Patent ID: 7996237

Claim:
An apparatus for mediating between a business application and a collaboration application to provide collaboration service to the business application, the business application executing on one or more application servers, the apparatus comprising: a processor and a memory for storing instructions executable by the processor, the processor capable of: receiving from the business application a context information identifying a section of the business application requested by a first user and identifying a second user associated with the section of the business application, wherein the context information is generated in response to the first user requesting the section of the business application; receiving from the collaboration application, information on a mode of communication with the second user; storing in a first entry in a data store, the context information and the information on the mode of communication with the second user; searching from a plurality of entries in the data store, for a second entry storing information matching the context information received from the business application, wherein each entry of the plurality of entries stores information associated with historical communication between users of the business application; in response to the searching, generating one or more links, the one or more links comprising a first link generated based on the first entry and a second link generated based on the second entry, wherein the second link is generated only if the second entry is determined by the searching, and wherein the first link when selected is designed to open a communication session between the first user and the second user and the second link when selected is designed to open historical communication between the first user and the second user; sending the one or more links to the business application for including on a display associated with the section of the business application requested by the first user; receiving an indication of completion of the communication session between the first user and the second user; and in response to receiving said indication of completion of the communication session between the first user and the second user, the communication session facilitated by selection of the first link of the one or more links, updating the first entry with an identifier corresponding to the communication session.