Patent ID: 6799198
Filing Date: 2004-09-28
Classification: H04M

Abstract:
A system to manage configurable assets in a distributed system environment, the system comprising:a service provider device; a plurality of configurable assets under control of the service provider device; a management server, the management server comprising: a help database to store help information about the configurable assets and the service provider device and about features of the configurable assets and the service provider device; a security database to store user information about users associated with the configurable assets; a security interface to update the user information and to grant users access to the help information according to the user information; a network discovery interface to automatically discover status information regarding the service provider device and the configurable assets; an interface to automatically update the help information according to the status information, and to manually update the help information according to instructions from an administrator of the management server; a application interface to receive requests for the help information from the users, the interface being operable to send the help information to the users in accordance with the security interface.