U.S. patent application number 10/655783 was filed with the patent office on 2004-06-24 for community builder.
Invention is credited to Beringer, Joerg, Hatscher, Michael.
Application Number | 20040122693 10/655783 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 32600274 |
Filed Date | 2004-06-24 |
United States Patent
Application |
20040122693 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Hatscher, Michael ; et
al. |
June 24, 2004 |
Community builder
Abstract
Systems and techniques for automatically building a community of
members based on a primary interest of the members. Community
templates are classified according to primary interest of members
into community types depending on the primary interests, a
community template is selected based on a primary interest, and a
community place for members to share information is created.
Inventors: |
Hatscher, Michael;
(Osnabrueck, DE) ; Beringer, Joerg; (Frankfurt,
DE) |
Correspondence
Address: |
FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER
LLP
1300 I STREET, NW
WASHINGTON
DC
20005
US
|
Family ID: |
32600274 |
Appl. No.: |
10/655783 |
Filed: |
September 5, 2003 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
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60436219 |
Dec 23, 2002 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/319 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 50/01 20130101;
G06Q 10/0633 20130101; G06Q 10/06313 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/001 |
International
Class: |
G06F 017/60 |
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A method of automatically building a community of members based
on a primary interest of the members, the method comprising:
providing community templates classifying primary interests of
members into community types depending on the primary interests;
selecting a community template based on a primary interest; and
creating a community place for members to share information.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the templates include predefined
templates according to a community types, wherein the templates
include at least one of human interest, corporate interest,
interest in cross-discipline knowledge exchange, interest in the
same business objects, interest in the same tool, interest in the
same organization, and interest in the same activity.
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the community
of members the ability to communicate over predefined communication
channel types, wherein the communication channel types include at
least one of an operational type, strategic type, and up-to-date
type.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the community
of members the ability to communicate within a communication
channel using predefined message types based on the requirements of
the community of members.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the community
of members with synchronous and/or asynchronous services for
interaction with other members, wherein interaction includes at
least one of communicating with members, sharing information with
members and coordinating activities with members.
6. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning roles to
members of the community based on their social roles and/or
responsibilities in the community, wherein the roles include at
least one of an administrator for creating a community template, a
manager for instantiating a community, and an end user as a member
of the community.
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing a component
having functions to allow a member to create, edit, delete and
organize community templates.
8. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing access to a
corporate wide catalog of predefined vocabularies of interests
including at least one of product line, tools, activities and
business topics.
9. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing access to
communities by linking to a corporate wide catalog of vocabularies
of interests and by listing existing communities according to a
primary interest.
10. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining primary
interests by adding borders that cross one or more different
classifications.
11. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing access to a
people finder tool to allow identification of people having a
primary interest.
12. The method of claim 11 further comprising updating a list of
members of a community by applying dynamic queries using the people
finder tool.
13. The method of claim 11 further comprising notifying people
about the existence of a community including that they been
identified as potential member of the community.
14. The method of claim 11 further comprising notifying a member of
the community in response to an updated list of members indicating
potential new members to the community.
15. An article comprising a machine-readable medium storing
instructions operable to cause one or more machines to perform
operations comprising: providing community templates classifying
primary interests of members into community types depending on the
primary interests; selecting a community template based on a
primary interest; and creating a community place for members to
share information.
16. The article of claim 15 wherein the templates include
predefined templates according to a community types, wherein the
templates include at least one of human interest, corporate
interest, interest in cross-discipline knowledge exchange, interest
in the same business objects, interest in the same tool, interest
in the same organization, and interest in the same activity.
17. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing the
community of members the ability to communicate over predefined
communication channel types, wherein the communication channel
types include at least one of an operational type, strategic type,
and up-to-date type.
18. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing the
community of members the ability to communicate within a
communication channel using predefined message types based on the
requirements of the community of members.
19. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing the
community of members with synchronous and/or asynchronous services
for interaction with other members, wherein interaction includes at
least one of communicating with members, sharing information with
members and coordinating activities with members.
20. The article of claim 15 further comprising assigning roles to
members of the community based on their social roles and/or
responsibilities in the community, wherein the roles include at
least one of an administrator for creating a community template, a
manager for instantiating a community, and an end user as a member
of the community.
21. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing a
component having functions to allow a member to create, edit,
delete and organize community templates.
22. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing access to
a corporate wide catalog of predefined vocabularies of interests
including at least one of product line, tools, activities and
business topics.
23. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing access to
communities by linking to a corporate wide catalog of vocabularies
of interests and by listing existing communities according to a
primary interest.
24. The article of claim 15 further comprising defining primary
interests by adding borders that cross one or more different
classifications.
25. The article of claim 15 further comprising providing access to
a people finder tool to allow identification of people having a
primary interest.
26. The article of claim 25 further comprising updating a list of
members of a community by applying dynamic queries using the people
finder tool.
27. The article of claim 25 further comprising notifying people
about the existence of a community including that they been
identified as potential member of the community.
28. The article of claim 25 further comprising notifying a member
of the community in response to an updated list of members
indicating potential new members to the community.
29. An enterprise management consolidation system comprising: a
cross-functional application to provide communication between at
least one of an object modeling tool, a process modeling tool and a
user interface tool, wherein the user interface tool includes a
computer implementing a method of automatically building a
community of members based on a primary interest of the members,
the method comprising: providing community templates classifying
primary interest of members into community types depending on the
primary interests; selecting a community template based on a
primary interest; and creating a community place for members to
share information.
30. The system of claim 29 wherein the templates include predefined
templates according to a community types, wherein the templates
include at least one of human interest, corporate interest,
interest in cross-discipline knowledge exchange, interest in the
same business objects, interest in the same tool, interest in the
same organization, and interest in the same activity.
31. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing the
community of members the ability to communicate over predefined
communication channel types, wherein the communication channel
types include at least one of an operational type, strategic type,
and up-to-date type.
32. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing the
community of members the ability to communicate within a
communication channel using predefined message types based on the
requirements of the community of members.
33. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing the
community of members with synchronous and/or asynchronous services
for interaction with other members, wherein interaction includes at
least one of communicating with members, sharing information with
members and coordinating activities with members.
34. The system of claim 29 further comprising assigning roles to
members of the community based on their social roles and/or
responsibilities in the community, wherein the roles include at
least one of an administrator for creating a community template, a
manager for instantiating a community, and an end user as a member
of the community.
35. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing a component
having functions to allow a member to create, edit, delete and
organize community templates.
36. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing access to a
corporate wide catalog of predefined vocabularies of interests
including at least one of product line, tools, activities and
business topics.
37. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing access to
communities by linking to a corporate wide catalog of vocabularies
of interests and by listing existing communities according to a
primary interest.
38. The system of claim 29 further comprising defining primary
interests by adding borders that cross one or more different
classifications.
39. The system of claim 29 further comprising providing access to a
people finder tool to allow identification of people having a
primary interest.
Description
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application claims the benefit of priority from U.S.
Provisional Application entitled "User Productivity Suite," filed
Dec. 23, 2002, Application Serial No. 60/436,219.
BACKGROUND
[0002] The following description relates to an enterprise
application, for example, for building a community of members
having a primary interest and providing a community place for
members to share information.
[0003] Knowledge sharing is considered a relatively important tool
for a user to achieve a high level productivity. For example, a
user having an interest in a topic may wish to exchange information
related to the topic with other users who share a similar interest.
However, current systems may not be able to provide the user with
the ability to easily create a community of users who share the
same interests. For example, to create a community of users sharing
the same interests may require the involvement of information
technology (IT) experts with specialized knowledge of computer
systems.
SUMMARY
[0004] The present inventors recognized that setting up and
maintaining communities may become a commodity, and as result,
developed tools that may help support easy instantiation of a
community for non IT-experts. These tools, at the same time, may
ensure consistency across different communities by generating
similar functionality and layouts for communities of the same type.
In addition, the inventors recognized that traditional systems may
lack the ability to build a community of members sharing a primary
interest. Accordingly, techniques were developed to build a
community of members sharing a primary interest and creating a
community place for the members to collaborate and share
information and documents.
[0005] In one aspect, systems and techniques are described for
automatically building a community of members based on a primary
interest of the members. Community templates are provided
classifying primary interests of members into community types
depending on the primary interests, a community template is
selected based on a primary interest, and a community place is
created for members to share information.
[0006] Templates may be based on predefined templates according to
a community types such as, for example, human interest, corporate
interest, interest in cross-discipline knowledge exchange, interest
in the same business objects, interest in the same tool, interest
in the same organization, interest in the same activity, or other
interest. The community of members may be able to communicate over
predefined communication channel types such as an operational type,
strategic type, and up-to-date type. The community of members also
may be able to communicate within a communication channel using
predefined message types based on the requirements of the community
of members. The community of members may use synchronous and/or
asynchronous services for interaction with other members including
communicating with members, sharing information with members and
coordinating activities with members.
[0007] The techniques also may allow the assignment of roles to
members of the community based on their social roles and/or
responsibilities in the community such as an administrator for
creating a community template, a manager for instantiating a
community, and an end user as a member of the community. A
component may be provided having functions to allow a member to
create, edit, delete and organize community templates. Access may
be provided to a corporate wide catalog of predefined vocabularies
of interests including product line, tools, activities and business
topics. Communities may be able to link to a corporate wide catalog
of vocabularies of interests that list existing communities
according to a primary interest. Primary interests may be further
defined by adding borders that cross one or more different
classifications.
[0008] The techniques also may provide access to a people finder
tool to allow identification of people having a primary interest. A
list of members of a community may be updated by applying dynamic
queries using the people finder tool. People may be notified about
the existence of a community including that they been identified as
potential member of the community. A member of the community may be
notified in response to an updated list of members indicating
potential new members to the community.
[0009] The systems and techniques described herein may provide one
or more of the following advantages. In some implementations, a
person having a primary interest may be able to quickly and
efficiently share information with a community of people having a
similar primary interest. For example, a person having a primary
interest in "people motivation" or "leadership" may be able to
access a finder tool to identify a list of people having a similar
interest and then create a community place for the community to
share information and applications related to the primary interest.
A community may be based on a group of people formed around a topic
of common interest. The community may allow the members to share
ideas, insights, information; solve problems and provide advise to
the members, learn together; and cerate tools, processes,
frameworks, etc. The members in the community may be able to relate
to each other and overtime steward practice areas. For example,
they can develop core knowledge and manage the material about the
topic. A community also can cross boundaries in a company such as
between a supplier community and a customer community.
[0010] The techniques disclosed may provide different mechanisms
for communication including threaded discussions (asynchronous),
instant messaging (synchronous) and mobile devices. The community
places may facilitate discussions regarding topics of interest,
content management (documents and application), and administration
and moderation (e.g., users, access control). The community also
provides for conferencing including real-time discussions and
shared spaces. The techniques may provide a company with increased
value including reduced cost and improved quality, innovation and
technology tranfer. The members also may benefit by reducing the
time a member searches for information, providing a member with
more information and providing a member with an increased sense of
connection with peers.
[0011] Details of one or more implementations are set forth in the
accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and
advantages may be apparent from the description and drawings, and
from the claims.
DRAWING DESCRIPTIONS
[0012] These and other aspects will now be described in detail with
reference to the following drawings.
[0013] FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a community builder
system.
[0014] FIG. 2 is a table of predefined community type
templates.
[0015] FIG. 3 is a table of generic conversation channel types.
[0016] FIG. 4 is a table of message types.
[0017] FIG. 5 is a table of communication types.
[0018] FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a process of implementing a
community builder system.
[0019] FIGS. 7A-7H are display screens that may be used with an
implementation of the community builder system.
[0020] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an example of an
integrated enterprise management system.
[0021] FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components of an
example enterprise management consolidation system.
[0022] Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like
elements.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0023] The systems and techniques described here relate to an
enterprise application for automatically building a community of
members sharing a primary interest. The method includes classifying
primary interests of members into community types depending on the
primary interests, selecting a community template based on a
primary interest and creating a community place for members to
share information. A primary interest represents the motivation for
joining or forming a community. A community place may be defined as
virtual space where a group of people who share the same interests
or responsibilities can participate in an exchange of information.
Participating in a community may include having the individual
community members exchange their thoughts and ideas about a certain
topic and build a network of knowledge, even across organizational
boundaries. To participate, people may depend on a multitude of
technologies ranging from phone and e-mail to project management
tools. Participation may also include sharing news items, internal
documents, and data from an organization's transactional
systems.
[0024] Furthermore, the people involved may be located in offices
across the country or around the world--or they may not be in an
office at all. The disclosed techniques employ a finder tool to
create community places and to identify the people who should
participate in a certain community. The community builder includes
a template-based assembling and administration tool for managing
communities. The templates describe the behavior of the community
place, the place internal roles people can be assigned to, and
access the members may have to documents and applications. The
builder tool includes community place internal roles allowing
members to assign groups of people different access permissions to
the various information and applications inside a place.
[0025] FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a community builder system
100 according to an embodiment of the application. The community
builder system 100 includes a community builder tool 102 configured
to manage one or more templates 108 describing the behavior of a
community of members 112 sharing a primary interest, identify the
community of members 112 using a people finder tool 114, and create
one or more community places 110 based on the identified community
of members. The community places 110 can allow the community of
members 112 to share information and applications over one or more
communication conversation channels 116 such as electronic-mail
(email) over a computer network. The templates 108 may include data
describing the characteristics of the community place 110, roles
that the members are assigned to in the place, and information and
applications the members have access to in the place. As a result,
a community of members who share a primary interest can share
information with other members in an efficient
[0026] The community builder employs community templates which may
include predefined templates according to a community types
including human interest, corporate interest, interest in
cross-discipline knowledge exchange, interest in the same business
objects, interest in the same tool, interest in the same
organization, interest in the same activity, or other interests.
These community types are described in further detail below with
reference to FIG. 2 of the application. The members of a community
may communicate over predefined communication channel types
including an operational type, strategic type, up-to-date type, or
other types. These predefined channel types are described in detail
below with reference to FIG. 3 of the application.
[0027] The community builder also provides the community of members
the ability to communicate within a communication channel using
predefined message types based on the requirements of the community
of members. These message types are described in detail with
reference to FIG. 4 of the application. The members of the
community may interact with other members using synchronous and/or
asynchronous services including services for communicating with
members, for sharing information with members and coordinating
activities with members. These services are explained in detail
below with reference to FIG. 5 of the application.
[0028] The community builder tool 102 includes an administration
component 104 to allow a member of a community, such as
administrator of the community, to create, edit, delete and
organize community templates 108 as well as community place types
110. The component 104 also allows the maintenance of permissions
on these templates. Furthermore the component 104 allows a user to
administer the existing community places including setting them
active or inactive, assigning new participants and administrators
and change ownership, and other functions.
[0029] The community builder tool 102 includes a wizard component
106 to permit a user, such as an administrator of a community, to
create new community places 110 tailored to the specific needs of
well-defined communities, identified with the finder tool 114.
(FIGS. 7A-7H illustrate display screens of a wizard component
according to an implementation of the community builder tool. This
implementation is described in detail below) A user can select a
template matching the needs of the community, select the
applications the community requires from the set of predefined
applications in the template and add documents to the community.
Furthermore, the wizard permits a user to assign groups of people
in the community place internal roles, and control a person's
access to the applications and tools provided in the community
place using permissions. The roles may be assigned to members of
the community based on their social roles and/or responsibilities
in the community. For example, in one implementation, the roles may
include assigning a member the role of an administrator responsible
for creating a community template, the role of a manager for
instantiating a community, the role of an end user as a member of
the community, or other roles.
[0030] The wizard component 106 may provide access to a corporate
wide catalog of predefined vocabularies of interests. For example,
the wizard can access a list of people having a particular primary
interest by linking to a catalog of predefined primary interests.
The primary interest can include terms/words describing topics
directed to product lines, tools, activities and business topics.
The wizard can access communities by linking to the corporate wide
controlled catalog of vocabularies (e.g., the corporate taxonomy
service/application TopicMap developed by SAP AG) of interests and
by listing existing communities according to a primary interest.
For example, in one implementation, the wizard may employ two
methods of identifying employees in a corporation who may be
interested in forming a community whose members share the same
primary interest. The wizard can link to a job catalog and allow a
user to browse the catalog searching for entries specifying primary
interests related to a programming topics such as a user interface
and programming language/tools. Alternatively, the topics can be
listed according to community types established by primary
interests.
[0031] The wizard also can handle the intersection of different
corporate wide taxonomies that are specific to a company. A company
may have different taxonomies or organizational structures. For
example, a product-oriented taxonomy may include a structure
arranged around company products such as Portal and customer
relationship management (CRM). An activity-oriented taxonomy may
involve a structure organized around corporate activities such as
accounting, marketing, sales and research and development. A
region-oriented taxonomy may include a structure organized
according to regions in which a corporation operates such as Europe
and the US. The intersection of these taxonomies defines a segment.
The primary interest reflects the intent or focus of why this
segment is defined and determines the type of community.
[0032] An intersection (border) of the different taxonomies may
narrow down the primary interest, but it does not change the basic
type of community. For example, a target segment may be defined as
the intersection of the product (Portal), activity (Sales) and the
region (Europe) taxonomy. Thus a community may be formed having
people with the same primary interest. For example, the community
has members including sales people who can share their experience
of selling the same product. They can stay focused because they can
share their ideas only with those members selling the same product
(portal), and working in the same region (Europe). Moreover, the
community is working on the same product (Portal) and can stay
up-to-date regarding releases, features and market feedback. In
addition, the community is defined to include members working in
Europe and, as sales people, need to coordinate and align customer
contacts regarding the portal product.
[0033] The people finder tool 114 can help a user identify a target
group of people sharing a primary interest. The community builder
tool can operate on a collection of people identified by people
finder tool. The finder tool can maintain a list of members of a
community and is capable of updating the list by applying dynamic
queries to the list. The tool also can notify a member of the
community, such as the administrator, in response to an updated
list of members indicating potential new members to the community.
The tools also can notify people about the existence of a community
including sending people messages indicating that they been
identified as potential member of the community. For example, the
tool can automatically generate a new query creating an updated
member list indicating that a new member, such as an employee of a
corporation, matches the profile of the community.
[0034] The community builder tool can further define a community
having a primary interest by adding borders to the primary
interest. Adding borders to a community having primary interest
provides a mechanism for filtering out people who can join a
community. For example, a community can be formed having a primary
interest related to product sales in a company. If the
administrator of the community is interested in forming a community
of members who have a primary interest in sales only in Europe,
then the system allows the creation of a border specifying "sales"
and "Europe." As a result, a community is formed of people with an
interest in sales in Europe.
[0035] FIG. 2 shows a table 200 of predefined community templates
that can be supported by the community builder tool 102 of FIG. 1.
To reflect the motivation for forming a community, these templates
can be semantically structured. For example, a human-interest
community 202 can be organized around people who share in human
interests such as travel, health, sports, or other interests. A
corporate interest community 204 can be organized around people who
share strategic corporate interests such as Java programming, user
interface design communities, or other interests. A knowledge
community 206 can be organized around peoples who have an interest
in the exchange of cross-discipline knowledge such as branding, new
technology initiatives or other knowledge. A business object-based
community 208 can be organized around people who have an interest
in working with the same business objects such as
products/services, projects, or other objects. An activity-based
community 210 can be organized around people involved in similar
activities such as a community of managers, product designers or
other activities. A tool-based community 212 can be organized
around communities of people working with the same tool such as a
word processor, a programming language, or other tool. An
organization-based community 212 can be organized around people
working for the same organizational level such as the same group,
department or other organization entity. It should be understood
that this list of predefined templates represents examples of
templates and one skilled in the art would add more or modify the
current list depending on the requirements of the application.
[0036] FIG. 3 is a table 300 showing one or more generic
conversation channel types 302 that can be attached to communities,
and characteristics of the channel types 304 that can be supported
by the community builder tool 102 of FIG. 1. For example, the
community builder tool 102 may build a community of members and
provide an "operational" conversation channel 306 based on
conversation at a "working level" that includes discussions about
daily experiences, question and answers, coordination of work,
gossip, jokes or other topics. On the other hand, the tool may
build another community of members and provide a "strategic"
conversation channel 308 based on conversation at a "meta level"
that includes discussions about new concepts, evaluation of current
processes, global coordination, or other discussion topics.
Alternatively, the tool may build a community of members and
provide an "up-to-date" conversation channel 410 based on
"educational information" that includes discussions about new
technologies, new projects, training offers, changes, new
resources, or other related discussion topics. It should be
understood that the listed conversation channel types represent
examples and one skilled in the art would add more or modify the
channel types depending on the requirements of the application.
[0037] FIG. 4 is a table 400 showing the relationship between
conversation message types 402 between a community and its members
which may be based on the community type 404. For example, a "Tools
and methods" oriented community, such as a group of people who
share an interest in "MS-Office", may be able to communicate using
conversation channels having messages related to "Questions and
Problems" about "MS-Office" tools. Likewise, an "Activities" based
community 308, such as a group of people who have an interest in
"Teaching," may wish to communicate over conversation channel
having messages directed to a "Best Practice" corresponding to the
particular interest. Similarly, a "Service Offering" related
community 410, such as a group of people who share an interest in
"Training", may be decide to communicate over a conversation
channel using messages directed to "Resource Coordination" about
training. In a similar manner, an "Interest" based community 412,
such as a group of people who share an interest in the "Java"
programming language, may be served by a conversation channel with
messages including "New Info Resources Opinions" about the
programming language. It should be understood that this list of
conversation channels and message types represent examples and one
skilled in the art would add more or modify these elements
depending on the requirements of the application.
[0038] FIG. 5 is a table 500 showing the relationship between
community types 502 and synchronous communication tools (i.e.,
parties communicate in real time) tools 504 and/or asynchronous
communication tools (i.e., parties communicate in non-real time)
tools 506. For example, a "communication" community type 508 may
communicate using synchronous tools such as a phone, chat, and
online meeting, and asynchronous tools such as email, instant
messages, discussion threads, and voting. Likewise, an
"information" community type 510 may communicate using synchronous
tools such as shared applications, co-browsing of documents, and
whiteboards, and asynchronous tools such as shared folders,
solution data base. In a similar manner, a "coordination" community
type 512 may communicate by using synchronous tools such as a floor
control, and localization, and asynchronous tools such as team
calendar, project milestones, task lists and case tools. It should
be understood that the community types and tools listed represent
examples and one skilled in the art would add more or modify the
types and tools depending on the requirements of the
application.
[0039] FIG. 6 is a flow chart 600 of a process of an implementation
of a community builder tool 102 of FIG. 1. The community builder
tool automatically configures default community types based on
primary interests. To illustrate, assume a person in a company
wishes to create an informal community of members who share the
same interest in "people motivation" or "leadership." The person
may access the community builder tool which provides (block 602)
one or more predefined templates describing the behavior of a
community of members sharing a primary interest. The templates may
include data describing a community place, roles the community of
members may be assigned to in the place, and information and
applications the members have access to in the place.
[0040] A member can access the administrative component 104 of the
tool 102 to create, edit, delete and organize at least one of
community place templates and community place types. In addition, a
member may access the wizard component 106 of the tool 102 to
permit the member to create community places tailored to the
specific needs of well-defined communities. For example, the member
can adjust parameters of the community including what interest the
members of the community share (i.e., an interest in the "people
motivation" or "leadership"), whether the community is open to
everyone or if you have to be invited to join, whether the
community is to be moderated (and if so, then by whom), what
applications and/or information the community can have access to as
well as permission levels, roles of the members in the community,
and other parameters. Moreover, the member can select an initiator,
moderator and gate keeper for this community. For example, the
member may be selected to perform one or more of these functions,
but the selection can be changed including assigning the
responsibility to some other member such as a member from people
identified in a result from the people finder tool.
[0041] The community builder tool selects a template (block 604)
based on a community of people having a primary interest. The tool
may create a list of people who may share this interest. For
example, the member can access the people finder tool to create and
manage a list of people who have a primary interest in "people
motivation" or "leadership." The member also can use the tool to
create and save contact lists for future communication, define
ad-hoc collections of people when sending messages to the members
of the community, search for public communities and become members
using a particular role, browse for people across one or more
different communities. For example, the member can search for other
related communities such as communities having an interest in
"people motivation" or other interests.
[0042] Once a community of members has been identified, the member
can employ the community builder tool to create (block 606) a
community place based on the identified community of members. For
example, the member has created a community place to allow members
to share information and application related to "people motivation"
or "leadership." The tool may provide predefined conversation
communication channels and messages based on the characteristics of
the community of members. In this example, the community may be
characterized as an "operational" and as requiring a generic
conversation channel type including conversations on a work level
such as questions and answers related to "people motivation" or
"leadership" (See FIG. 4). The tool also may provide predefined
templates according to at least one of human interests, corporate
interests, cross-discipline knowledge exchange, working with the
same business objects, working with the same tool, working with the
same organization, and activity based. In this case, the member is
interested in an "Interest" community related to "people
motivation" or "leadership."
[0043] The community builder tool also may allow a member, such as
an administrator, to assign different access permissions to
information in a community place. For example, some members may be
assigned all rights including read and write permission whereas
other members of the community may be assigned only read access.
These permission levels may be dynamically updated later based the
circumstances of the community. A member also may be able to select
communication tools including synchronous tools (e.g., phone) and
asynchronous tools (e.g., email) based on the community type (See
FIG. 5). For example, a member can choose to notify (e.g., to
invite the members to the community, share information, etc) the
members of the community using mechanisms such as mail, short
message service (SMS) and instant messaging and control the type of
information sent to the members including unrestricted access to
all information, just news, questions, and/or other combinations of
information. A member may be able to define the community of
members as having a primary focus and further defining the
community by adding borders that cross one or more classifications.
For example, a community of member can be defined who have an
interest in "people motivation" or "leadership." This community can
be further classified according to other criteria. Predefined
messages may be sent to the community of members based on a role of
the member and a conversation channel type. For example, this
community may qualify as an "Interest" based community directed to
the "people motivation" which may include exchanging messages such
as ideas, tips, and insights related to "people motivation." (see
FIG. 3)
[0044] As a result, in one implementation, the tool may allow the
member to create a community place of members sharing a primary
interest and to share information with others in the community.
[0045] FIGS. 7A-7H are display screens that may be used with an
implementation of the community builder system.
[0046] FIG. 7A illustrates an implementation of a user interface
(UI) having a basic data screen 700 according to an implementation
of the community builder tool. The screen 700 includes a menu
section 701 providing a list of links to other screens associated
with the tool. In this example, the basic data screen has been
selected from menu section 701. The basic data screen 700 provides
a collection display field 702 indicating the number of people that
satisfy search terms previously entered from another application
such as a people finder tool. In this example, the display field
702 indicates that fifty-two (52) people have been identified
satisfying the search criteria "Portal, EJB, J2EE, Java
Development." The system allows other search terms to be entered
related to any other topic or interest to a community as indicated
in FIG. 200 or other interests. A name field 704 allows a user,
such as an administrator of a community, to specify a name for the
community and a description field 706 permits a user to provide a
description of the community--this information can be entered using
free form text. For example, a person having primary interest in
"people motivation" may be interested in forming a community of
members sharing the same interest. A cancel button 708 provides a
user the ability to cancel the screen, and a next button 710 allows
a user to proceed to subsequent screen such as a specify type
screen 720 shown in FIG. 7B.
[0047] FIG. 7B illustrates an implementation of a specify type
screen 720 to allow a user to select a community type including
characteristics associated with the selected community. The screen
720 includes a community type section 722 that provides a user with
a set of predefined group of communities. For example, the user can
select from a group of communities 722a having members with similar
interests, activities, tools and methods, and business context.
Within each group 722a, a user can select from a list of
pre-established communities 722b. Other communities can be
displayed such as communities listed in table 200 of FIG. 2 or
other communities based on the particular requirements of the
communities.
[0048] The screen 720 also includes a community visibility section
724 allowing the user to specify the visibility of the community.
For example, the user can specify that the community will be "open
and recommended" so that the community will appear in a community
list of a portal allowing everyone with access to the list to join
the community. The user also can select "open" indicating that the
community will appear in the search results of other members and
permit everyone to join the community. The "closed" selection
allows a user to specify that although the community may appear in
the search result of everyone, only certain members may be allowed
to join the community. The "closed and hidden" option allows a user
to specify that the community will appear in search results of
other members, but membership to the community is restricted. The
screen also includes a message board option section 726 allowing
the user to select whether a message board associated with the
community will be moderated or un-moderated where members can post
messages freely. A previous button 711 enables a user to return a
previous screen. Once the user has selected a community, the user
can proceed to the tools and method screen 730 shown in FIG.
7C.
[0049] FIG. 7C illustrates an implementation of a tools and method
screen 730 to permit a user to choose tools and methods for a
community previously selected from the specify type screen shown in
FIG. 7B. A community place section 732 allows a user to indicate
that the community will have a community place to share
information. The screen also provides a choice of tools and methods
for sharing information such as instant messenger, solution
databases, chat, event calendar, shared information collection,
news, discussion forums, download area, or other techniques. A
strategic communication channel 734 provides the user with the
ability to specify whether the community will communicate over a
strategic communication channel. Other communication channels can
be specified including channels listed in table 400 of FIG. 4. A
home page option 736 allows a user to specify whether to include a
public homepage for the selected community. Once the user has
selected the tools and methods for the community, the user selects
the next button 710 to proceed to a first assignment screen 740 to
assign the members of the community roles within the community, as
shown in FIG. 7D.
[0050] FIG. 7D illustrates an implementation of a first assignment
screen 740 for assigning members of the community administrative
roles within the chosen community. A role section 742 allows a user
to assign to members of the community (people pool) administrative
roles such as a sponsor/initiator, moderator or a gate keeper. A
sponsor/initiator is a person(s) responsible for initiating the
community, a moderator is responsible for moderating the community
place and the gate keeper is responsible for verifying membership
into the community. A select people section 744 allows a user to
search for people having certain criteria using a search tool such
as people finder. In this example, the search results in a list
744a of names of people satisfying some criteria. The user can then
select one or more persons from the list 744a and assign them any
of the roles indicated in section 742. The user can then proceed to
a second assignment screen 750, shown in FIG. 7E, to assign roles
to the members of the community.
[0051] FIG. 7E illustrates an implementation of the second
assignment screen 750 for assigning roles to members of the
community. The second assignment screen 750 provides a member list
752 of the members of the community. In this case, the list 752
indicates a community having fifty-two (52) members and shows a
partial list of six (6) of the members. An assignment section 754
allows the user to assign a role to each member such as a guest,
member and/or core. Each role may be associated with certain access
restrictions and characteristics. For example, a guest member may
only be allowed to participate in certain discussions, a regular
member may be allowed more access than a guest, whereas a core
member may have unrestricted access to participate in the
community. Once the user has assigned roles to the members of the
community, the user can proceed to a document management screen 760
shown in FIG. 7F.
[0052] FIG. 7F illustrates an implementation of document management
screen 760 for managing documents in a community. The document
management screen 760 includes a search section 766 to allow a user
to enter criteria to search for documents for sharing in a
community. In this example, a result list of documents 764 shows
different documents including word processing documents,
spreadsheet documents, and other formats. The result list 764 also
provides a scrolling mechanism for scrolling through the list of
documents. The user can select a document from the list 764 and use
an assign button 768 to assign the selected document to a container
such as a folder. A container section 762 provides a user the
ability to create containers or folders to hold documents and to
assign access restrictions such as read and/or write access
permissions to different members of the community. The container
section 762 also allows the user to perform administrative
functions on the containers such as renaming, deleting, and adding
new folders for a community. Once documents have been handled, the
user can proceed to an invitation screen 770 as shown in FIG.
7G.
[0053] FIG. 7G illustrates an implementation of an invitation
screen 770 for sending an invitation to the members of the
community. The invitation screen 770 includes a drop-down box to
provide a user the ability to send an invitation to the members of
the community over communication channels such as email. A message
text box 774 permits a user to enter an invitation message to the
members of the community. Once the user has sent an invitation to
the members, the user can proceed to a confirmation screen 780 as
shown in FIG. 7H.
[0054] FIG. 7H illustrates an implementation of the confirmation
screen 780 providing a display of the characteristics of the
community. The confirmation screen 780 displays a summary 784 of
the community including a description of the community, community
type, tools and methods associated with the community, roles
assigned to the members of the community, documents that can be
shared in the community, and a copy of the invitation sent to the
members of the community. In addition, the confirmation screen 780
provides a confirmation 782 that the community has been
created.
[0055] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating an example integrated
enterprise management system. The techniques described herein
relating to the community builder tool can be integrated with other
systems including this enterprise management system. Multiple
clients 800 can access data over a network 810 through a portal
820. The network 810 can be any communication network linking
machines capable of communicating using one or more networking
protocols, e.g., a local area network (LAN), a wide area network
(WAN), an enterprise network, a virtual private network (VPN),
and/or the Internet. The clients 800 can be any machines or
processes capable of communicating over the network 810. The
clients 800 can be Web Browsers and optionally can be
communicatively coupled with the network 810 through a proxy server
(not shown).
[0056] A portal 820 provides a common interface to program
management services. The portal 820 receives requests from the
clients 800 and generates information views 825 (e.g., Web pages)
in response. The portal 820 can implement a user roles-based system
to personalize the common interface and the information views 825
for a user of a client 800. A user can have one or more associated
roles that allow personalized tailoring of a presented interface
through the generated information views 825.
[0057] The portal 820 communicates with an enterprise management
system 830 that consolidates multiple application services. The
portal 820 receives data 835 from the enterprise management system
830 for use in fulfilling the requests from the clients 800. The
enterprise management system 830 can provide integrated application
services to manage business objects and processes in a business
enterprise. The business objects and processes can be resources
(e.g., human resources), development projects, business programs,
inventories, clients, accounts, business products, and/or business
services.
[0058] The enterprise management system 830 communicates with
enterprise base systems 840 to obtain multiple types of data 845.
The enterprise base systems 840 can include various existing
application services, such as human resource management systems,
customer relationship management systems, financial management
systems, project management systems, knowledge management systems,
business warehouse systems, time management systems, and electronic
file and/or mail systems. The enterprise base systems 840 also can
include an integration tool, such as the exchange Infrastructure
provided by SAP, that provides another level of integration among
base systems. The enterprise management system 830 can consolidate
and integrate the data and functionality of such systems into a
single enterprise management tool.
[0059] This enterprise management tool can include systems and
techniques to facilitate creation of new applications within the
enterprise management system 830. These new applications, referred
to as cross-functional or composite applications, can readily draw
on the resources of the enterprise base systems 840 to cross over
traditional enterprise application boundaries and handle new
business scenarios in a flexible and dynamic manner, allowing rapid
and continuous innovation in business process management. A virtual
business cycle can be created using such cross-functional
applications, where executive-level business strategy can feed
management-level operational planning, which can feed
employee-level execution, which can feed management-level
evaluation, which can feed executive-level enterprise strategy. The
information generated at each of these stages in the enterprise
management cycle can be readily consolidated and presented by the
enterprise management system 830 using customized cross-functional
applications. The stages can provide and consume determined
services that can be integrated across multiple disparate
platforms.
[0060] The portal 820, enterprise management system 830 and
enterprise base systems 840 can reside in one or more programmable
machines, which can communicate over a network or one or more
communication busses. For example, the base systems 840 can reside
in multiple servers connected to an enterprise network, and the
portal 820 and the enterprise management system 830 can reside in a
server connected to a public network. Thus, the system can include
customized, web-based, cross-functional applications, and a user of
the system can access and manage enterprise programs and resources
using these customized web-based, cross-functional applications
from anywhere that access to a public network is available.
[0061] FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating components of an
example enterprise management consolidation system 900. The system
900 can include a persistence layer 910 and one or more base system
connectors 920. The base system connectors 920 enable data exchange
and integration with base systems. The base system connectors 920
can include a BC (Enterprise Connector) interface, an ICM/ICF
(Internet Communication Manager/Internet Communication Framework)
interface, an Encapsulated PostScript.RTM. (EPS) interface, or
other interfaces that provide Remote Function Call (RFC)
capability.
[0062] The persistence layer 910 provides the enterprise management
consolidation system 900 with its own database 912 and data object
model 914. The database 912 and the object model 912 provide a
consolidated knowledge base to support multiple enterprise
management functions, including functions created as
cross-applications 970. Active communication between the
persistence layer 910 and the base systems can provide a tight
linkage between real-time operational data from multiple base
systems and an integrated enterprise analysis tool to allow
strategic enterprise management and planning.
[0063] The data object model 914 can represent a subset of data
objects managed by the base systems. Not all of the data aspects
tracked in the base systems need to be recorded in the data object
model 914. The data object model 914 may have defined relationships
with data objects stored in the base systems, for example, certain
objects in the data object model 914 may have read-only or
read-write relationships with corresponding data objects in the
base systems. These types of defined relationships can be enforced
through the communication system built between the persistence
layer 910 and the base systems. Thus, the persistence layer 910 can
be used to effectively decouple application development from the
underlying base systems.
[0064] The cross-functional applications 970, which take advantage
of this decoupling from backend systems to drive business processes
across different platforms, technologies, and organizations, can be
created using a set of tools that enable efficient development of
cross-functional applications 970. The cross-functional
applications 970 can support semi-structured processes, aggregate
and contextualize information, handle event-driven and
knowledge-based scenarios, and support a high degree of
participation in teams, including driving participation and
transactions. The set of tools enable efficient development of the
cross-functional applications 970 by providing application patterns
that support model-driven composition of applications in a
service-oriented architecture.
[0065] An object modeling tool 940 enables creation of new business
objects in the persistency layer 910 by providing a mechanism to
extend the data object model 914 dynamically according to the needs
of an enterprise. A process modeling tool 950 enables creation of
new business workflow and ad hoc collaborative workflow. A user
interface (UI) tool 960 provides UI patterns that can be used to
link new objects and workflow together and generate standardized
views into results generated by the cross-functional applications
970. The object modeling tool 940, the process modeling tool 950
and the UI tool 960 thus can be used to build the components of
cross-applications 970 to implement new enterprise management
functions without requiring detailed coding activity.
[0066] The process modeling tool 950 can include guided procedure
templates with pre-configured work procedures that reflect best
practices of achieving a work objective that is part of a larger
cross-functional application scenario. Such a work procedure can
include contributions from several people, creation of multiple
deliverables, and milestones/phases. Moreover, whenever an
instantiated business object or work procedure has lifetime and
status, the progress and status of the object or work procedure can
be made trackable by the process owner or by involved contributors
using a dashboard that displays highly aggregated data. The
dashboard and a myOngoingWork place can be two UI patterns that are
provided by the UI tool 960.
[0067] Whenever there is a concept of myObjects, myRecentObjects,
myRelatedObjects or myPreferredObjects, then an Object Picker UI
pattern, provided by the UI tool 960, can be included that let
members pick their favorite object directly. Whenever people are to
be searched for, either for choosing one individual person or for
generating a collection of people meeting some criterion, the
resource finder concept should be applied. A key aspect of
searching for a person can be described as an attribute within the
user's activity, qualification, interest, and collaboration
profile. For a given cross-application scenario, people collections
can be stored as personal or shared collections using the Resource
finder to make them available for further operations later on.
[0068] Whenever there is a strategic view on a cross-functional
application scenario, analytics of the overall portfolio can be
made available in the form of a collection of UI components. A view
selector can be used to display/hide components, and a component
can be toggled between graphical and numerical display and can
include a drop-down list or menu to select sub-categories or
different views.
[0069] Cross-functional application scenarios can provide related
information to the user when possible, and some parts within a
larger cross-application scenario can define what kind of related
information is to be offered. Heuristics can be used to identify
such relatedness, such as follows: (1) information that is related
to the user due to explicit collaborative relationships such as
team/project membership or community membership; (2) information
that is similar to a given business object in a semantic space
based on text retrieval and extraction techniques; (3) recent
objects/procedures of a user; (4) other people doing the same or
similar activity (using same object or procedure template, having
same workset); (5) instances of the same object class; (6) next
abstract or next detailed class; (7) explicit relationships on the
organizational or project structure; (8) proximity on the time
scale; (9) information about the underlying business context;
and/or (10) information about the people involved in a
collaborative process.
[0070] Cross-functional applications also can include generic
functionality in the form of ControlCenter Pages that represent
generic personal resources for each user. These cross-applications
can refer to the following pages where appropriate: (1)
MyOngoingWork page: provides instant access to all dashboards that
let members track their ongoing work. Ongoing work may refer to the
state of business objects as well as guided procedures. (2) MyDay
page: lists today's time based events that are assigned or related
to the user. (3) MyMessageCenter page: Displays all pushed messages
and work triggers using a universal inbox paradigm with user
selected categorical filters. (4) MyInfo: Provides access to all
personal info collections (documents, business objects, contacts)
including those located in shared folders of teams and communities
of which the user is a member. Also provides targeted search in
collaborative information spaces such as team rooms, department
home pages, project resource pages, community sites, and/or
personal guru pages.
[0071] As used herein, the terms "electronic document" and
"document" mean a set of electronic data, including both electronic
data stored in a file and electronic data received over a network.
An electronic document does not necessarily correspond to a file. A
document may be stored in a portion of a file that holds other
documents, in a single file dedicated to the document in question,
or in a set of coordinated files.
[0072] Various implementations of the systems and techniques
described here can be realized in digital electronic circuitry,
integrated circuitry, specially designed ASICs (application
specific integrated circuits), computer hardware, firmware,
software, and/or combinations thereof. These various
implementations can include one or more computer programs that are
executable and/or interpretable on a programmable system including
at least one programmable processor, which may be special or
general purpose, coupled to receive data and instructions from, and
to transmit data and instructions to, a storage system, at least
one input device, and at least one output device.
[0073] These computer programs (also known as programs, software,
software applications or code) may include machine instructions for
a programmable processor, and can be implemented in a high-level
procedural and/or resource-oriented programming language, and/or in
assembly/machine language. As used herein, the term
"machine-readable medium" refers to any computer program product,
apparatus and/or device (e.g., magnetic discs, optical disks,
memory, Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs)) used to provide machine
instructions and/or data to a programmable processor, including a
machine-readable medium that receives machine instructions as a
machine-readable signal. The term "machine-readable signal" refers
to any signal used to provide machine instructions and/or data to a
programmable processor.
[0074] To provide for interaction with a user, the systems and
techniques described here can be implemented on a computer having a
display device (e.g., a CRT (cathode ray tube) or LCD (liquid
crystal display) monitor) for displaying information to the user
and a keyboard and a pointing device (e.g., a mouse or a trackball)
by which the user can provide input to the computer. Other kinds of
devices can be used to provide for interaction with a user as well;
for example, feedback provided to the user can be any form of
sensory feedback (e.g., visual feedback, auditory feedback, or
tactile feedback); and input from the user can be received in any
form, including acoustic, speech, or tactile input.
[0075] The systems and techniques described here can be implemented
in a computing system that includes a back-end component (e.g., as
a data server), or that includes a middleware component (e.g., an
application server), or that includes a front-end component (e.g.,
a client computer having a graphical user interface or a Web
browser through which a user can interact with an implementation of
the systems and techniques described here), or any combination of
such back-end, middleware, or front-end components. The components
of the system can be interconnected by any form or medium of
digital data communication (e.g., a communication network).
Examples of communication networks include a local area network
("LAN"), a wide area network ("WAN"), and the Internet.
[0076] The computing system can include clients and servers. A
client and server are generally remote from each other and
typically interact through a communication network. The
relationship of client and server arises by virtue of computer
programs running on the respective computers and having a
client-server relationship to each other.
[0077] Other embodiments may be within the scope of the following
claims.
* * * * *