Managing presence among devices accessing shared and synchronized content

• US 10,171,579 B2
• Filed: 04/08/2014
• Issued: 01/01/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Larabie-Belanger, Maxime
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Nam T
• Application Number:
  US14/248,149
• Publication Number:
  US 20150288757A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,729 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

A content management system receives presence information from a client application on a device indicating interaction information of a user relative to a content item synchronized to the content management system. The interaction information includes presence information describing presence information of a native application interacting with the content item. The presence information indicates whether the native application opened, is viewing, or is editing the content item. The presence information may specify a user interface element and process associated with the presence information. The content management system stores presence records describing the presence information and uses the presence records to generate and transmit a presence status associated with a user. When a new version of a content item is received, the content management system may also use the presence records to determine an action to perform with the user interface window associated with the prior version.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a content management system from a presence application on a device associated with a user account, presence information describing user interactions with a user interface element associated with a native process of a native application different from and monitored by the presence application, the native process accessing a content item stored on the device and synchronized with the content management system, the presence application configured to simultaneously monitor user interface elements each associated with a different native application of a plurality of native applications, the presence application and the native application both stored at and executed by the device;

updating a set of presence records corresponding to the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the received presence information, each presence record identifying a presence status and an identifier of a monitored user interface element on the device interacting with the content item synchronized with the content management system;

determining a set of devices synchronizing the content item, wherein each device in the set of devices maintains a local copy of the content item and synchronizes the local copy with the content item stored at the content management system;

determining that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the set of presence records corresponding to the content item; and

notifying the set of devices synchronizing the content item that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the stored presence information further describes whether each device is editing the content item.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined set of devices synchronizing the content item is determined from devices associated with a presence record of the set of presence records describing that the device is viewing the content item.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining whether a presence status of the device has changed based on the received presence information.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the presence status is not changed if other presence information relating to the content item indicates the content item is being edited.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the received presence information includes a chat message.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving other presence information for another user interface element associated with the user account;

determining the status presence for the user account based on the updated presence record associated with the user interface element and the other presence information associated with the other user interface element; and

wherein notifying the set of devices of the presence information comprises sending the user presence for the user account to the set of devices.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the user presence comprises matching the presence information and other presence information to an ordering of user presence to determine the highest priority ordering for the user account.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of presence records includes presence records of the user account associated with a plurality of different identifiers of user interfaces interacting with the content item;

and further wherein the presence status is determined for the user account from the plurality of presence records associated with the plurality of different identifiers of user interfaces.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether presence information for an identifier of a presence record in the plurality of presence records has been provided within a threshold amount of time; and

when no presence information has been received for the identifier of the user interface element within the threshold amount of time;

generating a “

not present”

presence status for the presence record, or

removing the presence record from the set of presence records.

11. A system comprising:

a processor configured to execute instructions;

a non-transitory storage medium containing instructions, which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform the steps of;

receiving, from a presence application operating on a device associated with a user account, presence information describing user interactions with a user interface element associated with a native process of a native application different from and monitored by the presence application, the native process accessing a content item synchronized to a content management system, the presence application configured to simultaneously monitor user interface elements each associated with a different native applications of a plurality of native applications, the presence application and the native application both stored at and executed by the device;

updating a set of presence records corresponding to the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the received presence information, each presence record identifying a presence status and an identifier of a monitored user interface element on the device interacting with the content item synchronized with the content management system;

determining a set of devices synchronizing the content item, wherein each device in the set of devices maintains a local copy of the content item and synchronizes the local copy with the content item stored at the content management system;

determining that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the set of presence records corresponding to the content item; and

notifying the set of devices synchronizing the content item that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item.

12. The system of claim 11, the instructions further causing the processor to perform the steps of:

maintaining stored presence information for a plurality of devices associated with the content item, the presence information describing whether the each device is viewing or not viewing the content item; and

updating the stored presence information for the device based on the received presence information.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the determined set of devices synchronizing the content item is determined from devices associated with presence information describing that the device is viewing the content item.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the stored presence information further describe whether each device is editing the content item.

15. The method of claim 11, the instructions further causing the processor to perform the step of determining whether a presence status of the device has changed based on the received presence information.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the received presence information includes a chat message.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform steps comprising:

receiving, by a content management system from a presence application on a device associated with a user account, presence information describing user interactions with a user interface element associated with a native process of a native application different from and monitored by the presence application, the native process accessing a content item stored on the device and synchronized with the content management system, the presence application configured to simultaneously monitor user interface elements each associated with a different native application of a plurality of native applications, the presence application and the native application both stored at and executed by the device;

updating a set of presence records corresponding to the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the received presence information, each presence record identifying a presence status and an identifier of a monitored user interface element on the device interacting with the content item synchronized with the content management system;

determining a set of devices synchronizing the content item, wherein each device in the set of devices maintains a local copy of the content item and synchronizes the local copy with the content item stored at the content management system;

determining that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item synchronized with the content management system based on the set of presence records corresponding to the content item; and

notifying the set of devices synchronizing the content item that the native application of the device associated with the user account opened the content item.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the stored presence information further describes whether each device is editing the content item.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the determined set of devices synchronizing the content item is determined from devices associated with a presence record of the set of presence records describing that the device is viewing the content item.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising determining whether a presence status of the device has changed based on the received presence information.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 20, wherein the presence status is not changed if other presence information relating to the content item indicates the content item is being edited.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the received presence information includes a chat message.