This invention relates to providing person-centric data and actions in a computer-generated user interface for review and use in association with an identified name in an electronic document.
Since the advent of computers, software developers have strived to provide helpful contextual information to users of a variety of software applications. For example, software applications have been developed for recognizing that a user has entered a name in an electronic document and for providing helpful actions on the identified name. As users operate or have access to a number of different software applications, for example, word processors, spreadsheet applications, electronic mail and messaging applications, and the like, a variety of person-centric data is often maintained in association with a given user or name. For example, a contacts database may have a person's name, address, telephone number, email address, etc. When a user operates in an online session via a distributed computing network, an electronic mail server may be aware of the user's free/busy information in association with the user's electronic calendaring data. A messaging application may be aware of whether the user is currently online/offline, on the telephone, away from her computer, busy, etc. Other applications may keep track of other data such as a person's office number and personnel information, or the name and telephone number of the person's manager or employee. Unfortunately, prior systems do not allow users efficient and friendly access, if any, to the available person-centric data from a variety of data sources, such as those described above.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for aggregating person-centric data from a variety of different data sources and for providing that data via a unified user interface upon the identification of a given person's name in an electronic document or page. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods and systems for aggregating person-centric data from one or more different data sources and for providing the aggregated data to a user via a computer-displayed user interface that is keyed on or otherwise associated with an identified name in electronically presented text or data.
According to one aspect, a name in the text or data of an electronic document, such as a word processor document, a spreadsheet document, a slide presentation document, an electronic mail document, or a variety of Internet-based web pages, is identified and is associated with unique identifying information. The unique identifying, such as the electronic mail address, an office number, telephone number, driver's license number, license plate number and the like, is used by a persona menu application to obtain person-centric data from a variety of data sources. Example data sources include electronic mail contact files, electronic mail and calendaring system free/busy status files, directories of person-centric data related to persons associated with a distributed computing network, and electronic messaging files. Additionally, one or more name-related actions may be called by the persona menu application for provision in association with the identified name. Person-centric data may include the name, address and telephone number of the identified name, the online/offline status of the identified name, calendaring information, such as free/busy calendaring status for the identified name, information on managers, colleagues or employees of the person associated with the identified name, or any other information related to the identified name that may be returned by one or more queried data sources.
As requested data is returned by the queried data sources to the persona menu application, a data structure is populated with the returned data. The identified name in the text or data of the electronic document is labeled to indicate to a user that some type of functionality is associated with the identified name. When the user subsequently focuses her mouse cursor on or otherwise selects the labeled name, an icon may be provided with which the user may launch a user interface containing aggregated data associated with the identified name. Alternatively, the user interface may launch automatically upon selection of or focus on the labeled name. According to one aspect of the invention, the user interface is dynamically populated with the person-centric data as the data is returned by the variety of data sources. The user may thus quickly and efficiently view a variety of helpful data associated with the identified name on the user's computer display in close proximity to the identified name.
According to another aspect of the invention, actions may be provided in association with the data presented in the user interface. For example, if the user selects a telephone number, the telephone number may be automatically dialed for the user. For another example, if the user selects an electronic mail address from the user interface, an instance of an electronic mail application may be launched for the user to email the selected address.
These and other features and advantages, which characterize the present invention, will be apparent from a reading of the following detailed description and a review of the associated drawings. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed.
As described briefly above, embodiments of the present invention are directed to methods and systems for aggregating person-centric data from one or more data sources and for providing the aggregated data to a user via a computer-displayed user interface that is keyed on or otherwise is associated with an identified name in electronically presented text or data. In the following detailed description, references are made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustrations, specific embodiments or examples. These embodiments may be combined, other embodiments may be utilized, and structural changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense and a scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.
Referring now to the drawings in which like numerals represent like elements throughout the several figures, aspects of the present invention and the exemplary operating environment will be described.
With reference to
A number of program modules may be stored in the drives and RAM 25, including an operating system 35, one or more application programs 210-220, a persona menu application 200. Also associated with the computer 20 either locally or remotely are data sources 240-255, described below.
A user may enter commands and information into the personal computer 20 through a keyboard 40 and pointing device, such as a mouse 42. Other input devices (not shown) may include a microphone, joystick, game pad, satellite dish, scanner, or the like. These and other input devices are often connected to the processing unit 21 through a serial port interface 46 that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interfaces, such as a game port or a universal serial bus (USB). A monitor 47 or other type of display device is also connected to the system bus 23 via an interface, such as a video adapter 48. In addition to the monitor, personal computers typically include other peripheral output devices (not shown), such as speakers or printers.
The personal computer 20 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer 49. The remote computer 49 may be a server, a router, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described relative to the personal computer 20, although only a memory storage device 50 has been illustrated in
When used in a LAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 is connected to the LAN 51 through a network interface 53. When used in a WAN networking environment, the personal computer 20 typically includes a modem 54 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN 52, such as the Internet. The modem 54, which may be internal or external, is connected to the system bus 23 via the serial port interface 46. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to the personal computer 20, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memory storage device. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other means of establishing a communications link between the computers may be used.
The persona menu application is a software application module containing sufficient computer executable instructions for obtaining data from the data sources 240-255 and for aggregating the obtained data into a data structure 225 for presentation to a user of the client side applications 210, 215, 220 via a graphical user interface. According to one embodiment, the persona menu application is a dynamically-linked library which may be called upon by applications 210, 215, 220 for the functionality described herein. An exemplary dynamically-linked library (DLL) is the MSO.dll which forms a part of the Office® suite of applications manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.
Referring still to
The application 220 is illustrative of an Internet browser such as Internet Explorer® manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. with which a user may review a variety of Internet-based web pages whereby text and data may be rendered on a computer display in a variety of formats including hypertext markup language (HTML) format. The application 220 is also illustrative of a displayed Internet-based web page whereby shared or collaborative information may be shared among users through a distributed computing network such as the Internet. An exemplary shared information system through which users may share and collaborate on data via a distributed computing network includes Sharepoint® manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.
As should be understood by those skilled in the art, the applications 210, 215 and 220 are not intended as an exhaustive list of applications that may operate in association with the persona menu application 200 according to the present invention. The applications 210, 215, 220 are for purposes of example only and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed. That is, any computer software application with which a user may enter and display text or data including names of persons, may utilize the functionality of the present invention where person-centric data and useful actions available for use with a name may be applied to any name contained in the text or data of such an application.
As briefly described above, the persona menu application 200 queries a variety of data sources 240-255 for person-centric data associated with a name identified in text or data rendered in an application 210, 215, 220. The contacts file 240 is illustrative of a database containing contacts information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, alternate electronic mail addresses, instant messaging addresses, and the like associated with a named person or entity, such as a company or other organization. The contacts 240 may be integrated with an electronic mail and calendaring application 210, described above, or the contacts file 240 may be maintained in a separate location such as a remote server 49 accessible by the persona menu application 200 via a distributed computing network. According to embodiments of the present invention, upon being queried by the persona menu application 200, the contacts file 240 may return the aforementioned contacts information on a name identified by the persona menu application.
The messaging application 245 is illustrative of an instant messaging system through which users may conduct instant messaging communications separate from conventional electronic mail messaging. An exemplary instant messaging system 245 is Messenger® manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. According to embodiments of the present invention, the messaging application 245 maintains online status information on users who are registered to conduct instant messaging sessions through the messaging application 245. Online status information includes whether a particular named user is currently online, offline, busy, on a computer enabled telephone system, or whether the user is away from her computer and not currently registered with the messaging system 245. According to embodiments of the present invention, when queried by the persona menu application 200, the messaging application 245 may return the aforementioned online status information on a given named person.
The distributed computing environment directory server system 250 is illustrative of a directory system for maintaining person-centric data of a variety of persons and entities that communicate and collaborate via a distributed computing network. Such systems allow organizations and persons to manage and share information on network resources and users including managing a variety of sub-data directories maintained by various organizations such as companies, educational institutions, and the like. An exemplary distributed computing environment directory server system is Active® Directory manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. According to embodiments of the present invention, the persona menu application 200 may query the directory system 250 to obtain such information as telephone numbers related to an identified person, employment information associated with an identified person such as supervisors, managers, colleagues and employees, and including office locations, telephone numbers, and addresses for each of these persons related to an identified named person.
The free/busy status data source 255 is illustrative of a data source containing information related to an identified person's calendaring data indicating whether a person is free or busy at a given time and indicating future free/busy information. An exemplary free/busy status data source is the Exchange® free/busy service available from Microsoft Corporation. Such systems 255 maintain a variety of electronic mail and calendaring information, particularly as found in distributed computing environments where a number of users may send, receive, and review calendaring information for themselves and for other users operating in the distributed computing network. According to embodiments of the present invention, the persona menu application 200 may query the free/busy status system 255 to obtain free/busy status information on an identified named person. For example, the persona menu application 200 may obtain the current free/busy status of a given identified name including free/busy information for the next eight hours. For example, for a given named person, for example “John Doe” information may returned by the free/busy status system 255 such as “John Doe is currently busy with an appointment and will be free as of 3:00 PM.”
According to embodiments of the present invention, when a name is recognized in the text or data rendered in one of the applications 210, 215, 220, described above, unique identifying information for the name is passed to the persona menu application 200. The persona menu application 200 then passes the identifying information for the name to each of the data sources 240, 245, 250, 255 to obtain all available person-centric data, described above, related to or associated with the identified name. Each of the data sources 240-255 returns requested data to the persona menu application 200. As the persona menu application 200 receives data from the queried data sources, a data structure 225 is populated with the received data. The data structure 225 may be pre-populated with all names contained in a given user's personal or business contacts file 240. Accordingly, when a given user utilizes an application 210, 215, 220, a data structure 225 is pre-built and pre-populated with names that are at least available from the user's contacts file 240. The data structure may also be pre-populated with a variety of data properties 230 associated with data that may be received from the data sources 240-255. Data properties include online status, free/busy status, office location, manager, employee, colleague identification, and telephone numbers. Additionally, helpful actions such as send mail or send instant messages may also be provided, as will be described below.
As briefly described above, the persona menu application 200 queries the data sources 240-255 using the unique identifying information associated with a name identified in text or data displayed or rendered by one of the client-side applications 210, 215, 220. Unique identifying information may include any data associated with a name that may be used by the persona menu application to query the different data sources for person-centric information associated with the identified name. For example, unique identifying information may include an electronic mail address, a telephone number, an office number and address, an alphanumeric identification, such as a social security number, a home address, a drivers license number, a license plate identification, and the like. It should be appreciated that this listing of types of identifying information is not to be taken in a limiting sense but merely provides examples of many types of unique identifying information that may be utilized to distinguish one person name from another for obtaining person-centric information associated with a particular name. According to one embodiment of the present invention, an exemplary unique identification is an electronic mail address associated with an identified name.
Referring to the electronic mail and calendaring application 210, because electronic mail applications typically contain a “to”, “from”, “cc”, “bcc” fields for sending mail, electronic mail addresses may be readily obtained for persons to which electronic mail is being sent. Likewise, electronic mail received via the application 210 typically identifies the electronic mail addresses of the sending parties including parties who have been copied on sent and received electronic mail. The persona menu application 200 is operative to parse the electronic mail address fields of the application 210 and the mail receipt and the display frame of the application 210 for electronic mail addresses. Electronic mail addresses located by the persona menu application 200 may be passed to the data sources 240, 245, 250, 255 as a unique identification for a person associated with each of the electronic mail addresses for obtaining person-centric data for that person. Other unique identifying information, as outlined above, may likewise be identified in an electronic mail and calendaring application 210 for passing to the different data sources.
Turning now to the web page application 220, as should be appreciated by those skilled in the art, text and data displayed via an Internet-based web page application 220 is typically displayed via HTML as a markup language for rendering text or data in an Internet-based web page display. According to embodiments of the present invention, when a web page display application 220 renders text or data in HTML format, certain person-centric data associated with names may be tracked by the application 220 as the text or data is being rendered. For example, unique identifying information, such as an electronic mail address, associated with a person name to be rendered in HTML format may be hidden from display, but otherwise known by the application 220 responsible for rendering the text or data. That is, various data attributes associated with unique identifying information as outlined above, such as an electronic mail address, may be associated with a text item such as a name to be rendered in HTML format, but such data attributes may not themselves be rendered for display in the web page. Such data attributes associated with a name may be extracted by the persona menu application 200 for use as a unique identification for the associated name in order to obtain person-centric data for the identified name from the data sources 240-255.
When text or data is entered into an application 215, as described above, a recognition application may be used for recognizing strings of text within a given text or data selection as a name. According to one embodiment, as text is entered into an electronic document according to the application 215, selected portions of text, such as words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, are sent to a recognizer dynamically-linked library where the text selection is broken into identifiable words. The identifiable words are then compared against a database of words in order to recognize the words and provide a label according to the data type of a given recognized word. According to embodiments of the present invention, words from a text or data selection entered via the application 215 are compared against a database of names, such as the contacts file 240, to determine whether any of the words contained in the text selection are recognized as a name. For example, as shown in
In the case of a name recognized from text or data entered via the application 215, the persona menu application 200 may utilize the name to query a contacts database or file 240 in order to obtain an electronic mail address for the name. If more than one name is located in the contacts file 240 that matches the name passed by the persona menu application 200, resolution of the name as associated with a particular name in the contacts file 240 may be performed by obtaining other information from the document entered via the application 215, such as an address, a telephone number, and the like that may be utilized to isolate a particular name in the contacts file 240. If a name is located in the contacts file 240 matching the name passed from the persona menu application 200, unique identifying information contained in the contacts file for the name may thus be used by the persona menu application 200 for querying each of the data sources 240-255 for person-centric data, as described herein.
In the case of any of the applications 210, 215, 220 where the unique identifying information associated with the name, for example an electronic mail address, does not net requested data from the data sources 240-255, the persona menu application 200 may send the unique identifying information to the contacts database 240 to determine whether the unique identifying information obtained by the persona menu application 200 may be resolved to a different identifying information for the same named person. For example, if an electronic mail address obtained by the persona menu application is a secondary electronic mail address such as a personal electronic mail address or instant messaging mail address, the persona menu application 200 may utilize the secondary electronic mail address to parse the data contained in the contacts database 240 to locate a primary electronic mail address for the identified named person. For example, if an electronic mail address for “John Doe” is obtained from the application 210 as “JohnDoe@instantmessaging.com,” that electronic mail address may not be located in the data sources 240-250 for obtaining person-centric information for the name “John Doe.” Accordingly, the persona menu application 200 may parse the contacts database 240 with the email address to determine whether a primary email address, such as a corporate email address is available for the same person, “John Doe,” as the instant messaging mail address. That is, “John Doe” may have a contact file in the contacts file 240 wherein a number of electronic mail addresses is included including the instant messaging address obtained from the application 210, 215, 220. The persona menu application 200 may utilize the obtained instant messaging address to locate an alternate or primary electronic mail address such as a corporate email address. Once the persona menu application has resolved the electronic mail address, as described, the alternative electronic mail address may be utilized by the persona menu application 200 for querying the data sources 240-255 for person-centric information, as described above.
Referring still to
A task pane 390 is illustrated in
Referring still to
Once the persona menu application 200 begins receiving requested data from the data sources 240-255, the name associated with the unique identifying information, or the name itself in the case of documents created via the application 215 is labeled with a label 325 as illustrated in
Referring to the user interface 335, a name 340 is populated into the user interface 335. Data 345 is populated for the online/offline data property 230. Other data including the free/busy data 350, the office location 355, the person's manager 360, the telephone number 365, and actions such as the “send mail” action 370, the “send instant messaging” action 375 and additional actions 380 are displayed in the user interface 335. Accordingly, a user of the document 300 may quickly and efficiently obtain helpful person-centric information on the subject name, for example “John Doe,” illustrated in
According to embodiments of the present invention, information displayed in the user interface 335, as illustrated in
The additional actions line 380 may be selected by the user to access name-centric actions not particularly oriented to the identified name, but that may be utilized with respect to any named person. Such actions include “send email,” “add to contacts,” “create a meeting,” and the like. As should be understood by those skilled in the art, the information illustrated in the user interface 335, is not an exhaustive list of the types and kinds of person-centric information and other name-centric actions that may be obtained by the persona menu application 200 and displayed to the user via the user interface 335. That is, any information that may be of interest to a user in association with an identified name that may be obtained by the functionality of the persona menu application 200 may be displayed in the user interface 335.
At block 420, the persona menu application 200 detects unique identifying information associated with a name or detects a name in an electronic document created via the applications 210, 215, 220. As described above, if the persona menu application 200 only detects a name (without unique identifying information) entered into a document created by an application 215, the name may be passed to a recognizer DLL for recognizing the associated text entry as a name. Once the associated text entry is recognized as a name, the text corresponding to the name may be utilized by the persona menu application 200 for parsing a contacts database 240 for determining whether an electronic mail address is associated with the identified name.
At block 425, the persona menu application 200 utilizes the unique identifying information, such as an electronic mail address, obtained or resolved from data obtained from the applications 210, 215, 220 to query one or more data sources 240-255 for person-centric data associated with the identified name. At block 430, person-centric data from each queried data source is fetched by the persona menu application 200. At block 435, as requested data from the data sources 240-255 is received by the persona menu application 200, the data structure 225 is populated whereby data associated with data properties 230 is populated into the data structure 225. Likewise, at this time, any available actions from action handlers 260 are obtained by the persona menu application for general application to names. Links to the action handlers 260 are populated into the additional actions field 235 of the data structure 225.
At block 440, the user interfaces 325, 330, 335 are enabled by the persona menu application 200 in association with the name or unique identifying information. As described above with reference to
At block 450, the user interface 335 dynamically is populated with fetched data from the data structure 225 as the data is populated into the data structure 225. That is, when the user interface 335 is first opened, all data items illustrated in
Advantageously, person-centric information and helpful actions may be provided via a user interface that may be displayed in close proximity to an identified name or other identifying information associated with a name. The user interface may be displayed for use in association with any name displayed or otherwise rendered by a variety of software applications in which text or data may be displayed or rendered. Accordingly, the user of the functionality of the present invention may quickly and readily obtain helpful person-centric information related to an identified name and helpful actions that may be utilized with respect to an identified name. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications or variations may be made in the present invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein.
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