Multi-tenant Network Contact Visibility via Organizational Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In multi-tenant social networking environments, users visiting a different organization's tenant space cannot view the network contacts of employees from the host organization, limiting opportunities for expanding their professional network and identifying common contacts.
Innovation Solution
A method that allows users to view network contacts by receiving a request, determining the visitor's organization, obtaining the target user's organization and contacts, and providing access based on the visitor's status and the target user's policies, enabling display of accessible network contacts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If visitors are restricted from viewing network contacts of host organization employees, then privacy concerns are addressed, but visitors cannot identify common contacts or expand their professional network
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating access rights based on the visitor's organization. Visitors from the same organization as the target user can view network contacts, while visitors from different organizations cannot. This creates localized access permissions that protect privacy for external visitors while enabling network expansion for internal visitors.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts visibility of network contacts based on the visitor's organizational affiliation. The access control mechanism evaluates the visitor's organization in real-time and modifies what information is displayed accordingly, allowing the system to adapt between restrictive and permissive modes based on contextual conditions.
2Adaptability or versatility
If visitors can view all network contacts in the host organization, then network expansion opportunities are maximized, but privacy and security concerns increase
Solution Approach 1:
The visitor's organizational affiliation acts as an intermediary condition that mediates access to network contact information. The system uses the organization match as a filtering mechanism that allows beneficial network expansion while blocking potentially harmful unauthorized access, serving as a trusted intermediary criterion.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the access parameter based on organizational affiliation. When the visitor's organization matches the target user's organization, the system transitions from a restricted state to an permissive state regarding network contact visibility, dynamically adjusting information accessibility based on this organizational parameter.
3Reliability
If visitors cannot access employee directory or network contacts, then security policies are maintained, but collaborative opportunities are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments access rights into different categories based on organizational relationship. Visitors are segmented into two groups: those from the same organization (who can view network contacts) and those from different organizations (who cannot). This segmentation allows collaborative efficiency to improve for internal visitors while security policies remain enforced for external visitors.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, system and computer program product for allowing a user to view network contacts of other users when visiting an environment of a different organization. A visitor requests to view a profile of a user while the visitor is visiting the environment or tenant space of a different organization. The organization of the visitor is obtained. Furthermore, the organization and network contacts of the user whose profile is requested to be viewed are obtained in response to validating the visitor's organization. The requested profile is then displayed to the visitor containing the accessible network contacts (if any) of the user based on whether the user and the visitor belong to the same organization.