Situational web-based dashboard

Abstract

A method of assembling situational Web-based dashboard from a wide array of web pages, digital media and components with just a few clicks and no programming, so a user can view scattered information from disparate sources on a single web-based screen. The components that can be included into dashboard pages are: live-area components created on- demand from any sub-region of any web page or web application; any rich media component such as rich text, video, picture, widget; and any office document (Microsoft Office documents and PDF etc.). Each dashboard page can contain any number of components. The size, position, location and layout of the components in the dashboard can be easily configured using a computer mouse, or through a touch screen interface. Each component in the dashboard can do auto-refresh from the source with a specified time interval, which also prevents user session timeout for secured web sites. The resulting dashboard can also be shared with others for collaboration. A set of dashboard pages can also be bundle together, and automatically display in a slideshow mode on-screen to auto display and monitor large number of information.

1 . A computer-implemented method for creating a situational Web-based dashboard, the method comprising:
 creating, using a Web browser, a plurality of web-page embeddable components from multiple disparate information sources; and   aggregating, using a computer server, the plurality of components to a single Web-based dashboard which enables a user to view and interact with multiple information components from said multiple disparate information sources.   
     
     
         2 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein said dashboard comprises a single window displayed on a display device. 
     
     
         3 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein said plurality of components comprises rich media, any office document, and/or any live area which is at least a visible part of a web page. 
     
     
         4 . The method according to  claim 3 , wherein said rich media comprises image, video and/or widget. 
     
     
         5 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein said creating comprises selecting a region of a web page of interest 
     
     
         6 . The method according to  claim 5 , wherein said selecting a region comprises using a pointing device to identify the region of a web page, and then saving metadata related to the selected region to a storage device. 
     
     
         7 . The method according to  claim 6 , wherein said metadata comprises a URL of the web page, a height and width of the web page; a height, width, coordinates and offsets of the selected region. 
     
     
         8 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein said creating comprises:
 clipping and/or bookmarking objects on one of the plurality of web pages by cursor-over selecting an embedded media object such as image, video or widget in said one of the plurality of web pages;   auto-detecting and highlighting the embedded media object the cursor is laying over; and   enabling the user to click a post button to bookmark the embedded object as a bookmark component.   
     
     
         9 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the step of creating comprises:
 converting a Microsoft Office document or PDF document into Adobe Flash-based components by uploading the document to a server, converting the uploaded document into an Adobe Flash file on the server side, and generating embed code for the converted document to use the converted document as part of the dashboard.   
     
     
         10 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein said step of creating comprises:
 converting a web page using HTTP Form-POST into HTTP GET-based, with the resulting page's URL containing all the parameters that were originally hidden as form variables in the HTTP POST request, making it possible to bookmark them with the right URL containing the parameters.   
     
     
         11 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein a location, layout, size and/or look and feel of the components on said dashboard is configurable directly on the user interface, and said dashboard and said components can be shared with other users with various permissions for effective collaboration. 
     
     
         12 . The method according to  claim 1 , further comprising organizing all the components into component catalogs, and empowering an end-user to pick and choose any component for which the end-user is entitle, wherein the end-user can create at least one re-usable component catalog, and wherein an end-user can pick and choose from the at least one component catalog. 
     
     
         13 . The method according to  claim 1 , further comprising auto-refreshing the dashboard components as well as dashboard pages to get the latest information of each component. 
     
     
         14 . The method according to  claim 13 , wherein each live area component comprises a visible sub-region of a web page, and each live area component is controlled by a timer with a refresh interval to automatically refresh itself periodically to get the latest content from the source web site. 
     
     
         15 . The method according to  claim 14 , wherein the auto-refresh obtains current information from secured web pages requiring logging in, without easy session timeout and forced manual re-login again and again. 
     
     
         16 . The method according to  claim 15 , wherein a set of dashboard pages are displayed on a display device in a slideshow mode, each with own displaying duration, wherein the slideshow mode ensures that a number of dashboard pages are automatically displayed on the display device with multiple live or static components, with little direct user involvement to monitor large number of web pages. 
     
     
         17 . A system for assembling a situational dashboard on-demand from multiple information sources, the system comprising:
 a server module having a web server process, a set of server application components, and a database; and   a Web browser add-on or Web browser bookmarklet, wherein the web browser add-on or browser bookmarklet containing web browser client-side logic for analyzing a structure of a web page in a web browser, and submitting metadata to the server through an HTTP protocol.   
     
     
         18 . The system according to  claim 17 , wherein a key server application component is used to dynamically assemble a dashboard page from a requested URL pointing to that dashboard page, by finding out a list of components in the dashboard, sources for list of components, and a layout of the dashboard from metadata stored in the database and render them dynamically. 
     
     
         19 . The system according to  claim 17 , where a key server application component converts uploaded documents into Flash-based files, and save the related metadata in the database. 
     
     
         20 . The system according to  claim 17 , wherein the server application components can generate a dashboard page containing live area componentized information from multiple secured web sites requiring user-login, on screen, without requiring the end-user to share the login credentials to the dashboard system as long as the user first signs into each web site from the same web browser, then refreshes the dashboard page containing the live components, wherein the information from each of the secure sources will be displayed fine on the same dashboard page.