Managing projects using references

• US 10,719,807 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2017
• Issued: 07/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dropbox, Inc.
• Inventors: Newhouse, Ben, Radhakrishnan, Kavitha, Palkovic, A J, Stinnette, David, Hurwitz, Jacob, Lee, Jennifer, Grace, Jr., John R., Wang, Susan, Dondi, Leona, Kofman, Igor, Choi, Kenneth, Chang, Tsung-Hsiang
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller, Alan S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang, Jay-Ming
• Application Number:
  US15/476,688
• Publication Number:
  US 20180189692A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,208 Days
• Field of Search: 705 711- 742
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/168 Details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems, e.g. browsing and visualisation, 2d or 3d GUIs query results presentation G06F16/156
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9558 Details of hyperlinks; Management of linked annotations
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services

Abstract

Disclosed are systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for managing projects using references between the project and project items. Project items can be, for example, synchronized content items, collaborative content items, other projects, folders, tasks, user accounts, etc. The content management system can create a project identifier for managing data and/or people associated with a project. In various implementations, the content management system can store references between the project and project items in one or more folders associated with the project, in a database, in content item metadata, etc. In some implementations, the storage location of a content item does not affect whether it is associated with the project. When a project is selected by a user, the content management system can generate project view that presents various project items associated with the project in a convenient and easy to access graphical user interface.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a content management system, a request for a first project view of a first project;

obtaining, by the content management system, indications of first project items associated with the first project, the first project items comprising at least;

a collaborative content item, a synchronization content item, a second project, and a user account;

generating, by the content management system, a first link that references the collaborative content item, wherein the first link, when actuated, causes the content management system to provide an interface to edit the collaborative content item;

generating, by the content management system, a second link that references the synchronization content item, wherein the second link, when actuated, causes the content management system to provide an interface to view the synchronization content item;

generating, by the content management system, a third link that references the second project, wherein the third link, when actuated, causes the content management system to generate and provide a second project view for the second project, the second project view providing links to second project items associated with the second project;

generating, by the content management system, a fourth link that references the user account, wherein the fourth link corresponds to a user detail page comprising user information for the user account;

generating, by the content management system, the project view that includes the first link, the second link, the third link, and the fourth link; and

causing, by the content management system, the project view to be presented on a display of a client device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the collaborative content item is stored in a database, at least in part, as a plurality of change sets that describe attributes of the collaborative content item.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the synchronization content item is synchronized with the client device.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to actuation of the first link:

accessing a database to retrieve a set of attribute-string pairs associated with an identifier of the collaborative content item; and

generating a graphical user interface for presenting the collaborative content item based on the set of attribute-string pairs.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to actuation of the second link:

obtaining metadata for the synchronization content item;

based on the metadata, identifying a storage location that has a set of blocks corresponding to the synchronization content item;

obtaining the set of blocks wherein the blocks are not in HTML format; and

building a read-only HTML representation of the set of blocks.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the project view contains links to multiple content items which are sorted based on one or more of:

current user access, project member access, any user access, whether the content item has been pinned in a project, or which folders the content item is associated with.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium including one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by a computing system, causes the computing system to perform operations comprising:

obtaining, by a content management system, indications of first project items associated with a first project, the first project items comprising at least;

a first content item and a second content item;

generating, by the content management system, a first link that references the first content item, wherein the first link, when actuated, causes the content management system to provide an interface to view the first content item and wherein the first content item is stored in a first user account;

generating, by the content management system, a second link that references the second content item, wherein the second link, when actuated, causes the content management system to provide an interface to view the second content item and wherein the second content item is stored in a second user account;

generating, by the content management system, a project view that includes the first link and the second link; and

providing, by the content management system, the project view to a client device.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the first content item is a synchronized content item.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the second content item is a collaborative content item.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the collaborative content item is stored, at least in part, in a database as a plurality of change sets that describe attributes of the collaborative content item.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the synchronized content item is synchronized with the client device.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

accessing a database to retrieve a set of attribute-string pairs associated with an identifier of the collaborative content item; and

generating a graphical user interface for presenting the collaborative content item based on the set of attribute-string pairs.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise:

obtaining metadata for the synchronized content item;

based on the metadata, identifying a storage location that has a set of blocks corresponding to the synchronized content item;

obtaining the set of blocks wherein the blocks are not in HTML format; and

building a read-only HTML representation of the set of blocks.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the project view further contains controls to sort the content item links based on one or more of:

current user access, project member access, any user access, whether the content item has been pinned in a project, or which folders the content item is associated with.

15. A content management system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a non-transitory computer-readable medium including one or more instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the content management system to perform operations comprising;

obtaining, by the content management system, indications of first project items associated with a first project, the first project items comprising at least;

a collaborative content item, a second project, and a user account;

generating, by the content management system, a first link that references the collaborative content item, wherein the first link, when actuated, causes the content management system to provide an interface to edit the collaborative content item;

generating, by the content management system, a second link that references the second project, wherein the second link, when actuated, causes the content management system to generate and provide a second project view for the second project, the second project view providing links to second project items associated with the second project;

generating, by the content management system, a third link that references the user account, wherein the third link corresponds to a user detail page comprising user information for the user account;

generating, by the content management system, a project view that includes the first link, the second link, and the third link; and

providing, by the content management system, the project view to a client device.

16. The content management system of claim 15, wherein the collaborative content item is stored in a database as a plurality of change sets that describe attributes of the collaborative content item.

17. The content management system of claim 15, wherein the first project items further comprise a synchronized content item that is synchronized with the client device and the project view further comprises a fourth link to the synchronized content item in the content management system.

18. The content management system of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise, in response to actuation of the first link:

accessing a database to retrieve a set of attribute-string pairs associated with an identifier of the collaborative content item; and

generating a graphical user interface for presenting the collaborative content item based on the set of attribute-string pairs.

19. The content management system of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise, in response to actuation of the fourth link:

obtaining metadata for the synchronized content item;

based on the metadata, identifying a storage location that has a set of blocks corresponding to the synchronized content item;

obtaining the set of blocks wherein the blocks are not in HTML format; and

building a read-only HTML representation of the set of blocks.

20. The content management system of claim 15, wherein the project view contains links to multiple content items and a control to sort the links to multiple content items based on one or more of:

current user access, project member access, any user access, whether the content item has been pinned in a project, or which folders the content item is associated with.