Role-specific service customization

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10171472-B2
Application number	US-201615058464-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 2, 2016
Priority date	Mar 2, 2016
Publication date	Jan 1, 2019
Grant date	Jan 1, 2019

Abstract

In many computing scenarios, an individual may choose to interact with a service in a variety of roles, and may therefore create a set of accounts respectively representing the service. However, the use of multiple accounts by the same individual may introduce considerable administrative complications (e.g., failing to update all accounts with new information results in stale and/or conflicting account information), and may reduce the efficiency and/or scalability of the service. Presented herein are techniques for enabling individuals to interact with services through various roles. Such techniques involve evaluating the individual's role determinants to identify and automatically select the individual's current role; selecting a current role profile, as a subset of the details of the individual profile that are associated with the current role, and excluding details that are not associated with the current role; and performing the service according to the current role profile of the individual.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. One or more computing devices comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more memory storing computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
provide a computer-network-accessible service that is interacted with by an individual user, the individual user having multiple roles and interacting with the service differently depending on which of the multiple roles the individual user has assumed during the individual user's interaction with the service;
receive a detected action of the individual user;
select, from among the multiple roles, a current role of the individual user based on the detected action of the individual user, the detected action having been previously associated with the current role as a role determinant of the current role; and
select a current role profile, which controls the individual user's interactions with the service, based on the selected current role, the current role profile comprising an explicit enumeration of both: (1) at least one included profile detail and (2) at least one excluded profile detail.

2. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
present, to a second individual user, a description of the individual user, the description comprising the at least one included profile detail and excluding the at least one excluded profile detail.

3. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
notify a first contact of the individual user that the individual user is online, the first contact being specified by the at least one included profile detail; and
notify a second contact of the individual user that the individual user is offline, the second contact being specified by the at least one excluded profile detail.

4. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
present information about the individual user to other individual users of the service based on a privacy filter specified by the at least one included profile detail.

5. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
match one or more other individual users with the individual user based on the at least one included profile detail.

6. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
receive, from a second individual user of the service, a request to initiate, through the service, communication with the individual user in a specified role;
initiate communication between the second individual user and the individual user through the service if the specified role is the current role of the individual user; and
deny communication between the second individual user and the individual user through the service if the specified role is not the current role of the individual user.

7. The one or more computing devices of claim 6 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
determine a subsequent time when the individual user is predicted to be associated with the specified role if the specified role is not the current role of the individual user; and
specify the subsequent time to the second individual user if the specified role is not the current role of the individual user.

8. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the detected action is a physical movement by the individual user detected by either a wearable sensor worn by the individual user or a camera communicationally coupled to a computing device utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

9. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the detected action comprises keywords utilized by the individual user as detected by a computing device that is also utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

10. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the detected action comprises attire of the individual user detected by a sensor communicationally coupled to a computing device utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

11. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the detected action comprises resources accessed by the individual user with a computing device that is also utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

12. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the computer-executable instructions for selecting the current role of the individual user comprise computer-executable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to select the current role of the individual user based on both the detected action of the individual user and a detected descriptor of the individual user's environment, the detected descriptor of the individual user's environment having been previously associated with the current role as another role determinant of the current role; and
wherein further the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to: receive the detected descriptor of the individual user's environment.

13. The one or more computing devices of claim 12 , wherein the detected descriptor of the individual user's environment comprises indications of one or more other individuals that are physically proximate to the individual user as detected by either an audio sensor communicationally coupled to a computing device that is utilized by the individual user to interact with the service or a video sensor communicationally coupled to the computing device that is utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

14. The one or more computing devices of claim 12 , wherein the detected descriptor of the individual user's environment comprises identifications of one or more other computing devices that are physically proximate to a computing device that is utilized by the individual user to interact with the service.

15. The one or more computing devices of claim 1 , wherein the one or more memory stores further computer-executable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more computing devices, in aggregate, to:
receive a second detected action of the individual user;
select a second current role of the individual user based on the second detected action of the individual user, the second detected action having been previously associated with the second current role as a role determinant of the second current role;
select a second current role profile based on the selected second current role, the se

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Furtado Andre Wilson Brotto
• Rounthwaite Robert L
• Shi Xiaohan
• Richardson Matthew
• White Ryen
• Shah Syed Fahad Allam
• Sharma Shantanu

Classifications

• G06Q10/40

  Business processes related to social networking or social networking services · CPC title

• G06Q50/01

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04L63/102 Primary

  Entity profiles · CPC title

• G06Q10/107 Primary

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title