Virtual area communications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11588763-B2
Application number	US-202117368126-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 6, 2021
Priority date	Feb 24, 2012
Publication date	Feb 21, 2023
Grant date	Feb 21, 2023

Abstract

A virtual area has a spatial visualization and includes zones that are associated with respective geometric boundaries located in relation to the spatial visualization. Realtime data stream connections between sources and sinks of network nodes in the zones of the virtual area are administered to provide a wide variety of virtual area applications, including virtual area applications that implement spatial rules for one or more synchronous conferencing services (e.g., instant messaging, such as text chat, audio conferencing, video conferencing, application sharing, and file sharing).

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
executing code by a processor to cause the processor to perform operations comprising:
partitioning a virtual area to allocate respective zones in the virtual area to model a workflow of a business process;
arranging the zones spatially according to a visual representation of the workflow of the business process to create a spatial visualization of the workflow;
administering one or more real-time data stream connections between network nodes in a virtual area comprising the zones; wherein each of the network nodes respectively has at least one of a source and a sink of one or more data types and is associated with a respective object in a respective one of the zones of the virtual area, each of the zones is associated with a respective geometric boundary located in relation to the spatial visualization of the virtual are, and the administering comprises administering connections between sources of ones of the network nodes associated with respective objects in a first one of the zones and outside a second one of the zones and sinks of respective ones of the network nodes associated with respective objects in the second zone and outside the first zone;
establishing at least one respective presence in the respective zones in the virtual area for each of one or more communicants, wherein copresent communicants are able to interact with one another in a context of the workflow of the business process defined by the spatial visualization of each of the zones of the virtual area using respective network nodes;
in the spatial visualization of the virtual area, providing tools for communicants who are present in the virtual area to perform a predefined set of tasks associated with the business process according to a set of predefined rules;
modifying one or more attributes of the virtual area based on changes in the business process;
monitoring data relating to the tasks performed for an instance of the business process and relating to communicant interactions in the virtual area to determine a business process development stage of the business process based on the activity levels in the zones and information linked with each zone; and
based on the monitored data, generating one or more metrics for evaluating performance of the one or more instances of the business process.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tasks in the predefined set are grouped into respective subsets of one or more of the tasks; wherein the spatial visualization of the virtual area comprises a respective spatial zone for each subset of one or more tasks.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying an event based on application of one or more predefined rules to the monitored data;
responding to the identified event by modifying one or more attributes of the virtual area.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises modifying the number of tools provided based on a change in the number of tasks associated with the business process.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises modifying a particular one of the tools provided in the virtual area based on a change to a particular one of the tasks associated with the business process.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises modifying a capability of a particular one of the communicants to enter a particular location in the virtual area based on a revocation of the particular communicant's authorization to participate in performing one or more of the tasks associated with the business process.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying comprises dynamically creating a new location in the virtual area based on occurrence of an event relating to an instance of the business process.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the new location in the virtual area is created dynamically based on occurrence of an exception in an instance of the business process.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tools comprises a tool for displaying information, and a tool for retrieving data files.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tools comprises a particular tool for submitting one or more queries to a database comprising the monitored data relating to the tasks performed for the business process instance.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the particular tool is associated with a predetermined query on the database.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the particular tool is located in a particular zone of the spatial visualization of the virtual area, and the query associated with the particular tool is triggered based on a communicant entering the particular zone.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitored data comprises one or more of task status data, time data, virtual location data, and collaboration data.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitored data comprises summaries of one or more meeting of communicants in the virtual area.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitored data comprise respective times when one or more tasks of the business process instance were performed.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitored data comprise locations in the virtual area associated with one or more of the tasks through which a business process instance was processed.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the monitored data comprise names associated with the communicants who are assigned to perform the tasks associated with the business process.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising interfacing a virtual area platform configured to administer the virtual area, with a workflow management system configured to administer the business process.

Assignees

• Sococo Inc

Inventors

• Brody Paul J
• Van Wie David
• Jennings Joseph
• Greenbaum Joshua M

Classifications

• H04L51/04 Primary

  Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM] · CPC title

• H04L12/1822

  Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission · CPC title