Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
  • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
  • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
  • G06Q10/107—Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q30/00—Commerce
  • G06Q30/04—Billing or invoicing
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q40/00—Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Definitions

• the present invention generally relates to notices and alerts generated by applications.
• the embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for generating, sending and responding to non-interrupting notices.
• Increased computing power allows individuals to alternate between primary and secondary tasks. While multi-tasking can increase productivity, cognitive limitations often prevent people from fully attending to more than one task simultaneously. It is the unexpected interruptions of the primary task by a secondary task that leads to a decrease in the user's productivity in carrying out both the primary and secondary tasks.
• interruptions not only slow down task performance and but can also increase errors during the execution of the primary task.
• Another negative outcome of an interruption is that the user may not pay adequate attention to the content of the interruption. This may happen when the user is interrupted during intense focus on a primary task or when the interruption (i.e., notification) is perceived as a false alarm (e.g., a bogus error message). In such cases, the user may not pay enough attention to the interruption to understand its content. This could have serious consequences if the notification contains important, time- critical information such as, for example, a notice of immediate system shutdown.
• interruptions may decrease the user's productivity, they often serve a vital purpose (e.g., fire alarms, notices of imminent system failure). Nevertheless, some researchers have suggested the development of an interface design for delivering interruptions that would not demand the user's attention. This is believed to be a misplaced effort as it removes a key component of an interruption.
• Another proposed solution to this problem is a continually updating task bar placed on the side of the computer screen to notify users.
• This peripheral notification design is less distracting than an alert based design, in which a graphical notification overlays content at the center of a user's screen and requires a user to take action to remove the overlay.
• the continuous movement in the user's peripheral vision field incident to updates of the task bar may distract the user.
• the present invention is a method of processing notifications issued by a plurality of computer processes, each of the notifications notifying the user of a business event that requires the user to take at least one predetermined action, the method comprising the steps of: receiving the notifications; displaying links to selected ones of the received notifications to the user, the displayed links being selected according to at least one characteristic of the received notification; when the user selects one of the displayed links, displaying the received notification that corresponds to the selected link; enabling the user to take the at least one predetermined action relative to the displayed notification without accessing the computer process that issued the notification; generating a reply to the displayed notification, the reply including an indication of the action taken by the user, and sending the reply to the computer process that issued the displayed notification.
• the link displaying step may display links corresponding to a selectable subset of the received notifications.
• the link displaying step may display the links in a portal, for example.
• the displaying steps may be carried out on a mobile device (telephone, pager, PDA and the like).
• the displaying step may be carried out by a computing device coupled to the plurality of computer processes by a computer network.
• the link displaying step may display a link to each or selected ones of the received notifications.
• the present invention is a computer system for processing notifications issued by a plurality of computer processes, each of the notifications notifying the user of a business event that requires the user to take at least one predetermined action, comprising: at least one processor; at least one data storage device; a plurality of processes spawned by said at least one processor, the processes including processing logic for: receiving the notifications; displaying links to selected ones of the received notifications to the user, the displayed links being selected according to at least one characteristic of the received notification; when the user selects one of the displayed links, displaying the received notification that corresponds to the selected link; enabling the user to take the at least one predetermined action relative to the displayed notification without accessing the computer process that issued the notification; generating a reply to the displayed notification, the reply including an indication of the action taken by the user, and sending the
• the present invention is a machine-readable
• computing device executed by computing device, causes said computing device to process notifications issued by a plurality of computer processes, each of the notifications notifying the user of a business
• the displayed links being selected according to at least one characteristic of the received notification; when the user selects one of the displayed links, displaying the received
• the present invention may also be viewed as a method for a mobile device to process
• the method comprising the steps of: receiving the issued notifications from a notification
• the notification server being in communication with the plurality of processes and the
• the link providing step may provide links corresponding to a selectable subset of the received notifications.
• the link providing step may display the links in a portal (or another form of Web interface for example) accessible to the mobile device and to the user.
• the link providing step may provide a link to each of the received notifications.
• the present invention is also, according to another embodiment thereof, a mobile device configured to process notifications issued by a plurality of computer processes, each of the notifications notifying the user of a business event that requires the user to take at least one predetermined action, comprising: at least one processor; at least one data storage device; a plurality of processes spawned by said at least one processor, the processes including processing logic for: receiving the issued notifications from a notification server, the notification server being in communication with the plurality of processes and the mobile device; providing links to selected ones of the received notifications to the user; when the user of the mobile device selects one of the provided links, displaying the received notification that corresponds to the selected link; enabling the user to take the at least one predetermined action on the mobile device relative to the displayed notification without accessing the computer process that issued the notification; generating a reply to the displayed notification, the reply including an indication of the action taken by the user, and sending the reply to the computer process that issued the displayed notification.
• the mobile device may be or include a telephone, a personal digital assistant and/or a pager, for example (or a device that includes such functionality).
• the link providing step may provide links corresponding to a selectable subset of the received notifications.
• providing step may display the links in a portal (for example) accessible to the mobile device
• the link providing step may provide a link to each of the received notifications.
• the present invention is a machine-
• each of the notifications notifying the user of a business event that requires the user to take at least one predetermined action by performing the steps of:
• the notification server being in
• Fig. 1 is a representation of a passive notification design framework, according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• Fig. 2 shows an exemplary Web portal including a portlet that contains notices,
• Fig. 3 shows an exemplary Worklist accessed through a Web portal, according to an
• Fig. 4 shows an exemplary notice accessed through a worklist within a Web portal
• Fig. 5 is an exemplary notice within an Email message body, according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• Fig. 6 is a representation of a system for non-interrupting notifications, according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• Fig. 7 is a block diagram of a computer with which the present invention may be
• Notifications does not necessarily have to interrupt the user. Notifications may be categorized as either active (i.e., alerts) or passive (i.e., notices). Alerts should interrupt the primary task
• a properly delivered notice does not interrupt
• Such a framework may advantageously possess one or more of the three critical attributes of passivity, ubiquity and progressive disclosure.
• the present design framework possesses these required
• the present design for passive notifications may be configured for a multitude of application types and platforms, including
• desktop client applications mobile applications and Web-based applications and interfaces, for example.
• passivity means that the present non- interrupting notification systems are preferably user-driven as opposed to system-driven.
• the user determines when to request
• a Web portal or Web mail is passive by virtue of the fact that
• the UI may be rendered in an HTML or other markup language page.
• the user has to
• Such a notification design framework may be characterized as being user driven
• embodiments of the present invention do not (by definition) interrupt the user, such notices,
• non-interrupting notices may be rendered in a Web portal, Web email, native email (i.e.,
• email may be accessed anywhere in the world as long as the user has access to a Web browser
• the same information could be made available to Web browsers on desktops or mobile devices (e.g., PDAs, phones, pagers and the like), thus providing a more ubiquitous delivery platform than a desktop application alone.
• desktops or mobile devices e.g., PDAs, phones, pagers and the like.
• PDAs, phones, pagers and the like e.g., PDAs, phones, pagers and the like.
• the ability to expand to a variety of platforms and mobile devices, both existing and to be developed, is another important attribute of the design framework according to embodiments of the present invention.
• progressive disclosure reduces the user's cognitive load. It has also been suggested that extraneous information appearing on the user's display distracts the user from the main task by drawing attention to subsidiary, irrelevant or less relevant activities and also by cluttering the visual appearance of the user interface.
• the progressive disclosure of notifications according to embodiments of the present invention addresses the problems posed by the wide variety of communication devices (i.e., phones, PDAs) that are inherently limited in terms of display real estate.
• Progressive disclosure according to aspects of the present invention allows users to control the amount of information regarding their notifications and the level of detail thereof appearing on the screen at any given time. Such progressive disclosure according to embodiments of the present invention enables the user to make an informed decision within the limitations of the device on which the notifications are currently viewed.
• Fig. 1 is a representation of a passive notification design framework that is ubiquitous, passive, and that provides for multiple levels of progressive disclosure, according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• the notification system 100 allows agents and processes to run independently in the background, sending messages to a notification system 102 that serves messages generated by such agents and processes in such
• This design framework allows the notification system 102 to send messages to a
• the notification system sends notifications to the desktop
• Fig. 1 enables the notification system 102 to send the same message or notification simultaneously or sequentially to all client applications: Web portal, Web mail, and native email application and to any or all of the user's mobile devices, fact, the
• FIG. 1 provides an added convenience since the user would not have to
• the email system and the Web portal may aggregate both types of messages, as may the user's mobile devices.
• the application that generates the notification may present the generated notification
• the user need not log into or otherwise directly access
• the notification may advantageously be sent to a Web
• portal 110 which is an aggregation of information that is relevant to the user.
• 110 may be generally available anywhere where the user has access to a Web browser and a
• the portal 110 may display a plurality of windows, each of which may contain static information and/or links to
• window may, according to an embodiment of the present invention, be a portlet 112 that
• Such a portlet 112 includes all or selected ones of the user's notifications.
• embodiment of the present invention may include only a subset of the user's notifications.
• a subset may include a predetermined number of the user's most recent notifications, or
• any other subset of the user's notifications may include a
• a portlet 126 containing a similar subset of the user's notifications may appear on the user's mobile device 108.
• all portals and portlets whether rendered on the user's desktop or mobile device may, according to embodiments of the present invention, provide (Web, for example) links to the next level of notification disclosure: the Worklist.
• Worklist shown at reference numerals 114 and 128 in Fig. 1, may include an inventory or
• present invention may provide additional value beyond providing a complete list of the user's
• the Worklist may
• reject decision for example.
• the purchase order 116 preferably includes functionality to enable the user to substantively act
• the exemplary notice 116 includes an "Approve” button and a “Disapprove” button.
• buttons Clicking on either of these buttons, according to embodiments of the resent invention, generates a suitably formatted reply to the application or workflow that generated the notice
• the reply will inform the application or workflow that generated the notice 116 whether the user has approved the purchase order or disapproved the purchase order. In any event, the
• the user may cause the mobile device to render the underlying
• the notification system 102 may also send all or selected ones of the received messages and notifications as email messages to a thick email client, as shown at 118 and or
• the email advantageously includes functionality enabling the user to substantively act upon the subject matter of the email - in this case, a purchase order request.
• the user may approve or disapprove
• embodiments of the present invention include a functionality to clean up redundant notifications from the user's portal, thick or thin email client and mobile device(s)
• Fig. 2 shows another example of a portal incorporating aspects of the present invention.
• the portal 110 may include a plurality of individual windows or
• portlets containing news, information and links One such portlet is shown at 112, in which
• level of progressive disclosure such as a Worklist or the message or notification itself.
• Fig. 3 shows an exemplary Worklist accessed through a Web portal, according to an
• the Worklist 120 shown in Fig. 3 may display a complete list of the user's notifications (or sequentially display one screen of such notices at a time, for example).
• the notifications shown in Fig. 3 may be filtered and a drop down menu
• 304 may provide the user with predefined filters. Alternatively or in addition to the drop
• the user may define his or her own filter. As shown at
• 301 in Fig. 3 allows the list of notices to be sorted by selection of different attributes or
• a Web portal using the present design framework is passive, as the user chooses whether and when to review the portal contents. It is also ubiquitous, as it could be accessed from any system that can access the Internet (or the enterprise's intranet, if appropriate) or via a mobile device.
• the present design framework makes use of progressive disclosure, as the information that is initially provided to the user is the minimum required, with progressively more information being rendered in the Worklist and finally in the underlying document, email or message.
• inventions of the present invention shown in the drawings and described herein have two levels of progressive disclosure (e.g., a Web link including a general indication of the notification subject matter at the first level and the entire message or notification at the next level).
• other embodiments of the present invention may include more than two levels.
• a user may not receive all the information needed to make a decision from a subject line alone (e.g., Expense Report W5016513 Requires Your Approval) in a Web portal; on the other hand, information regarding every aspect of that subject (e.g., a list of every item for a $50.00 office supply expenditure) may not be required to make a definitive decision (e.g., approve, disapprove) relative thereto.
• the level of disclosure and functionality presented at the Worklist level of a Web portal may also be presented in the next level of disclosure.
• This next level of disclosure may be selected by the user if more information about the notice were needed in order to make an informed decision regarding that notice.
• This level of disclosure may display additional information regarding the notice or all of the available information regarding the notice.
• Fig. 4 presents an example of this level of disclosure for a notice in a Web application that generated the notification.
• the Home, Individual, and Work tabs shown in Fig. 4 imply that this level of notification is also within the Web portal. This need not necessarily be the case.
• This level of the notification could be within the application that generated the notification.
• the user may be taken directly to the
• this action e.g., approve, disapprove
• this action could be taken by simply selecting a link in Fig. 3 and without having to authenticate himself or herself (e.g., login) to
• the notice of Fig. 4 may include a details portion 410, where an
• the notice may include attached documents that support or
• the recipient of the notice may select an approve button 402, a disapprove button 404 or even a reassign button 406, if the requested decision is to be reassigned (e.g.,
• the notice may include other buttons instead of the
• Web portal may be presented through a desktop or Web based email system or on a mobile
• Figure 5 illustrates an example of a notice in an email message 500, according to an embodiment of the present invention. Such a notice may have originated in a workflow,
• Links 502 and 504 when selected, are effective to cause a properly
• Fig. 6 is a representation of a system for non-interrupting notifications, accordmg to an embodiment of the present invention, h the example shown, three applications 602, 604
• each application is configured to send
• the notification server may be any notification server
• the network 610 may include the Internet, for
• the user may be given control over the manner in which his or her notices are
• the user may subscribe one or more devices or services to receive notifications by the notification server 608 and the server 608 may thereafter publish the received notifications only to those devices and/or services having subscribed to receive such
• the body of such notifications may include functionality enabling the user to substantively act upon the received notification and carry out a business transaction without logging into or otherwise accessing the notification-originating
• a workflow may span across all or selected ones
• the notification server 608 may send the notifications to the user in as
• a workflow may be initiated upon the occurrence of some business
• Such a workflow may well span all three applications 602, 604, 606, in that the workflow
• the Procurement Application 1 may include a procurement request to the Procurement Application 1 for a new desk and/or
• the workflow may also include a request to the human resources Application 2, to confirm the promoted person's new title, for example.
• the workflow may also include a call to a Finance Application 3 to confirm the person's new
• Each application called on by the workflow may generate one or more
• Each such notifications may advantageously be sent through the notification server 608 to the intended recipient in the form of a link on a portlet, an entry on a Web Email application, a thick email client, or as a notice on the user's or users' mobile device(s) in the
• the notification issuing application may be updated to reflect the action taken by the user
• Figure 7 illustrates a block diagram of a computing device 700 with which an
• Computing device 700 includes a
• bus 701 or other communication mechanism for communicating information
• processor 701 or other communication mechanism for communicating information
• Computing device 700 further comprises
• RAM random access memory
• main storage device 704 a dynamic storage device 704 or other dynamic storage device 704 (referred to as main
• Main memory 704 also may be used for storing temporary variables or other
• ROM read only memory
• static storage device 706 static storage device
• bus 701 for storing static information and instructions for processor 702.
• a storage device 707 such as a magnetic disk or optical disk, may be coupled to bus 701 for storing information and instructions.
• network (such as Ethernet, for example) card may be also coupled to the bus 701 to provide
• the computing device 700 may also be coupled via bus 701 to a display device 721, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), for displaying information to a computer user.
• a display device 721 such as a cathode ray tube (CRT)
• CRT cathode ray tube
• alphanumeric input device 722 including alphanumeric and other keys, is typically coupled to
• bus 701 for communicating information and command selections to processor 702.
• user input device might be the user's own voice or cursor control 723, such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicating direction information and command selections to processor 702 and for controlling cursor movement on display 721.
• cursor control 723 such as a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicating direction information and command selections to processor 702 and for controlling cursor movement on display 721.
• computing device 700 may be or include, for example, a computer or a mobile device such as a
• PDA personal digital assistant
• the present invention is related to the use of computing device 700 configured to process notifications according to the present invention, as disclosed above. According to one
• the processing may be carried out by one or more computing devices 700 in
• processor(s) 702 executing sequences of instructions contained in memory 704. Such instructions may be read into memory 704 from another computer-readable medium, such
• processor(s) 702 executes the sequences of instructions contained in memory 704 to implement the functionality described above, h alternative embodiments, hard- wired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement the present invention.
• the present invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software.

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• 2003
  • 2003-03-29 WO PCT/US2003/010099 patent/WO2003083603A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2003-03-29 CN CNB038062216A patent/CN1310169C/zh not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2003-03-29 JP JP2003580965A patent/JP2005521932A/ja active Pending
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  • 2003-03-29 AU AU2003226203A patent/AU2003226203B2/en not_active Expired
• 2009
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