Patent ID: 7480917

Claim:
A method of enabling a user to set a value across a plurality of network objects representing one or more portions of a plurality of different network device types on a communications network, the method comprising acts of: (A) providing a user interface that enables the user to indicate a user-specified value for which to set the plurality of network objects representing the one or more portions of the plurality of different network device types by specifying the user-specified value only once, wherein the act of providing a user interface comprises the acts of: (1) concurrently displaying values of network objects on a display by displaying a first table to a user on the display, the first table including a plurality of rows and at least a first column representing a first object type of the plurality of network objects representing the one or more portions of the plurality of different network device types, each of plurality of the rows including a cell for the first column that stores a value for one of the plurality of network objects representing the one or more portions of the plurality of different network device types; (2) receiving user input that specifies a plurality of rows of the first table to concurrently select a set of the plurality of network objects representing the one or more portions of the plurality of different network device types, the set of the plurality of network objects having the value the user desires to set to the user-specified value; (3) displaying a second table to the user on the display concurrently to displaying the first table, the second table including one or more columns, each column of the second table corresponding to the first column of the first table; (4) receiving the user-specified value from the user for a column of the second table that corresponds to the first column of the first table; (5) in response to receiving the value from the user, for each of the plurality of rows, setting the cell for the column of the first table equal to the received value; and (B) in response to receiving an instruction from the user, initiating setting the object value of each member of the set of the plurality of network objects representing the one or more portions of the plurality of different network device types equal to the user-specified value.