Patent ID: 8332906
Filing Date: 2012-12-11
Classification: G06F,H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method of providing an IT policy to configure a plurality of mobile devices associated with a group of users, the IT policy comprising a set of rules that dictate the functionality or specific values for configuration settings of the plurality of mobile devices, wherein the IT policy comprises IT policy data that is customizable on a per-user basis and the method is implemented by a processor, and the method comprises: checking for a change made to a global IT policy; noting a first group of users for which the change in the global IT policy applies; checking for at least one special user in the first group of users that have per-user IT policy rules; generating global IT policy data based on settings in a first data structure associated with global IT policy rules that are applicable to all users within the group of users; generating per-user IT policy data based on settings in a second data structure associated with the per-user IT policy rules that are applicable to the at least one special user within the group of users; generating merged IT policy data for the at least one special user by merging the global IT policy data with the per-user IT policy data, wherein the per-user IT policy data in the merged IT policy data defines at least one of a modification or an exception to the global IT policy data, and wherein the merged IT policy data is generated before being sent to the at least one special user; sending the merged IT policy data to the mobile device associated with the at least one special user within the group; receiving an acknowledgement from the mobile device associated with the at least one special user within the group, wherein the acknowledgment confirms that the merged IT policy data is received and applied; writing a status of the merged IT policy data to an IT policy table in a management database when the acknowledgement is received; and sending a notification to at least one application residing on the mobile device associated with the at least one special user within the group that received the merged IT policy data when the at least one application is affected by the merged IT policy data.