Patent ID: 8327292

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for displaying related objects on a user interface, comprising: processing a plurality of objects observed to have participated in at least one message flow, the objects comprising nodes and links, to determine each of a plurality of related object groupings, comprising: selecting an unprocessed one of the nodes for processing; assigning a unique index value to the selected node; iterating through the links to locate each link where the selected node is either a calling node or a called node in a message flow; assigning the unique index value to each of the located links; for each of the located links, finding a corresponding called node for the link when the selected node is the calling node for the link or finding a corresponding calling node for the link when the selected node is the called node for the link; assigning the unique index value to each of the found corresponding called nodes and to each of the found corresponding calling nodes; and recursively processing, as the selected unprocessed one of the nodes for processing, each of the found corresponding called nodes and each of the found corresponding calling nodes; for each of the determined related object groupings, persisting a definition of the related object grouping to persistent storage, the definition identifying each of the nodes and each of the links in the grouping, and for each of the nodes and each of the links in the grouping, persisting the assigned unique index value in the definition in association therewith; and responsive to a subsequent request to display ones of the objects on the user interface, using the assigned index values associated with the ones of the objects to group the ones of the objects for the display, comprising grouping the ones of the objects having an identical assigned index value into corresponding related object groupings and displaying the corresponding related object groupings on the user interface in an order according to the assigned index value that is associated with the objects in each of the corresponding related object groupings.