Relationship management system that provides an indication of users having a relationship with a specified contact

A relationship management system, comprising:

• a processor;
• a display device coupled to the processor;
• a database that stores user information for a plurality of users of the relationship management system within a plurality of user folders, wherein each user folder corresponds to one of the plurality of users, contact information for a plurality of contacts within a plurality of contact folders, wherein each contact folder corresponds to one of the plurality of contacts, a reference to a first set of user folders within a first set of contact folders, and a reference to a second set of user folders within a second set of contact folders, wherein the database is adapted to identify the references within the first and second sets of contact folders to store a plurality of contact-user pairs, and each contact-user pair defines a relationship between one of the plurality of contacts stored within the database and one or more of the plurality of users of the relationship management system;
• a reference routine adapted to be executed on the processor to access the database to determine a third set of user folders wherein one or more members of the third set of user folders is a member of a set of the plurality of contact-user pairs, the set of the plurality of contact-user pairs indicating that each member of the third set of user folders knows a specified contact;
• and
• a display routine adapted to be executed on the processor to display, on the display device, the third set of the plurality of users who know the specified contact, wherein the none of the third set of the plurality of users initiated the display routine.

A method of determining relationships between users and contacts, the method comprising:

• storing user information pertaining to a plurality of users of a database within the database;
• storing contact information pertaining to a plurality of contacts in the database, wherein each of the plurality of users of the database is capable of entering and maintaining the user information and the contact information stored in the database;
• storing a contact-user pair within the database when any of the plurality of users performs a function to indicate that the user that performs the function knows the contact, wherein the contact-user pair defines a relationship between one of the plurality contacts and one of the plurality of users, and the contact-user pair indicates that one of the plurality of users knows one of the plurality of contacts;
• searching the contact-user pairs to locate one or more contact-user pairs associated with a specified contact;
• and
• displaying the existence of a relationship between one or more of the plurality of users and the specified contact based on the contact-user pairs located by the searching of the contact user pairs, wherein the displayed relationship includes one or more users that did not initiate the displaying of the existence of a relationship.

In a database system, a method for determining a plurality of users that know a specific one of a plurality of contacts comprising:

• storing, within the database system, a user folder for each of the plurality of users, each user folder including a unique folder identification;
• storing a reference to one or more of the plurality of contacts within each of the user folders, wherein each of the plurality of contacts includes a unique contact identification and relationship information, the relationship information describing a state of association between the contact and the user of the reference;
• creating a join table including:
• one or more contact-folder pairs, each pair including the unique contact identification corresponding to each of the references stored in the user folder and the unique folder identification corresponding to the user folder within which the reference is stored, and
• the relationship information corresponding to the contact and the user of the contact-folder pair;
• identifying the specific one of the plurality of contacts from the one or more contact-folder pairs of the join table;
• and
• displaying the plurality of users and the relationship information corresponding to the contact-folder pairs that include the specific one of the plurality of contacts;
• wherein the displayed plurality of users includes one or more users that did not initiate the method.