Patent Issued for Bi-directional enterprise software integration with collaboration tools (USPTO 11968200): Hartford Fire Insurance Company

2024 MAY 10 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Buccetti, John Gerard (Wallingford, CT, US), Church, Wayne W. (Clinton, CT, US), Crowley, David Wayne (Crestwood, MO, US), DeMaio, Jocelyn Amy (Glastonbury, CT, US), Magee, Eva Angela (St. Louis, MO, US), Nerurkar, Rajesh Kamlakar (Charlotte, NC, US), Reed, Julie Ann (Coventry, CT, US), Schaefer, Richard W. (New Britain, CT, US), Senak, David M. (Avon, CT, US), Sliker, Sona O. (Charleston, SC, US), Walter, Jeremy (Chandler, AZ, US), filed on October 14, 2021, was published online on April 23, 2024, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11968200 is assigned to Hartford Fire Insurance Company (Hartford, Connecticut, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “An enterprise, such as a business, may want to facilitate collaborations within and/or between teams and team members. In some cases, an enterprise may have thousands of team members who each access many different enterprise applications. Each team member may need to log into (and out of) each of these applications multiple times per day to check the status of various software projects and/or other developments. Moreover, an enterprise team member might want to communicate or exchange information with other members of that team (or even with members of another enterprise team). Such manual, application-by-application approach can be a time-consuming and costly process in terms of employee time and computer resources-especially when a substantial number of team members and/or enterprise applications are involved.

“It would be desirable to provide improved systems and methods to accurately and/or automatically facilitate bi-directional enterprise software integration with collaboration tools via a business communication platform. Moreover, the information should be easy to access, understand, update, etc.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “According to some embodiments, systems, methods, apparatus, computer program code and means are provided to accurately and/or automatically facilitate bi-directional enterprise software integration with collaboration tools via a business communication platform in a way that provides fast and useful communications and that allows for flexibility and effectiveness when responding to those communications.

“An enterprise platform may retrieve, from a collaboration data store, information about a selected enterprise team. The enterprise platform may then transmit, from a set of integration tools to a workflow tool of a remote cloud-based environment, a data payload including a notification request associated with a channel. The enterprise platform may also transmit, from a runtime environment to a business communication platform of the cloud-based environment, a request to post a notification to the channel and arrange for a member of at least one of the selected enterprise team to receive an adaptive information card, pushed by the business communication platform via the channel, containing information associated with at least one of the integration tools. The member who receives the adaptive information card may also, via selection of a graphical icon on the card, respond to the business communication platform via bi-directional communication.

“Some embodiments comprise: means for retrieving, by a computer processor of an enterprise platform from a collaboration data store, information about a selected enterprise team, wherein the collaboration data store contains electronic records associated with a set of enterprise teams, each electronic record including an electronic record identifier and at least one team member communication address; means for transmitting, from a set of integration tools to a workflow tool of a remote cloud-based environment, a data payload including a notification request associated with a channel; means for transmitting, from a runtime environment to a business communication platform of the cloud-based environment, a request to post a notification to the channel; means for arranging for a member of the selected enterprise team to receive an adaptive information card, pushed by the business communication platform via the channel, containing information associated with at least one of the integration tools; and means for receiving, from the member who receives the adaptive information card via selection of a graphical icon on the adaptive information card, a response to the business communication platform via bi-directional communication, wherein a communication port coupled to the enterprise platform facilitates a transmission of data with remote team member devices to support a graphical team member display, including the adaptive information card, via a distributed communication network.

“In some embodiments, a communication device associated with an enterprise platform exchanges information with remote devices in connection with an interactive graphical team member interface. The information may be exchanged, for example, via public and/or proprietary communication networks.

“A technical effect of some embodiments of the invention is an improved and computerized way to accurately and/or automatically facilitate bi-directional enterprise software integration with collaboration tools via a business communication platform in a way that provides fast and useful communications. With these and other advantages and features that will become hereinafter apparent, a more complete understanding of the nature of the invention can be obtained by referring to the following detailed description and to the drawings appended hereto.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system associated with an enterprise, comprising: (a) a collaboration data store that contains electronic records associated with a set of enterprise teams, each electronic record including an electronic record identifier and at least one team member communication address; (b) an enterprise platform, coupled to the collaboration data store, including: a computer processor, and a computer memory, coupled to the computer processor, storing instructions that, when executed by the computer processor cause the enterprise platform to: (i) retrieve, from the collaboration data store, information about a selected enterprise team, (ii) transmit, from a set of integration tools to a workflow tool of a remote cloud-based environment, a data payload including a notification request associated with a channel, (iii) transmit, from a runtime environment to a business communication platform of the remote cloud-based environment, a request to post a notification to the channel, and (iv) responsive to the request to post the notification to the channel, arrange for a member of the selected enterprise team to receive an adaptive information card, pushed by the business communication platform via the channel, containing information associated with at least one of the integration tools, wherein the member who receives the adaptive information card responds, by selecting a graphical icon on the adaptive information card, to the business communication platform via bi-directional communication, wherein active directory authentication and a Personal Access Token (“PAT”) are used to achieve Single Sign-On (“SSO”) functionality, and wherein a data-driven orchestrator and a data-driven Application Programming Interface (“API”) service layer encapsulate incompatible tool interfaces; and © a communication port coupled to the enterprise platform to facilitate a transmission of data with remote team member devices to support a graphical team member display, including the adaptive information card, via a distributed communication network.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the selected enterprise team is associated with at least one of: (i) a software development enterprise team, and (ii) an information technology operations enterprise team.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the bi-directional communication sends information to at least one of the set of integration tools.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein a team member provides, to a single page application PAT registration element, information associated with a common data service and user access according to a “least privilege” policy is enforced.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein a team owner provides, to the business communication platform, configuration information mapping events to channel routing.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the enterprise platform further includes a data power component for security functions on APIs exposed to front end applications.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the adaptive information card includes information associated with at least one of: (i) data quality statistics, (ii) comments, (iii) an execution report, (iv) a test execution, (v) a team, (vi) an iteration, (vii) an action, (viii) an issue, and (ix) an author.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein security is provided via at least one of: (i) an API key, (ii) the PAT, (iii) a service account, (iv) an application identifier, (v) a client secret, (vi) a SSO access function, and (vii) a JavaScript Object Notation (“JSON”) Web Token (“JWT”).

“9. A computerized method associated with an enterprise, comprising: retrieving, by a computer processor of an enterprise platform from a collaboration data store, information about a selected enterprise team, wherein the collaboration data store contains electronic records associated with a set of enterprise teams, each electronic record including an electronic record identifier and at least one team member communication address; transmitting, from a set of integration tools to a workflow tool of a remote cloud-based environment, a data payload including a notification request associated with a channel; transmitting, from a runtime environment to a business communication platform of the remote cloud-based environment, a request to post a notification to the channel; responsive to the request to post the notification to the channel, arranging for a member of the selected enterprise team to receive an adaptive information card, pushed by the business communication platform via the channel, containing information associated with at least one of the integration tools; and receiving, from the member who receives the adaptive information card via selection of a graphical icon on the adaptive information card, a response to the business communication platform via bi-directional communication, wherein a communication port coupled to the enterprise platform facilitates a transmission of data with remote team member devices to support a graphical team member display, including the adaptive information card, via a distributed communication network, wherein active directory authentication and a Personal Access Token (“PAT”) are used to achieve Single Sign-On (“SSO”) functionality, and wherein a data-driven orchestrator and a data-driven Application Programming Interface (“API”) service layer encapsulate incompatible tool interfaces.

“10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selected enterprise team is associated with at least one of: (i) a software development enterprise team, and (ii) an information technology operations enterprise team.

“11. The method of claim 9, wherein the bi-directional communication sends information to at least one of the set of integration tools.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein a team member provides, to a single page application PAT registration element, information associated with a common data service and user access according to a “least privilege” policy is enforced.

“13. The method of claim 9, wherein a team owner provides, to the business communication platform, configuration information mapping events to channel routing.

“14. The method of claim 9, wherein the enterprise platform further includes a data power component for security functions on APIs exposed to front end applications.

“15. The method of claim 9, wherein the adaptive information card includes information associated with at least one of: (i) data quality statistics, (ii) comments, (iii) an execution report, (iv) a test execution, (v) a team, (vi) an iteration, (vii) an action, (viii) an issue, and (ix) an author.

“16. The method of claim 9, wherein security is provided via at least one of: (i) an API key, (ii) the PAT, (iii) a service account, (iv) an application identifier, (v) a client secret, (vi) a SSO access function, and (vii) a JavaScript Object Notation (“JSON”) Web Token (“JWT”).

“17. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing instructions, that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a collaboration method associated with an enterprise, the method comprising: retrieving, by a computer processor of an enterprise platform from a collaboration data store, information about a selected enterprise team, wherein the collaboration data store contains electronic records associated with a set of enterprise teams, each electronic record including an electronic record identifier and at least one team member communication address; transmitting, from a set of integration tools to a workflow tool of a remote cloud-based environment, a data payload including a notification request associated with a channel; transmitting, from a runtime environment to a business communication platform of the remote cloud-based environment, a request to post a notification to the channel; responsive to the request to post the notification to the channel, arranging for a member of the selected enterprise team to receive an adaptive information card, pushed by the business communication platform via the channel, containing information associated with at least one of the integration tools; and receiving, from the member who receives the adaptive information card via selection of a graphical icon on the adaptive information card, a response to the business communication platform via bi-directional communication, wherein a communication port coupled to the enterprise platform facilitates a transmission of data with remote team member devices to support a graphical team member display, including the adaptive information card, via a distributed communication network, wherein active directory authentication and a Personal Access Token (“PAT”) are used to achieve Single Sign-On (“SSO”) functionality, and wherein a data-driven orchestrator and a data-driven Application Programming Interface (“API”) service layer encapsulate incompatible tool interfaces.

“18. The medium of claim 17, wherein the selected enterprise team is associated with at least one of: (i) a software development enterprise team, and (ii) an information technology operations enterprise team.

“19. The medium of claim 17, wherein the selected enterprise team is associated with at least one of: (i) a software development enterprise team, and (ii) an information technology operations enterprise team.

“20. The medium of claim 17, wherein the bi-directional communication sends information to at least one of the set of integration tools.

“21. The medium of claim 17, wherein a team member provides, to a single page application PAT registration element, information associated with a common data service and user access according to a “least privilege” policy is enforced.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Buccetti, John Gerard. Bi-directional enterprise software integration with collaboration tools. U.S. Patent Number 11968200, filed October 14, 2021, and published online on April 23, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11968200)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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