Ordering activities and notifications within a collaboration platform

• US 9,224,173 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2012
• Issued: 12/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Arora, Namrata, Griffin, Keith, Varadhan, Ashok, Vijayakumar, Nithya N.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Uzma
• Application Number:
  US13/462,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20130297705A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,336 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/224, 715/733, 715/745, 715/751, 715/753
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A method, an apparatus and computer readable storage media facilitate establishing a communication session between a computing device of a user and at least one other computing device within a collaboration platform (system) to facilitate one or more communications between the user and other users associated with the platform. Updates are received to an account of the user that is accessible via the user'"'"'s computing device, wherein the updates provide information relating to posted activities, notifications or other content and individuals associated with the posted activities, the posted activities, notifications or other content being available at one or more computing devices associated with the platform. The updates are automatically organized in at least one order based upon a profile of the user that is associated with the user'"'"'s account. The computing device of the user provides a listing of the updates based upon an order determined by the organizing operation.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

establishing a communication session between a computing device of a user and at least one other computing device within a collaboration platform to facilitate one or more communications between the user and other users associated with the collaboration platform;

receiving updates to a user account of the user that is accessible via the user'"'"'s computing device, wherein the updates provide information relating to posted activities, notifications or other content and individuals associated with the posted activities, notifications or other content, the posted activities, notifications or other content being available at one or more computing devices associated with the platform;

generating, at the one or more computing devices, weighted data structures for both (i) a heuristic order of the updates that prioritizes the updates based on work projects associated with the user and a reporting hierarchy for the user as identified in a user profile of the user associated with the user account, and (ii) a semantic order of the updates based on user interests in the profile, wherein the generating the semantic order comprises;

assigning a semantic recommended weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of;

content associated with the update being related to keywords or phrases defined within an interest category or an expertise category of the user profile; and

other semantic information comprising information about at least one of social relationships and a tag cloud associated with the user profile;

automatically organizing, at the one or more computer devices, the updates in the heuristic order and the semantic order based on the generated weighted data structures;

selecting, at the one or more computer devices, either the heuristic order or the semantic order of the updates; and

providing, at the computing device of the user, a listing of the updates in the selected order.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating weighted data structures for a heuristic order of the updates comprises:

assigning a heuristics priority weight to each update based at least in part upon a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating weighted data structures for a heuristic order of the updates comprises:

assigning a heuristic priority weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of the updates being related to the work projects associated with the user in an employment scope of the user and a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating weighted data structures for a semantic order further comprises:

prioritizing updates based upon user expertise as identified by the user profile.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating weighted data structures for a semantic order further comprises:

prioritizing updates based upon user information comprising at least one of social relationships and a tag cloud of the user as identified by the user profile.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing an indication for at least one update, wherein the indication comprises a description regarding a reason for providing the update at its location within the listing of updates.

7. An apparatus comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions including one or more enterprise collaboration applications;

a network interface configured to facilitate communication with at least one other computing device; and

a processor configured to execute and control operations of the one or more enterprise collaboration applications so as to;

establish a communication session between the apparatus and at least one computing device within a collaboration platform to facilitate one or more communications between a user of the apparatus and other users associated with the collaboration platform;

receive updates to a user account of the user that is accessible via the apparatus, wherein the updates provide information relating to posted activities, notifications or other content and individuals associated with the posted activities, notifications or other content, the posted activities, notifications or other content being available at one or more computing devices associated with the platform;

generate weighted data structures for both (i) a heuristic order of the updates that prioritizes the updates based on work projects associated with the user and a reporting hierarchy for the user as identified in a user profile of the user associated with user account, and (ii) a semantic order of the updates based on user interests in the profile by assigning a semantic recommended weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of content associated with the update being related to keywords or phrases defined within an interest category or an expertise category of the user profile and other semantic information comprising at least one of information about social relationships and a tag cloud associated with the user profile;

organize the updates the heuristic order and the semantic order based on the generated weighted data structures; and

provide a listing of the updates based upon a selected one of the heuristic or semantic orders determined by the organize operation.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to generate the weighted data structures for a heuristic order that prioritizes updates based at least in part upon a reporting structure that defines the reporting hierarchy between the user and other users in the reporting hierarchy.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is configured to assign a heuristics priority weight to each update based at least in part upon a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to generate the weighted data structures for a heuristic order by assigning a heuristic priority weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of the updates being related to the work projects associated with the user in an employment scope of the user and a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to generate the weighted data structures for a semantic order that further prioritizes updates based at least in part upon user expertise as identified by the user profile.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to generate the weighted data structures for a semantic order that further prioritizes updates based at least in part upon other user semantic information comprising at least one of social relationships and a tag cloud of the user as identified by the user profile.

13. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is further configured to execute and control operations of the one or more enterprise collaboration applications so as to provide an indication for at least one update, wherein the indication comprises a description regarding a reason for providing the update at its location within the listing of updates.

14. One or more computer readable storage devices encoded with software comprising computer executable instructions and when the software is executed operable to:

establish a communication session between a computing device of a user and at least one other computing device within a collaboration platform to facilitate one or more communications between the user and other users associated with the collaboration platform;

receive updates to a user account of the user that is accessible via the user'"'"'s computing device, wherein the updates provide information relating to posted activities, notifications or other content and individuals associated with the posted activities, notifications or other content, the posted activities, notifications or other content being available at one or more computing devices associated with the platform;

generate weighted data structures for both (i) a heuristic order of the updates that prioritizes the updates based on work projects associated with the user and a reporting hierarchy for the user as identified in a user profile of the user associated with user account, and (ii) a semantic order of the updates based on user interests in the profile so as to assign a semantic recommended weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of content being associated with the update that is related to keywords or phrases defined within an interest category or an expertise category of the user profile and other semantic information comprising information about at least one of social relationships and a tag cloud associated with the user profile;

organize the updates the heuristic order and the semantic order based on the generated weighted data structures; and

provide a listing of the updates based upon a selected one of the heuristic or semantic orders determined by the organize operation.

15. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 14, wherein the instructions are operable to generate the weighted data structures for a heuristic order that prioritizes updates based at least in part upon a reporting structure that defines a reporting hierarchy between the user and other users in the reporting hierarchy.

16. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 15, wherein the instructions are operable to assign a heuristics priority weight to each update based at least in part upon a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

17. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 14, wherein the instructions are operable to generate the weighted data structures for a heuristic order by assigning a heuristic priority weight to each update based at least in part upon at least one of the updates being related to the work projects associated with the user in an employment scope of the user and a distance between the user and another user within the reporting hierarchy that is associated with the update.

18. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 14, wherein the instructions are further operable to generate the weighted data structures for a semantic order that prioritizes updates based at least in part upon user expertise as identified by the user profile.

19. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 14, wherein the instructions are further operable to generate the weighted data structures for a semantic order that prioritizes updates based at least in part upon information comprising at least one of social relationships and a tag cloud of the user as identified by the user profile.

20. The one or more computer readable storage devices of claim 14, and further comprising instructions that are operable to:

provide an indication for at least one update, wherein the indication comprises a description regarding a reason for providing the update at its location within the listing of updates.