Batching notifications of activities that occur in a web-based collaboration environment

• US 9,292,833 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2012
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Inventors: Savage, Brandon
• Primary Examiner(s): DENNISON, JERRY B
• Application Number:
  US13/619,439
• Publication Number:
  US 20140082093A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,285 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/50 Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements

Abstract

Systems and methods of batched notifications of activities that occur in a web-based collaboration environment are disclosed. In one aspect, embodiments of the present disclosure include a method, which may be implemented on a system, for detecting activities occurring in an online collaboration environment, generating a notification event for one or more of the activities, and selecting one or more recipients for each notification event according to criteria determined based on a workspace in which the associated activity was performed in the online collaboration environment. The indications of each notification event are then added to one or more queues associated with the one or more recipients and, upon expiry of a queue timer, the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more recipients are sent to the corresponding one or more recipients as batched notifications.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting, at a host server, activities occurring in an cloud-based collaboration environment;

generating, at the host server, a notification for each of a plurality of activities of

the activities occurring in the cloud-based collaboration environment;

determining a criteria for selection of one or more recipients based on a type of activity performed in a workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment, wherein the type of activity includes a preview action that shows a visual preview of a file in the workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment;

selecting, at the host server, the one or more recipients for the notification based on the criteria;

adding an indication of the notification for each of the plurality of activities to one or more corresponding queues associated with the one or more selected recipients, wherein each of the one or more queues is associated with a queue event trigger that is selectively configurable by the corresponding one or more selected recipients to trigger as a result of any of multiple different types of events; and

upon triggering of the queue event trigger, sending the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients for delivery to the corresponding one or more selected recipients as batched notifications.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the criteria is based on predetermined settings associated with a storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined settings are configured based on an affiliation with the storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the affiliation with the storage container comprises one or more of a storage container owned by the one or more selected recipients or a storage container in which the one or more selected recipients collaborate.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the workspace includes multiple storage containers and each of the multiple storage containers has individually configurable predetermined settings.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined settings indicate whether notifications are enabled or disabled for the storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the predetermined settings are configured by the one or more selected recipients prior to the performance of the type of activity in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the criteria is based on predetermined settings associated with a work item upon which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the predetermined settings are configured based on an affiliation with the work item upon which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the affiliation with the work item comprises one or more of a work item owned by the one or more selected recipients or a work item in which the one or more selected recipients collaborate.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the criteria is further based on types of activities, including, one or more of, upload, download, or delete.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the host server comprises a first server and a second server, and wherein said selecting the one or more recipients is performed by the first server and said sending the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients to the corresponding one or more selected recipients is performed by the second server.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the second server includes push technology implemented using one or more of long polls or HTTP streaming.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising electronically displaying the batched notifications to the corresponding one or more selected recipients via an electronic user interface.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more selected recipients is associated with a plurality of queues and the indication of the notification is added to one of the plurality of queues based on the criteria.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the multiple different types of events include modifying collaborators in the workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment.

16. A system comprising:

a processing unit;

an interface configured to receive activities occurring in an online cloud-based collaboration environment;

a memory unit having instructions stored thereon,

wherein the instructions, when executed by the processing unit, cause the processing unit to generate a notification for each of a plurality of activities of the activities occurring in the cloud-based collaboration environment, determine a criteria for selection of one or more recipients based on a type of activity performed in a workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment, select the one or more recipients for the notification based on the criteria, add an indication of the notification for each of the plurality of activities to one or more corresponding queues associated with the one or more selected recipients, and upon triggering of a queue event trigger, send the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients for delivery to the corresponding one or more selected recipients as batched notifications, wherein the queue event trigger is selectively configurable by the corresponding one or more selected recipients to trigger as a result of any of multiple different types of events, and wherein the type of activity includes a preview action that shows a visual preview of a file in the workspace of a the cloud-based collaboration environment.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the criteria is based on predetermined settings associated with a storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the predetermined settings are configured based on an affiliation with the storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the affiliation with the storage container comprises one or more of a storage container owned by the one or more selected recipients or a storage container in which the one or more selected recipients collaborate.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the workspace includes multiple storage containers and each of the multiple storage containers has individually configurable predetermined settings.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein the predetermined settings indicate whether notifications are enabled or disabled for the storage container within which the type of activity was performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein the predetermined settings are configured by the one or more selected recipients prior to the performance of the type of activity in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

23. A method comprising:

generating, at a host server, a notification event for each of a plurality of activities of activities occurring in a cloud-based collaboration platform;

selecting, at the host server, one or more recipients for the notification event based on permissions associated with a workspace and predetermined settings of the workspace within which the plurality of activities is performed in the cloud-based collaboration platform;

adding an indication of the notification event for each of the plurality of activities to one or more corresponding queues associated with the one or more selected recipients; and

upon triggering of a queue event trigger, sending the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients for delivery to the corresponding one or more selected recipients as batched notifications, wherein the queue event trigger is selectively configurable by the corresponding one or more selected recipients to trigger as a result of any of multiple different types of events, wherein the multiple different types of events include modifying collaborators in the workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

selecting, at the host server, the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients based on the workspace and the predetermined settings associated the workspace within which the plurality of activities is performed in the online collaboration environment.

25. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

determining, at the host server, a root level for one or more of the plurality of users of the online collaboration environment.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the root level is the level at which a user of the plurality of users is invited into the workspace in which the plurality of activities is performed in the cloud-based collaboration environment.

27. The method of claim 23, wherein the workspace includes multiple storage containers, and wherein each of the multiple storage containers has individually configurable permissions.

28. A system for batching notifications of activities that occur in a cloud-based collaboration environment, the system comprising:

means for detecting activities occurring in an cloud-based collaboration platform;

means for generating a notification for each of a plurality of activities of the activities occurring in the cloud-based collaboration environment;

means for determining a criteria for selection of one or more recipients based on a type of activity performed in a workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment, wherein the type of activity includes a preview action that shows a visual preview of a file in the workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment;

means for selecting the one or more recipients for the notification based on the criteria;

means for adding an indication of the notification for each of the plurality of activities to one or more corresponding queues associated with the one or more selected recipients; and

means for sending the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients for delivery to the corresponding one or more selected recipients as batched notifications upon triggering of a queue event trigger, wherein the queue event trigger is selectively configurable by the corresponding one or more selected recipients to trigger as a result of any of multiple different types of events.

29. A non-transitory machine readable storage medium encoded with instructions for performing a method, the instructions comprising:

instructions to detect, at a host server activities occurring in an cloud-based collaboration environment;

instructions to generate, at the host server, a notification for each of a plurality of activities of the activities occurring in the cloud-based collaboration environment;

instructions to determine a criteria for selection of one or more recipients based on a type of activity performed in a workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment, wherein the type of activity includes a preview action that shows a visual preview of a file in the workspace of the cloud-based collaboration environment;

instructions to select, at the host server, the one or more recipients for the notification based on the criteria;

instructions to add an indication of the notification for each of the plurality of activities to one or more corresponding queues associated with the one or more selected recipients, wherein each of the one or more queues is associated with a queue event trigger that is selectively configurable by the corresponding one or more selected recipients to trigger as a result of any of multiple different types of events; and

instructions to, upon triggering of the queue event trigger, sending the contents of the one or more queues associated with the one or more selected recipients for delivery to the corresponding one or more selected recipients as batched notifications.