Visitor Organization Display in Collaborative Interfaces

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Solution Overview

Problem

In multi-tenant social networking environments, users engaging in collaborative activities with visitors from other organizations face difficulties in easily and efficiently determining the visitor's organization, requiring time-consuming searches through identification information.

Innovation Solution

A method and system that authenticate users and display the visitor's organization on the user interface of the collaborating user, eliminating the need for manual searches by extracting and presenting the organization information during the authentication process.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If the user performs a manual search to determine the visitor's organization, then the organization information can be found, but it requires time-consuming effort

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveorganization information accessibilityVSAvoidsearch time

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts and stores the visitor's organization information during the authentication process, before the collaborative activity begins. This preliminary extraction makes the information immediately available without requiring subsequent manual searches, thus resolving the contradiction between information accessibility and time consumption

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system introduces an intermediary mechanism that automatically extracts organization information from authentication data and presents it to users. This intermediary process eliminates the need for users to manually search through identification information, providing the organization details efficiently while maintaining information accessibility

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Ease of operation

If the organization information is not displayed automatically, then user privacy is protected, but users cannot easily discover the visitor's organization

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveease of discovering organizationVSAvoidorganization information availability

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system extracts only the necessary organization information from the authentication data and displays it separately from other personal identification details. This selective extraction makes organization information easily discoverable while maintaining appropriate privacy boundaries, resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and information availability

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS9361004B2Indicating organization of visitor on user interface of user engaged in collaborative activity with visitor

Publication Date: 2016.06.07 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORPORATION

AI summary

A method, system and computer program product for indicating an organization of a visitor on a user interface of a user engaged in collaborative activity with the visitor. The visitor attempting to engage in a collaborative action (e.g., participating in an online meeting, sharing files) with a user from a different organization is authenticated to confirm that the visitor has the right to engage in collaborative activity with the user from the different organization. The identification of the organization of the visitor is extracted from the information used to authenticate the visitor. The identification of the organization of the visitor is then displayed on the user interface of the user engaging in the collaborative action with the visitor. In this manner, the organization of the visitor is easily discoverable by the user without requiring the user to perform a time consuming search to determine the organization of the visitor.