Policy based user contacts list management

摘要

Embodiments of the present invention enable policy-based management of a user contacts list. Applications of the present invention are its use in embodiments of Instant Messaging (IM) systems. During an IM session, a session owner may temporarily add a contact to an active contacts list for a duration determined by evaluating constraints from one or more policies associated with the contact. At IM session initialization, a session owner's persistently stored contacts and their associated policies are retrieved, and the policies are evaluated. An active contacts list for use during the IM session is generated from a subset of stored contacts for which all associated policy constraints are satisfied. In embodiments, the active contacts list may be updated during a session by re-evaluating the stored contacts and associated policies. In embodiments, an active contacts list is updated after addition of a new contact determined to have an associated enabled policy satisfied.

主权项

1. A system for managing an active user contacts list for a user of an electronic communication application, the system comprising:
a user contact data store that stores a plurality of user contacts; a policy data store that stores one or more policies for each user contact stored in the user contact data store; a data source that includes evaluation data for use in evaluating the policies in the policy data store, wherein the evaluation data is periodically updated; a messaging server, operating on a computer including one or more microprocessors, that includes an active contacts list generator coupled to the user contact data store and the policy data store, for generating an active user contacts list in response to a session initialization request from a session owner using a messaging client, wherein each user contact on the active users contact list satisfies the one or more policies associated with that user contact based on the evaluation data; wherein the active contacts list generator operates to update, during a communication session established by the session initialization request, the active user contacts list in response to a change in the evaluation data; wherein the evaluation data change is detected via a polling request received from the messaging client at a configurable interval, and results in a change for a particular user contact in the user contact data store in satisfying a particular policy stored in the policy data store.