AU2016100575A4 - Permission-based meeting software and framework that manages the access of an individual, group, or an organization with other external 3rd parties, to control, share and disclose: agendas, chat dialogue, notes, action items, approvals, collaboration, and consensus voting, and offer expiry, with time-stamped activity tracking before, during, and after a meeting is conducted. - Google Patents

Abstract

Patents Act 1990 INNOVATION PATENT PERMISSION-BASED MEETING SOFTWARE PERMISSION-BASED MEETING SOFTWARE Permission-based meeting software and framework that manages the access of an individual, group, or an organization with other external 3rd parties, to control, share and disclose: agendas, chat dialogue, notes, action items, approvals, collaboration, and consensus voting, and offer expiry, with time stamped activity tracking before, during, and after a meeting is conducted. Fig. 1 - Infrastructure Layer - Public Cloud Permission-Based Meeting Software 104 05 10 6 107 101 102 103 nternet 108 1109 1110 1111

Description

PERMISSION-BASED MEETING SOFTWARE TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present invention provides a framework and software solution for the management of meeting activities, outcomes, voting, and approvals, by a host to set the permissions to be used by attendees.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION

[0002] The origins of human gatherings were likely when primitive humans found that living and cooperating in groups helped them meet basic survival needs such as food, territory, safety. As humanity evolved into society, people gathered for more and more specific reasons — meetings to trade wealth, meetings to share or teach new ideas, meetings to ponder our existence, meetings to satisfy social urges, or meetings to discuss our dominion — though when we take a closer look, the reasons at their core are often still to protect, accumulate or enforce our basic needs (trade, education, faith, socialization, and conflict resolution).

[0003] In the information age, a modern organization, the best reason to have a meeting is that you really need interaction between the people who are attending. You need people to share opinions and knowledge, and build a common integrated thought line about the issue at hand. Then a meeting-if done well-is perfect for that. The meeting thus serves as a platform for discussing, promoting and disseminating information, solving problems and resolving disputes.

[0004] The host is generally the person that controls, shares and discloses the need, and expected outcomes of a meeting. Effective meetings are not only integral to achieve an individual, group, or an organization goals and successful completion of tasks. Whether they are conducted in real-time or asynchronously, in-person or by a remote conference, meetings are important tools for managing activities and productivity. Meetings allow for open conversation that draws upon each members' knowledge, skills, and perspectives to solve problems and to support one another in achieving the outcomes of the attendees.

[0005] It is important that the meeting host sets the permissions for their meeting including; agendas, chat dialogue, notes, action items, approvals, collaboration, and consensus voting, and offer expiry. The solution to an unproductive meeting might be as simple as not having them. Before calling attendees together it is important that the host consider whether the purpose of the meeting might be fulfilled some other way. If the point is to share information-which is all too frequently the case in organizations plagued by bad meetings-e-mail, memos, and informal conversations might well work better. The best meetings are where people will both engage in discussion and provide their own point of view - the goal is to obtain maximum networking and practical information.

[0006] Collaboration and consensus decision making is often used as a process by a meeting host, groups or organisations, seeking to generate widespread levels of participation and agreement. There are variations among different groups and organisations regarding the degree of agreement necessary to finalize a decision. The process of group deliberation, however, has many common elements that are definitive of consensus decision making.

[0007] Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic activity that often occurs to reach agreement between attendees of a meeting. Instead of voting for an item and having the majority of the attendees getting their way, the host should decide the rules for reaching consensus and finding solutions that everyone actively supports, or at least can live with.

[0008] All opinions, ideas and concerns are taken into account. Through listening closely to each other, the host should aim to come up with proposals that work for everyone. Consensus is neither compromise nor unanimity - it aims to go further by weaving together everyone's best ideas and key concerns - a process that often results in surprising and creative solutions, inspiring both the individual, group or organization as a whole. Voting is a good method for a host to implement in meetings to allow people to register their opinion—often following discussions on a particular agenda item.

[0009] One of the valuable aspects of a meeting is the occurrence of activities and outcomes; time-stamped activity tracking, before, during, and after a meeting is conducted is very important. If a meeting agenda is built as a living document, then it shouldn't disappear when a meeting concludes, but rather it should become the source of work following the meeting. What occurs most times is quite the opposite. Meetings fail to be productive when there is no accountability or follow-through for the decisions and tasks created during the meeting.

[0010] Key decisions, action plans, and a meeting summary can provide an individual, group or organization with evidentiary and historical records of a meeting. The style of the minutes issued depends on the circumstances—in situations of critical importance, detailed minutes may be required. Where this is not the case, then minutes are simple lists of decisions made and action items identified for follow-up with the person responsible named by each action item.

[0011] Generally, minutes should be as short as possible with all key information recorded. This makes notes quick and easy to prepare and review. A template for team meeting records can help organize and make reading the minutes easier.

[0012] Meetings may also include offerings, or decisions which have an embedded timestamp or expiry that an attendee may be actioned after the meeting occurs. An agreement may be reached between the parties after a meeting with a specific trackable field in the meeting that has an expiry period set. These can be created by the host and made available to an attendee(s). If the proposal is approved the relevant parties can be notified if within the timeframe or has elapsed. Task-level monitoring can lead to immediate and significant improvements in how the task is run.

[0013] When an agenda item is resolved or a mutually agreeable action plan is established, it should be clear who at the meeting will be responsible for the action task. To reduce confusion and misunderstandings, summarized and documented actions in the meeting minutes.

[0014] While good meetings can make crucial contributions to groups and organizations, bad one's waste time and hence money. Effective meetings provide people with a means whereby they can acquire knowledge, deal with issues that are affecting individuals, groups, and organisations or make sound business decisions. Setting permissions by a host are a key mechanism for controlling access and delegation, voting and assignment of activities with a meeting as well as the post meeting activities that are carried forward to other meetings.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

[0015] This solution invention provides a complete framework for permission based meeting management that allows the host to mediate the rules for activity, outcomes, and approvals.

PERMISSION-BASED MEETING SOFTWARE BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS OF DRAWINGS

[0016] Fig.l is an infrastructure diagram of the solution that shows the various systems that provide information to the meeting based permission system.

[0017] Fig.2 is an organization (Meeting Host, Attendee, System Administrators) diagram of the dashboards and setup screens [0018] Fig.3 shows the correlation of Permission Based Meetings focus areas diagram and relationships between Host, Attendees and external Approvers (those that did not attend the meeting) dashboards.

DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF DRAWINGS

[0019] Turning to Fig. 1, an infrastructure diagram of the solution that is for group or organization that have all their servers hosted in the internet cloud, that use activity based meeting software that uses permissions to track outcomes and approvals. The virtual or physical server 101 hosting public API or HTTP/HTTPS web services acts as the gateway for communication via the Internet 106 with any qualified web client but specifically a custom written software agent on end user devices with calendar software; workstations 107, Laptops 108, Tablets 109, Smartphones 110, all have a resident software agent that collects information on meeting related activities performed. The LDAP Server 102, uses, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, an Internet protocol that email and other programs use to look up information, is used to provide contextual information about individuals, groups or organization. The dashboard server 103 provides the information from the devices, hosts, and attendees, 107-110 and stored in a data format held in a database 105. Additional electronic files can be stored in either a common cloud storage service provider 103 or a specified network location that links back to the database. Additional server date sources 104 can be added to the data as required to provide alternate information for dashboard. Additional supporting policies and procedures can be stored in various document retrieval systems 106, and additional Human Resource 107 records can be linked or data incorporated into the dashboard server 103.

[0020] Turning now to Fig. 2, User Layer and Setup Screens, a privileged user can access a screens to setup Host Meeting Rules 201, Organization Meeting Rules 202, and Agent Integration 203, these screens set the rules and extraction from data sources within the organization from attendees 208 and Host 210 that can be then represented in the dashboards; Consensus Dashboard Report 204, Permission Dashboard Report 205, and Disclosure Dashboard Report 206. These dashboards can then be accessed by a both Meeting Hosts 208 and Meeting Attendees 210.

[0021] Turning now to Fig. 3 Permission Based Focus Areas depicts the various modalities 301 and collates them to input of Hosts, Attendees and external Approvers (outside of the meetings).

Claims (3)

1. PERMISSION-BASED MEETING SOFTWARE The claims defining the invention are as follows:

   1. Helps Individuals, Groups, and Organizations manage assigned permissions set by the meeting host.
2. 2. Helps Individuals, Groups, and Organizations to control, share and disclose: agendas, chat dialogue, notes, action items, approvals, collaboration, and consensus voting, and offer expiry.
3. 3. Helps Individuals, Groups, and Organizations time-stamp activity tracking before, during, and after a meeting is conducted.