Patent ID: 6993723

Claim:
A method for listing activities in a graphical user interface in a collaborative work tool framework comprising the steps of: (a) displaying an activity window having activity description data, activity start data, activity duration data, and activity status data; (b) defining an activity in response to user selection of a define activity button, wherein the defined activity is thereafter displayed in the activity window and the defined activity includes an activity description, a start time, a duration, and a status; (c) determining the status for the defined activity based on the start time for the defined activity and the duration for the defined activity; and (d) automatically acquiring background information relevant to the defined activity including automatically obtaining the activity description when the start time is within a predetermined period, parsing and pattern matching the activity description to identify searchable components thereof, querying a plurality of sources across a network to obtain the background information, and receiving the background information in response to querying the plurality of sources.