Aggregate Contact Editing via Anchor Point Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current contact editing systems on mobile devices, such as Android and iOS, require users to edit individual source contacts instead of the aggregate contact, leading to a cumbersome editing experience when updating information like phone numbers or email addresses.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilize anchor points in an edit file to identify and update the corresponding aggregate contact, allowing users to make edits directly to the aggregated data, with the system determining the correct aggregate object or contact based on these anchor points and applying the changes accordingly.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If users edit aggregate contacts by editing individual source contacts one at a time, then data consistency across multiple sources is maintained, but the editing process becomes cumbersome and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an edit file as an intermediary data structure that contains anchor points linking to source contacts. This edit file serves as a mediator between the user's editing intent and the multiple source contacts, allowing users to edit the aggregate contact once while the system automatically distributes the edit to all relevant source contacts through the anchor point relationships.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the editing process into distinct components: the aggregate contact object, the edit file with anchor points, and the individual source contacts. This segmentation allows the system to maintain separate representations of the same contact data across different sources while enabling centralized editing through the aggregate contact, resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and data consistency.
2Reliability
If the system presents all source contacts to users for editing, then users can update individual contacts, but the user interface complexity increases and users must navigate multiple contacts instead of editing the aggregate contact directly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the editing functionality from the individual source contacts and concentrates it in the aggregate contact object. Instead of requiring users to navigate and edit multiple source contacts, the system extracts the essential editing operations and makes them available through a single aggregate contact interface, while the edit file with anchor points ensures reliability by linking back to all source contacts.
3Reliability
If users edit each source contact individually to update aggregate contact information, then data consistency is maintained across sources, but the number of editing operations required increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the editing operations for multiple source contacts into a single editing action on the aggregate contact. The edit file combines anchor points to all relevant source contacts, allowing the system to process one edit operation and automatically propagate it to all linked source contacts, thereby maintaining data consistency while dramatically improving editing efficiency and productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed are systems and methods for editing aggregated data based on edit requests that are received. An edit file is updated to include a newly-received edit. The edit file includes anchor points that each point to one of a plurality of aggregate data objects. The anchor points are used to determine one of the objects to which the edit file corresponds. The edit file is then applied to update data in this object including making the new edit.