Granted Patent B2

US 8,060,535 · App. 11/891,085 · Granted Nov 15, 2011

Abstract

Claims (45)

1. A method, comprising:

storing a plurality of documents distributed amongst a plurality of geographical locations, each document being located in a corresponding geographical location;

associating the plurality of documents with respective corresponding geographical locations;

associating at least one party with each of the geographical locations such that respective geographical locations have at least one party associated as a contact for that geographical location;

assigning geographical markers to the plurality of documents according to the respective geographical locations; and

permitting access to contact information for the at least one party associated with a geographical location in accordance with selecting that geographical location and also permitting access to documents located in that geographical location in accordance with the selecting of that geographical location; and

wherein the access to the contact information is permitted via at least one clickable indicia displayed to a user and the access to the documents is permitted via at least one clickable indicia displayed to the user at a same time the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information is displayed to the user, the at least one clickable indicia for access to the contact information being different or separate from the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein the geographical locations include a plurality of sites that retain the documents.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein the documents are grouped according to a project associated with the geographical location.

4. A method in accordance with claim 1 wherein the at least one clickable indicia displayed to the user for access to the contact information and the at least one clickable indicia displayed to the user for access to the documents are displayed after the user clicks indicia on a map illustrating where the geographical locations are located that is displayed to the user.

5. An apparatus comprising:

a display device;

an input device; and

a processor configured to:

index a plurality of documents distributed among a plurality of geographical locations according to respective associated geographical locations,

cause the display device to display a map of user associated locations, each of the user associated locations representing one of the geographical locations,

cause the display device to display contact information for the user associated locations after a selection of a respective one of the user associated locations, the contact information comprising at least one party name and a respective telephone number for each of the at least one party name, the contact information being displayable via at least one clickable indicia displayed after the respective one of the user associated locations is selected, and

allow access to the documents at the selected one of the user associated locations, access to the documents permitted via at least one clickable indicia displayed after the respective one of the user associated locations is selected; and

the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information being displayed at a same time the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents is displayed, the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information being different or separate from the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents.

6. An apparatus in accordance with claim 5 , wherein the geographical locations are locations where the plurality of documents are stored.

7. An apparatus in accordance with claim 6 , wherein the contact information is displayed as a contact list that is clickable.

8. A program product stored on one or more computer readable devices, the program product comprising:

code executable to index a plurality of documents distributed amongst a plurality of geographical locations according to respective associated geographical locations;

code executable to cause a display device to display a map of user associated locations, the user associated locations defining respective locations for each of the plurality of documents;

code executable to cause the display device to display contact information for at least one contact associated with the user associated locations; and

code executable to allow access to the documents and the contact information at each location responsive to selecting a respective location and according to the map and the index of geographical locations;

code executable to allow selection of contact information to occur by a user selecting at least one clickable indicia displayed to the user by the display device after the selecting of the respective location;

code executable to allow the access to the documents to occur by the user selecting at least one clickable indicia displayed to the user after the selecting of the respective location; and

the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information being displayed at a same time the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents is displayed, the at least one clickable indicia for access to the contact information being different or separate from the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents.

9. A program product in accordance with claim 8 , wherein the code executable to cause the display device to display the map of user associated locations comprises code executable to display a layered map of user associated locations.

10. A program product in accordance with claim 8 , wherein the code executable to cause the display device to display the map of user associated locations includes a web browser.

11. A program product in accordance with claim 8 , wherein the code executable to index the plurality of documents according to the respective associated geographical locations includes code executable to search a plurality of uniform resource locators and provide geographical associations.

12. A program product in accordance with claim 8 , wherein the code executable to allow access to the documents according to the map and the index of geographical locations includes code executable to receive one or more tags defining geographical associations of documents.

13. A program product in accordance with claim 8 , wherein the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents provides access to a hyperlinked list of documents associated with a particular geographical location when that at least one clickable indicia is selected and wherein the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information provides access to a clickable list of contact information when selected.

14. A telecommunications system, comprising:

a network;

one or more user devices operably coupled to the network;

one or more servers operably coupled to the network, the servers defining geographically distributed document storage locations, each location storing one or more documents; and

a document management service comprising:

a document address database configured to identify geographical locations associated with the document storage locations;

a map display manager configured to cause a display to display a map of geographical locations associated with the document storage locations, the map display manager configured to display contact information for contacts assigned to respective geographical locations after a selection of a respective one of the displayed geographical locations;

a geography manager configured to allow access to documents stored at respective locations defined by the document address database and displayed by the map display manager in association with a particular geographical location responsive to the selection of the respective one of the displayed geographical locations;

wherein the contact information is displayed via a selection of at least one clickable indicia for the contact information; and

wherein the access allowed to the documents stored at the selected respective one of the displayed geographical locations is provided via at least one clickable indicia, and

the at least one clickable indicia for the contact information being displayed at a same time the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents is displayed, the at least one clickable indicia for access to the contact information being different or separate from the at least one clickable indicia for access to the documents.

Assignments (16)