ONLINE COLLABORATION

• US 20110289150A1
• Filed: 10/27/2009
• Published: 11/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Quolos Ltd. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Westaway, Jasper, Boyle, John Richard, Davies, Ian Duncan
• Granted Patent: US 9,213,962 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1068 Discovery involving direct consultation or announcement among potential requesting and potential source peers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

A method and an agent (500) are provided for the management and control of data files, in particular, the management of shared documents across a network to enable collaboration between users. The agent (500) comprises a collaborative event manager (180) to detect changes made to an open copy of the file that is associated with a first client device (100); a network manager (155) to determine whether a connection can be made with one or more further clients devices (130) connected to a network (120); and an offline manager (170) couplable to the network manager (155) to persist changes detected by the collaborative event manager (180) when a connection cannot be made; wherein the network manager (155) is adapted to selectively transmit the changes across the network (120) to one or more of the said further client devices (130) when a connection can be made, thereby instructing one or more respective agents to apply said changes to respective copies of said file.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for enabling collaboration in the editing of a file, the method comprising:

detecting changes made to an open copy of the file that is associated with a first client device;

determining whether a connection can be made with one or more further clients devices connected to a network;

when a network connection cannot be made, persisting the detected changes; and

,

when a network connection can be made, selectively transmitting the changes across the network to said one or more further clients devices, thereby instructing one or more respective agents to apply said changes to respective copies of said file.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving changes from one or more other agents over the network; and

applying the received changes to a copy of the file associated with the first client device.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the changes are applied using an application associated with the first client device.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving notification of a new shared file over the network; and

generating a new copy of the new shared file that is associated with the first client device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the step of selectively transmitting comprises

only transmitting the changes to one or more further client devices connected to the network that are associated with users with whom the file has been shared.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein a client device is associated with a user through the presence of an agent registered to the user.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein step of selectively transmitting comprises:

determining whether a direct connection can be made with a selected client device;

if a direct connection can be made, making said connection; and

if a direct connection cannot be made, making a connection with an intermediate device to route data to the selected client device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the changes are made by a first user to a first memory copy of the file, the first memory copy being created for real-time editing by a file-editing application when the first user opens the file.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more further client devices are associated with one or more respective users sharing the file, the application of the changes being applied to memory copies of said file by file-editing applications operated by the one or more respective users, said memory copies being created when the one or more respective users open the file.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, whereby the one or more respective agents apply said changes to respective open copies of said file.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the changes are detected without modifying the open copy of the file.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the step of detecting changes further comprises:

loading an appropriate document handler that is adapted to interact with an application being used to edit the file;

wherein the document handler transforms the changes from a format specific to the application to an application-independent format.

13. A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions for carrying out the computer-implemented method of claim 1.

14. An agent for enabling collaboration in the editing of a shared file, the agent comprising:

a collaborative event manager to detect changes made to an open copy of the file that is associated with a first client device;

a network manager to determine whether a connection can be made with one or more further clients devices connected to a network; and

an offline manager couplable to the network manager to persist changes detected by the collaborative event manager when a connection cannot be made;

wherein the network manager is adapted to selectively transmit the changes across the network to one or more of the said further client devices when a connection can be made, thereby instructing one or more respective agents to apply said changes to respective copies of said file.

15. The agent of claim 14, wherein:

the network manager is adapted to receive changes from one or more other agents over the network relating to the shared file; and

the collaborative event manager is adapted to apply said changes to a copy of the file associated with the first client device.

17. The agent of claim 14, further comprising:

a file system manager to receive notification of a new shared file from the network manager and generate a copy of said new shared file that is associated with the first client device.

18. The agent of claim 17, wherein the file system manager is adapted to interact with a file system of the first client device.

19. The agent of claim 14, wherein the offline manager is adapted to interact with a file system of the first client device.

20. The agent of claim 14, wherein the offline manager is adapted to receive changes from the collaborative event manager when a copy of the file is not open.

21. The agent of claim 20, wherein the offline manager is adapted to apply the changes to the copy of the file when said copy is not open.

22. The agent of claim 14, wherein, when the client device connects to the network, the network manager is adapted to selectively transmit any changes that were stored by the offline manager.

23. The agent of claim 14, wherein the network manager selectively transmits the changes to one or more further client devices connected to the network that are associated with users with whom the file has been shared.

24. The agent of claim 23, wherein a client device is associated with a user by the presence of an agent registered to the user.

25. The agent of claim 14, wherein the network manager is adapted to:

determine whether a direct connection can be made to a selected client device;

based on said determination, if a direct connection can be made, make a direct connection; and

based on said determination, if a direct connection cannot be made, make a connection with an intermediate device to route data to the selected client device.

26. The agent of claim 14, wherein the changes are made by a first user to a first memory copy of the file, the first memory copy being created for realtime editing by a file-editing application when the first user opens the file.

27. The agent of claim 14, wherein the one or more further client devices are associated with one or more respective users sharing the file, the application of the changes being applied to memory copies of said file by file-editing applications operated by the one or more respective users, said memory copies being created when the one or more respective users open the file.

28. The agent of claim 15, wherein the collaborative event manager further comprises a monitor component to detect changes made to the open copy of the file without modifying said copy.

29. The agent of claim 14, wherein the one or more respective agents apply said changes to respective open copies of said file.

30. The agent of claim 14, wherein the collaborative event manager comprises:

a document handler to interact with an application being used to edit the file;

wherein the document handler transforms the changes from a format specific to the application to an application-independent format.

16. The agent of clam 14, wherein the collaborative event manager is adapted to apply said changes using an application loaded upon the first client device.