Automatic project content suggestion

• US 9,519,883 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2011
• Issued: 12/13/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Childs, Benjamin Edward, Caldwell, Nicholas, Azzam, Saliha, O'Keefe, Courtney Anne
• Primary Examiner(s): Bowen, Richard
• Application Number:
  US13/170,850
• Publication Number:
  US 20130007036A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,995 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/907 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Automatically suggesting content, for example, documents, contacts information, tasks, calendar items, and the like, for inclusion into an electronic collaborative workspace is provided. Given a short description of a given project or collaborative workspace, an initial project membership list, and identification of local or external content repositories, content associated with the project or workspace may be retrieved and recommended to one or more users for inclusion into the project or collaborative workspace. Thus, the time and effort required for initially populating an electronic workspace with needed content is dramatically reduced.

Claims

1. A method of automatically suggesting content for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:

providing the project workspace via a collaborative environment, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and one or more data repositories;

receiving a first content item for inclusion in the project workspace, the first content item including one of electronic documents, contact information, calendar items and task items;

parsing the first content item for one or more links stored directly within the first content item, the one or more links citing to linked content items included in the project workspace, the linked content items including one or more of linked electronic documents, linked contact information, linked calendar items and linked task items;

utilizing one or more keywords and associated metadata items from the first content item for searching one or more repositories for additional content items to be suggested for inclusion in the project workspace, the additional content items including one or more of additional electronic documents, additional contact information, additional calendar items and additional task items; and

suggesting the linked content items and the additional content items to a user for receiving user feedback on whether one or more of the linked content items content items or one or more of the additional content items should be included in the project workspace.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein suggesting the linked content items to the user includes presenting the suggested linked content items to the user via a computer-generated user interface component for acceptance by the user of one or more of the suggested linked content items for inclusion in the project workspace.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein if the user accepts one or more of the suggested linked content items, associating content items associated with the accepted one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein associating the content items associated with the accepted one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace includes storing the accepted one or more suggested linked content items in the project workspace.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested linked content items, receiving a correction to one or more of the suggested linked content items, and associating content items associated with the corrected one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested linked content items, receiving a replacement link to one or more of the suggested linked content items, and associating content items associated with the replacement link with the project workspace.

7. The method of claim 1, prior to receiving a first content item for inclusion in the project workspace, further comprising receiving an identification of the project workspace, and receiving an identification of one or more repositories from which content items are suggested for inclusion in the project workspace.

8. The method of claim 1, prior to suggesting links to the linked content items and the additional content items to a user, merging the linked content items and the additional content items for suggestion to the user as a set of content items.

9. The method of claim 8, after merging the linked content items and links to the additional content items for suggestion to the user as a set of content items, ranking one or more content items contained in the set, and wherein suggesting the linked content items and the additional content items to a user includes suggesting one or more highly ranked content items from the set to the user.

10. A method of automatically suggesting contact items for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:

providing the project workspace via a collaborative environment, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and one or more data repositories;

receiving one or more content items from the project workspace, the first content item including one of electronic documents, contact information, calendar items and task items;

parsing the one or more content items from the project workspace for one or more links stored directly within the first content item, the one or more links citing to linked content items to be included in the project workspace, the linked content items including one or more of linked electronic documents, linked contact information, linked calendar items and linked task items;

parsing the one or more content items from the project workspace for one or more keywords that are associated with one or more contact items;

searching one or more data repositories for the one or more contact items associated with the one or more keywords and for additional content items to be suggested, for inclusion in the project workspace, the additional content items including one or more of additional electronic documents, additional contact information, additional calendar items and additional task items; and

presenting the linked content items, the additional content items and the one or more contact items to a user via a computer-generated user interface for receiving user feedback on whether the presented linked content items, additional content items and the one or more contact items should be included in the project workspace.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving one or more linked content items interacted with by one or more users who are members of the project workspace;

extracting identification information from the one or more linked content items about one or more persons for whom contact items are to be suggested for inclusion in the project workspace;

searching one or more data repositories for the one or more additional contact items associated with the extracted identification information; and

presenting the one or more additional contact items to the user via the computer-generated user interface for receiving user feedback on whether the presented one or more additional contact items should be included in the project workspace.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein if the user accepts one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, storing the accepted one or more contact items or one or more additional contact items in the project workspace.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, receiving a correction to one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, and storing the corrected one or more contact items in the project workspace.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, receiving a replacement to one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, and storing the replacement in the project workspace.

15. A computer readable storage device having computer executable instructions which when executed by a computer perform a method of automatically suggesting content for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:

receiving an identification of the project workspace, and receiving an identification of one or more repositories from which content items are suggested for inclusion in the project workspace, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and the one or more repositories including one or more of project descriptions, documents, electronic mail messages, contact items, proposed membership users, task items, calendar items;

receiving a first content item for inclusion in the project workspace, the first content item including one of a document, a content item, a task item or a project description;

parsing the first content item for one or more links stored directly within the first content item, the one or more links citing to linked content items to be suggested for inclusion in the project workspace, the one or more links including a uniform resource locator or an embedded application component, the linked content items including one or more of linked electronic documents, linked contact information, linked calendar items and linked task items;

breaking the first content item into one or more keywords and associated metadata, and utilizing the one or more keywords and associated metadata for searching one or more repositories for additional content items to be included in the project workspace, the additional content items including one or more of additional electronic documents, additional contact information, additional calendar items and additional task items; and

presenting suggested links to the linked content items and to the additional content items to the user via a computer-generated user interface component for acceptance by the user of one or more of the suggested links for inclusion in the project workspace.

16. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, wherein if the user accepts one or more of the suggested links, associating content items associated with the accepted one or more suggested links with the project workspace.

17. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested links, receiving a correction to one or more of the suggested links, and associating content items associated with the corrected one or more suggested links with the project workspace.

18. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested links, receiving a replacement link to one or more of the suggested links, and associating content items associated with the replacement link with the project workspace.

19. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, prior to presenting the suggested links to the linked content items and to the additional content items to the user, further comprising:

Merging the links to the linked content items and the links to the additional content items for suggestion to the user as a set of links;

after merging the links to the linked content items and the links to the additional content items for suggestion to the user as the set of links, ranking one or more links contained in the set of links, and wherein presenting the suggested links to the linked content items and to the additional content items to a user includes suggesting one or more highly ranked links from the set of links to the user.

20. The computer readable storage device of claim 15, wherein the one or more links further include an alphanumeric string following a known pattern.