Method and system for auto-populating electronic forms
View Patent ↗An autofill system is described for auto-populating electronic forms with data stored by an on-line social networking system. When a member of an on-line social network system accesses, via a web browser, an autofill-enabled web page, the autofill system determines an identification of the member, scrapes the member's profile to obtain member's information, assembles the member's profile information as member data, and communicates the member data to the web browser together with a script for presenting an autofill button on the web page.
1. A method comprising:
detecting, at a server system hosting an on-line social networking system, that a member of the on-line social networking system is accessing a web page via a web browser, the web page provided by an entity that is distinct from the on-line social networking system;
obtaining, from the on-line social networking system, member data, the member data associated with the member of the on-line social networking system; and
communicating the member data together with a user interface (UI) object to the web browser, the UI object configured to populate an electronic form presented on the web page with data obtained from the on-line social networking system, the UI object to be dynamically inserted, in response to the detecting, into the electronic form presented on the web page as part of the electronic form.
2. The method of claim 1 , comprising generating the object, the UI object configured to, in response to an activation event:
access a form presented on a web page that displays the UI object,
determine that the electronic form includes a field associated with an autofill tag, and
populate the field associated with the autofill tag with an item from member data, the member data comprising information from a profile of a member of a on-line social networking system.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the UI object is to access mapping information, the mapping information providing mapping between the autofill tag and the item from the member data.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the mapping information is stored locally with respect to the web browser.
5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the UI object is to access mapping information stored at the server system.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the autofill tag is from a plurality of autofill tags, respective autofill tags from the plurality of autofill tags associated with respective fields of the form.
7. The method of claim 1 comprising communicating, to the web browser, a browser cookie, the browser cookie to per the server system to detect that the member of the on-line social networking system is accessing the web page via a web browser.
8. The method of claim 1 , comprising communicating, to the web browser, an analytics script, the analytics script to report, to the server system, analytics with respect to events indicative of behavior of the member while the member is accessing the web page.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the analytics comprises one or more of one or more events associated with activating the UI control, one or more events associated with submitting the form to a provider of the web page, and demographics of the member.
10. The method of claim 9 , comprising communicating the analytics to a provider of the web page.
11. A computer-implemented system comprising:
a web page access detector, implemented using at least one processor, to detect at a server system hosting an on-line social networking system, that a member of the on-line social networking system is accessing a web page via a web browser, the web page provided by an entity that is distinct from the on-line social networking system;
a profile scraper, implemented using at least one processor, to obtain, from the on-line social networking system, member data, the member data associated with the member of the on-line social networking system; and
communications module, implemented using at least one processor, to communicate the member data together with a user interface (UI) object to the web browser, the UI object configured to populate an electronic form presented on the web page with data obtained from the on-line social networking system, the UI object to be dynamically inserted, in response to the detecting, into the electronic form presented on the web page as part of the electronic form.
12. The system of claim 11 , comprising a UI object generator, implemented using at least one processor, the UI object generator to generate the UI object, the UI object configured to, in response to an activation event:
access a form presented on a web page that displays the UI object,
determine that the electronic form includes a field associated with an autofill tag, and
populate the field associated with the autofill tag with an item from member data, the member data comprising information from a profile of a member of a on-line social networking system.
13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the UI object is to access mapping information, the mapping information providing mapping between the autofill tag and the item from the member data.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the mapping information is stored locally with respect to the web browser.
15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the UI object is to access mapping information stored at the server system.
16. The system of claim 11 , wherein the autofill tag is from a plurality of autofill tags, respective autofill tags from the plurality autofill tags associated with respective fields of the form.
17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the communications module is to communicate, to the web browser, a browser cookie, the browser cookie to permit the server system to detect that the member of the on-line social networking system is accessing the web page via a web browser.
18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the communications module is to communicate to the web browser an analytics script, the analytics script to report, to the server system, analytics with respect to events indicative of behavior of the member while the member is accessing the web page.
19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the analytics comprises one or more of one or more events associated with activating the UI control, one or more events associated with submitting the form to a provider of the web page, and demographics of the member.
20. A machine-readable non-transitory storage medium having instruction data to cause a machine to perform operations comprising:
detecting, a servers system hosting an on-line social networking system, that a member of the on-line social networking system is accessing a web page via a web browser, the web page provided by an entity that is distinct from the on-line social networking system;
obtaining, from the on-line social networking system, member data, the member data associated with the member of the on-line social networking system; and
communicating the member data together with a user interface (UI) object to the web browser, the UI object configured to populate an electronic form presented on the web page with data obtained from the on-line social networking system, the UI object to be dynamically inserted, in response to the detecting, into the electronic form presented on the web page as part of the electronic form.