Patent Issued for Methods for using interactive huddle sessions and sub-applications (USPTO 11074552)

2021 AUG 17 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Casale, Robert (Bristol, CT, US), O’Malley, Abigail (Brighton, MA, US), Teller, Kedzie (Brookline, MA, US), filed on June 15, 2020, was published online on July 27, 2021.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11074552, is Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Springfield, Massachusetts, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Conventionally, team members working on one or more projects within a company may get together in a huddle or micro-meeting on a regular basis to share information, discuss topics, evaluate performance, identify issues and/or solve problems collaboratively. Since the introduction of the huddle, whiteboards have acted as the traditional huddle tool for storing all information collected during the huddle session. However, it may not be possible for all participants in a meeting to be in the same physical location at the same time, which may create a need for modifying the current huddle methodology.

“Alternatives to overcome the challenge of gathering team members at different locations for huddle may include the use of one or more collaboration tools such as conference phone calls, video conferences, internet relay chat (IRC), and instant messaging, among others. Nevertheless, the whiteboard is still the most used tool in huddle boards, because these collaboration tools are generic ways to connect people and may not offer a consistent way to be fully engaged in huddles. As a result, all team members must be physically located in the same room in order to be fully engaged in the huddle session.

“Additionally, a huddle session may use a set of management tools to keep team members engaged and informed about the content, goals, updates of the huddle, among others. Furthermore, all issues discussed, graphics, charts, provided for the meeting and created during the huddle may provide valuable insight to team members and to senior management.

“As remote work becomes increasingly common and in order to continue to realize the benefits of the team huddle, there is a need for systems and methods that may enable remote collaboration between team members of a given project in a virtual huddle environment. Equally important is to provide the team members in a virtual huddle with the set of tools that may make the virtual huddle at least as successful as its physical counterpart.

“Conventional approaches to meetings amongst remote users fail address all of the deficiencies of the conventional collaboration tools. A web meeting may allow a user to share a computer desktop with another user in a remote location. But the user must select which application should be presented on the computer desktop, so there is no ability to present a page that has information from multiple sub-applications that are dynamically updated. Further, the user cannot include annotations overlaid on the page that are simultaneously presented to the remote user and also stored with that particular page such that the particular page can be retrieved at a later date along with those annotations.

“Moreover, conventional extranets are capable of sharing information from a common source, but these extranets do not offer real-time collaboration through real-time updates and simultaneous displays to other users. Further, these conventional extranets do not utilize sub-applications that dynamically display data associated with users simultaneously accessing the extranet. Conventional computer solutions do not offer the desired collaboration, real-time updating, dynamic presentation of data, and linking of additional content to the displayed data.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Disclosed herein are systems and methods for computing tools associated with a remote huddle collaboration environment is disclosed. These systems and methods may address the deficiencies discussed above, and may also provide other benefits as well. According to an embodiment, the method providing tools for a remote huddle collaboration environment may operate in a system architecture that may include different components that may dynamically interact with each other through network connections. The system may include components, such as one or more databases, a plurality of client computing devices, one or more servers, a module manager, an authentication module, a data processing module, and a sub-application module, among others. The system may also include any suitable user interface to interact with team members by means of a computing device.

“In one embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises receiving, by an authentication module of a huddle management server, a user credential of a first user transmitted from a computing device of the first user; authenticating, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, the user credential of the first user; determining, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, which huddle collaboration files are associated with the first user; granting, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, access to the first user for the huddle collaboration files associated with the first user upon authentication of the user credential; receiving, by a data processing module of the huddle management server, a selection by the user of a huddle collaboration file associated with the first user; designating, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, the selected huddle collaboration file as an active huddle; receiving, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, a user credential of a second user transmitted from a computing device of the second user; authenticating, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, the user credential of the second user; determining, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, which huddle collaboration files are associated with the second user; granting, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, access to the second user for the huddle collaboration files associated with the second user upon authentication of the user credential; determining, by the authentication module of the huddle management server, whether any of the huddle collaboration files associated with the second user are designated as an active huddle; identifying, by a data processing module of the huddle management server, at least two sub-applications associated with the selected collaboration file designated as the active huddle; instructing, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, execution of each of the at least two sub-applications associated with the selected collaboration file, wherein each of the sub-applications dynamically queries a database for data records associated with the first and second users; presenting, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, a graphical representation of the selected huddle collaboration file on the computing device of the first user, wherein the graphical representation comprises an initial view of the at least two sub-applications having a first set of information for each of the least two sub-applications simultaneously displayed in the graphical representation; simultaneously presenting, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, a synchronized version of the selected huddle collaboration file on a computing device of the second user located remotely from the computing device of the first user, wherein the graphical representation comprises the initial view of the at least two sub-applications having the first set of information for each of the least two sub-applications simultaneously displayed in the graphical representation; upon receiving a selection of one of the at least two sub-applications from the computing device of the first user or the computing device of the second user, presenting, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, a second graphical representation of the selected huddle collaboration file on the computing device of the first user, wherein the second graphical representation comprises a second view of the selected sub-application having a second set of information associated with the selected sub-application displayed in the second graphical representation; and simultaneously presenting, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, the second graphical representation of the selected huddle collaboration file on the computing device of the second user, wherein the second graphical representation comprises the second view of the selected sub-application having the second set of information associated with the selected sub-application displayed in the second graphical representation; and upon receiving input data from an input device of the computing device of the first user or the second user directed to an electronic address associated with the selected sub-application, updating, by the data processing module of the huddle management server, the database accessed by the selected sub-application and dynamically display the second graphical user interface simultaneously to the computing device of the first user and the computing device of the second user reflecting the updated database.

“In another embodiment, a collaboration system comprises a data store including a description associated with a huddle board display page having at least two sub-applications and an association with more than one user, wherein the first huddle board display page has information from a first sub-application and a second sub-application, and wherein the huddle board display page has a first huddle board display page having a first link associated with an object of the information from the first sub-application for a second huddle board display page having information from a first sub-application a second link associated with an object of the information from the second sub-application for a third huddle board display page having information from a second sub-application; and a computer processor coupled to the data store and in communication through the Internet and programmed to: receive a signal indicating activation of the first or second links displayed by the first huddle board display page or the second huddle board display page, upon receiving an indication that a sub-application has been activated by a user computer in Internet communication with the first huddle board display page, serve the second huddle board display page based upon the description in the data store and with content generated by the activated sub-application, and upon receiving an input from the user computer to update information presented on the huddle board display page for a particular sub-application, serve a third huddle board display page based upon the description in the data store and content generated by any sub-applications including the input of updated information associated with the huddle board display page.

“Numerous other aspects, features and benefits of the present disclosure may be made apparent from the following detailed description taken together with the drawing figures.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: upon authenticating a first computing device operated by a first user, determining, by a server, which collaboration files are associated with the first user, each collaboration file being associated with at least one sub-application displayed on a collaboration platform; displaying, by the server on the first computing device, at least one sub-application associated with at least one collaboration file associated with the first user; upon receiving a signal selecting an activation of at least one collaboration file from the first computing device, designating, by the server, the selected collaboration file as an active collaboration file; upon authenticating a second computing device operated by a second user, identifying, by a server, the active collaboration file associated with the second user; instructing, by the server, execution of at least one sub-application associated with the active collaboration file, wherein each of the sub-applications dynamically queries a database for data records associated with the first and second users; displaying, by the server, a synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the graphical representation comprises an initial view of the executed at least one sub-application; upon receiving, from the first or second computing device, a selection and an input associated with the at least one sub-application of the activated collaboration file: displaying, by the server, a second synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the second graphical representation comprises a second view of the selected sub-application having a second set of information corresponding to the input; and updating, by the server, the database based on the input.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying, by the server, the input as an overlay on the first graphical representation or the second graphical representation that was being displayed when the input was received by the server.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a software tool enabling remote collaboration between users in a digital collaboration environment.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to an image-based sub-application that comprises a library of images for selection by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column of a pre-defined characters for writing by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column for the first user or the second user to publish text for sharing.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application to provide news and alerts to at least one of the first user or the second user during the collaboration session.

“8. A system comprising: a server comprising a processor and a non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions that when executed by the processor causes the processor to perform operations comprising: upon authenticating a first computing device operated by a first user, determine which collaboration files are associated with the first user, each collaboration file being associated with at least one sub-application displayed on a collaboration platform; display, on the first computing device, at least one sub-application associated with at least one collaboration file associated with the first user; upon receiving a signal selecting an activation of at least one collaboration file from the first computing device, designate the selected collaboration file as an active collaboration file; upon authenticating a second computing device operated by a second user, identify the active collaboration file associated with the second user; instruct execution of at least one sub-application associated with the active collaboration file, wherein each of the sub-applications dynamically queries a database for data records associated with the first and second users; display a synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the graphical representation comprises an initial view of the executed at least one sub-application; upon receiving, from the first or second computing device, a selection and an input associated with the at least one sub-application of the activated collaboration file: display a second synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the second graphical representation comprises a second view of the selected sub-application having a second set of information corresponding to the input; and update the database based on the input.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the instructions are further configured to cause the server to: display the input as an overlay on the first graphical representation or the second graphical representation that was being displayed when the input was received by the server.

“10. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a software tool enabling remote collaboration between users in a digital collaboration environment.

“11. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to an image-based sub-application that comprises a library of images for selection by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“12. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column of a pre-defined characters for writing by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“13. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column for the first user or the second user to publish text for sharing.

“14. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application to provide news and alerts to at least one of the first user or the second user during the collaboration session.

“15. A computer system comprising: a first computing device operated by a first user, the first computing device having a first processor; a second computing device operated by a second user, the second computing device having a second processor; and a server in communication with the first computing device and the second computing device, the server configured to: upon authenticating the first computing device, determine which collaboration files are associated with the first user, each collaboration file being associated with at least one sub-application displayed on a collaboration platform; display, on the first computing device, at least one sub-application associated with at least one collaboration file associated with the first user; upon receiving a signal selecting an activation of at least one collaboration file from the first computing device, designate the selected collaboration file as an active collaboration file; upon authenticating the second computing device, identify the active collaboration file associated with the second user; instruct execution of at least one sub-application associated with the active collaboration file, wherein each of the sub-applications dynamically queries a database for data records associated with the first and second users; display a synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the graphical representation comprises an initial view of the executed at least one sub-application; upon receiving, from the first or second computing device, a selection and an input associated with the at least one sub-application of the activated collaboration file: display a second synchronized graphical representation of the active collaboration file on the first and second computing devices, wherein the second graphical representation comprises a second view of the selected sub-application having a second set of information corresponding to the input; and update the database based on the input.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a software tool enabling remote collaboration between users in a digital collaboration environment.

“17. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to an image-based sub-application that comprises a library of images for selection by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“18. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column of a pre-defined characters for writing by at least one of the first user or the second user.

“19. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application that comprises a text column for the first user or the second user to publish text for sharing.

“20. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one sub-application corresponds to a text-based sub-application to provide news and alerts to at least one of the first user or the second user during the collaboration session.”

For more information, see this patent: Casale, Robert. Methods for using interactive huddle sessions and sub-applications. U.S. Patent Number 11074552, filed June 15, 2020, and published online on July 27, 2021. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11074552.PN.&OS=PN/11074552RS=PN/11074552

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