Intelligent and paperless office

• US 8,676,806 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2007
• Issued: 03/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Simard, Patrice Y., Levin, Lewis C., Prately, Christopher H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hwa, Shyue Jiunn
• Application Number:
  US11/933,544
• Publication Number:
  US 20090119324A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,329 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems

Abstract

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates collecting and organizing electronic documents. An interface component can receive a document. A manager component can automatically file the document into a category based at least in part upon a portion of static metadata associated with the document and a portion of metadata dynamically generated from an inference related to the portion of static metadata associated with the document.

Claims

1. A computer-readable device having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method facilitating organization of electronic data, comprising:

an interface component that receives a document;

a manager component that automatically files the document into a location within a structure based at least in part upon a portion of static metadata associated with the document and a portion of metadata dynamically generated from an inference related to at least one of the portion of static metadata associated with the document or a content associated with the document; and

an adviser component that (a) generates a portion of suggestive data to guide in automatic filing of the document, the portion of suggestive data relating to a virtual file stack location, (b) provides the suggestive data relating to the virtual file stack location in the form of a virtual sticker for the document upon discovery, and (c) displays the suggestive data relating to the virtual file stack location for at least one of acknowledgement or approval; and

a log component that (a) tracks one or more filing details comprising a time, a location, a content, and a context of the document and (b) automatically stores the one or more filing details.

2. The computer-readable device of claim 1, the document is at least one of an attachment, an email, a word processor document, a presentation document, a scanned document, a fax, a spreadsheet, a drawing, a figure, a graphic, a portion of audio, a portion of text, a portion of a graphic, a portion of video, or a portable document format (PDF).

3. The computer-readable device of claim 1, the structure is at least one of an existing data structure, a network, a hard drive, a file storage system, a file folder directory structure, a data hierarchical structure, a schema, a data structure, a file structure, or a file folder directory system.

4. The computer-readable device of claim 1, further comprising an intelligent component that employs at least one of a support vector machine, a neural network, an expert system, a Bayesian belief network, fuzzy logic, a data fusion engine, or machine learning to infer at least one of the portion of static metadata, the content of the document, or the portion of metadata dynamically generated for automatic filing into the structure.

5. The computer-readable device of claim 1, the manager component creates a virtual file stack that includes two or more documents with related static metadata, content, and generated metadata independent of file type.

6. The computer-readable device of claim 1, the manager component provides at least one of the following:

the document is dynamically identified and filed upon detection of such document not being previously filed;

or

an entity is notified of the document based on being relevant to such entity, the relevancy is determined by the inference.

7. The computer-readable device of claim 1, wherein the ascertaining the content or context of the document comprises at least one of a portion of content, the portion of static metadata, the content of the document, or the portion of generated metadata, the evaluation component examines at least one of a source that transmitted the document, a target of the document, a substance of the document, metadata related to the document, a property of the document, a received file type, a received file name, a document date, an author of the document, an origin of the document, a device that produced the document, a location associated with an origin of the document, a document title, a name of an author, a type of document, a physical origin of the document, a size of the document, a portion of information within the document, a language associated with the document, a name of a file extension, a file name for the document, an amount of reviewers for the document, an amount of authors, an amount of people that contributed to the document, or an order of modification to the document.

8. The computer-readable device of claim 1, further comprising a tag component that appends the document with the tag for identification, the tag describes the document based on at least one of the content of the document, the portion of static metadata, or the portion of generated metadata, and is at least one of a portion of metadata, a hypertext markup language (HTML) tag, or a keyword.

9. The computer-readable device of claim 1, further comprising a uniform component that employs a standardized naming convention in connection with at least one of a file name, a virtual file stack name, a file type for specific content, the location, or a name related to a portion of the structure into documents are filed.

10. The computer-readable device of claim 1, further comprising a search component that enables querying of at least one of the document, the structure, the location, a file name, a file type, a virtual file stack, a content ascertained with a document, a source that transmitted the document, a target that received the document, the portion of static metadata related to the document, the content of the document or the portion of generated metadata related to the document.

11. The computer-readable device of claim 1, further comprising a network that receives the document from a source, the network is related to an office environment.

12. The computer-readable device of claim 11, the source is a fax, an email, a scanning device, an application, a server, a web site, the Internet, or a disparate network.

13. A computer-readable device having processor-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform a method facilitating organization of electronic data comprising:

receiving a document;

analyzing the document to identify at least one of a substance of the document, a content of the document, a portion of static metadata related to the document, or a portion of generated metadata created by evaluating a content of the document and the portion of static metadata related to the document;

generating a portion of suggestive data that relates to automatically filing the document, wherein the suggestive data relates to a virtual stack location;

displaying the suggestive data that relates to the virtual stack location as a virtual sticker upon at least one of the detection of the document or the receipt of the document;

tagging the document based on the analysis;

filing the document into a location within a schema based at least in part on the tag and the suggestive data that relates to the virtual stack location; and

logging one or more filing details comprising a time, a location, a content, and a context of the document; and

automatically storing the one or more filing details.

14. The computer-readable device of claim 13, further comprising:

automatically detecting an incoming document targeted for an office networked environment; and

ascertaining whether the incoming document has been previously filed.

15. The computer-readable device of claim 13, further comprising filing the document with a standardized convention.

16. A computing device comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising computer-program instructions executable by the processor for;

an interface component that receives a document;

a manager component that automatically files the document into a location within a structure based at least in part upon a portion of static metadata associated with the document and a portion of metadata dynamically generated from an inference related to at least one of the portion of static metadata associated with the document or a content associated with the document; and

an intelligent component, utilized by the manager component, to employ at least one of a support vector machine, a neural network, an expert system, a Bayesian belief network, fuzzy logic, a data fusion engine, or machine learning to;

infer at least one of the portion of static metadata, the content of the document, or the portion of metadata dynamically generated for automatic filing into the structure; and

infer one or more states of the system to generate a probability distribution over the one or more states comprising states of interest based on a consideration of data and events resulting in the construction of one or more new events from a set of observed events and stored event data.