and without requesting new client connections with the computing system, to improve overall throughput of the computing system by reducing the total number of simultaneous client connections with the computing system necessary for the team members to be aware of the new content;

a chatting component configured to allow real time communication, wherein the communication becomes content of the first buyer workroom;

a work view component configured to display team members for the first job;

a billing component configured to pay at least one of the team members;

a feedback component configured to provide feedback for the at least one of the team members; and

a providers component configured to display all service providers for the first job and the second job.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the first buyer workroom further comprises an ad-hoc feature of adding and removing a team member.