Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Praveen Upadhyay

Michael J McCormack

Nicholas James Thomson

Ron Mondri

Mahesh Sridharan

Wayne Parker, Iii

Vineet Gupta

Dmitri Davydok

Rajiv Kumar

Ian Carl Legler

Navin Ishwar Thadani

Arun Rajappa

Tobin James Zerba

Christian Heydemann

Sharad Bajaj

Sanjib Biswas

Wayne Carlyle Walsh Parker, Iii

Sunny Mitra

Mitali Jain

Aloka Sanjib Kumar Mitra

Abhishek Agarwal

Indrojit Deb

Onkar Nath Tiwari

Rahul Bhuptani

Sachin Talreja

Tong Gao

Bahram Bahram Pour

Nick Thomson

Craig Austin

Techniques for annotating electronic content items include receiving over a communication network a first request to associate a first tag from among a plurality different of tags with first electronic content, wherein each tag from among the plurality of tags is: configured to label electronic content, and associated with a respective task from among a plurality of tasks; recording, in response to receiving the first request, a first association between the first electronic content and the first tag; and transmitting over the communication network to a first recipient client: the first electronic content, and an instruction to the first recipient client to cause the first recipient client to execute, in response to receiving the first electronic content, the respective task associated with the first tag on the first electronic content.

Extensible framework for executable annotations in electronic content

An image captured by a camera can be processed by a scanning application to identify multiple regions within the image that are suitable for scanning. These regions can be detected and selected for scanning automatically. The captured regions for the single image can be stored as individual image content files.

Multi-region image scanning

Insertion of an executable command or instructions in the form of an annotation to electronic content, such that the receiver can benefit from a more precise and detailed context as they interpret and/or act on the sender's request. The system can, upon detecting an appropriate trigger, be configured to 'translate' or convert the annotation across multiple applications and platforms and perform one or more tasks that facilitate the receiver's access to and interaction with the item. The sender enjoys a much finer control over the manner, presentation, and overall context of the electronic content item as it is shared, and becomes able to offer the receiver a more precise understanding of their own intentions in sharing this item. Similarly, a receiver can be guided toward actions or responses that are expected or desired by the receipt of the electronic content item.

A customer relationship management (CRM) system utilizes a form definition, user interface (UI) definitions, and UI code to generate Web pages for interacting with CRM data. A CRM plug-in is configured to execute in conjunction with a personal information manager (PIM) client application and to utilize the same form definition, UI definitions, and UI code utilized by the CRM system to generate the Web-based CRM interface. The UI definitions are utilized to present UI controls for performing CRM-related functionality in the context of a UI generated by the PIM client application. The UI code utilized by the CRM system to implement Web-based UI controls can be utilized to implement the UI controls in the context of the PIM client application. The form definition utilized by the CRM system might be utilized to display CRM fields in the UI presented by the PIM client application.

Integrating a web-based CRM system with a PIM client application

Concepts and technologies are described herein for collecting and displaying information. A client device executes one or more application programs for providing operations with respect to entity-related data that relates to one or more entities. The application programs analyze the entity-related data to identify one or more entities associated with the entity-related data and transmit entity information relating to the entities to a server or database. Information relating to the entity is retrieved from the server or database and is presented to a user of the client device.

Collecting and presenting information

CRM application controls and functionality for multiple CRM applications/instances are integrated with an ECS application user interface by designating a single CRM application/instance as primary and providing synchronization and rich client control capabilities. Other CRM applications/instances are set up as secondary within the ECS user interface employing a single CRM connection module and a single state manager. Accessing a secondary CRM application/instance activates relevant controls applicable to that CRM application/instance without a user having to logout and login to the ECS client.

Integration of CRM applications to ECS application user interface

Local data caching for views with linked attributes are optimized based on net change notifications. Data requests may be made periodically to a server, each request with a specific set of constraints on timestamps of entity types involved in a view and each ordered by a primary item's identifier (ID). Applying the results of these requests to a client-side cache of the view results enables the client-side cache to stay 'relatively fresh' with respect to the server's data. The server may handle view data requests where all conditions on related tables' columns are applied with an 'and' operation, and the specific set of conditions on the timestamps of the related items are applied to get the net changes with minimum redundancy. The server may also handle stateless view data requests limited by the number of results, and a &#x201c;sort by ID&#x201d; may be applied to ensure consistent results over time.

Net change notification based cached views with linked attributes

Synchronization between email, contact management, scheduling (ECS) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications is facilitated through a synchronization module on the ECS side using an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file for keeping track of synchronization states. The CRM server version of an item is compared with the XML file to detect changes and the same performed for the ECS item. The changes are then pushed to the corresponding item for the columns that have changed. Last updated item is selected in case of a conflict.

Bidirectional synchronization with CRM applications

An automated contact import module enables users to select groups of contacts to import from an email, contact management, scheduling (ECS) application based on viewing contacts by category, organization, email domain, and similar attributes. Contacts in selected groups are imported to a CRM application with automatic data mapping. Communication history may be part of the import process by searching previously indexed emails, appointments, and comparable data associated with the selected contacts effectively creating a data hierarchy at the CRM application.

Automatically creating data hierarchy in CRM applications based on imported contact data

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Praveen Upadhyay