Shared collaboration canvas

• US 10,699,244 B2
• Filed: 10/12/2018
• Issued: 06/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Burtner, Russ, Russ, Kevin, Sands, Ian, Snavely, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Feacher, Renae
• Assistant Examiner(s): Puri, Venay K
• Application Number:
  US16/159,085
• Publication Number:
  US 20190043016A1
• Time in Patent Office: 627 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/103 Workflow collaboration or project management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A computing system causes a plurality of display devices to display user interfaces containing portions of a canvas shared by a plurality of users. The canvas is a graphical space containing discrete graphical elements located at arbitrary locations within the canvas. Each of the discrete graphical elements graphically represents a discrete resource. When a user interacts with a resource in the set of resources, the computing system modifies the canvas to include an interaction element indicating that the user is interacting with the resource. The computer system then causes the display devices to update the user interfaces such that the user interfaces reflect a substantially current state of the canvas. In this way, the users may be able to understand which ones of the users are interacting with which ones of the resources.

Claims

1. A method for displaying a canvas that facilitates collaboration among a plurality of users, the method comprising:

receiving, at a server computing system, interaction input indicating that a first user in the plurality of users is interacting with a target resource in a plurality of resources, each resource in the plurality of resources being associated with a canvas shared by the plurality of users, the canvas being a multidimensional graphical space, each resource in the plurality of resources graphically represented by a graphical element in a plurality of discrete graphical elements, each graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements located at an arbitrary location within the canvas, each user in the plurality of users being a resource in the plurality of resources, a first graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically representing the first user, a target graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically representing the target resource;

determining that the server computing system has received the interaction input and, based on having received the interaction input, sending to a client computing system, used by the first user who originated the interaction input, information needed by the client computing system to interact with the target resource;

based on having received the interaction input, modifying, by the server computing system, the canvas to include an interaction indicator, the interaction indicator being a graphical element, the interaction indicator graphically indicating a relationship between the first graphical element and the target graphical element such that the interaction indicator graphically indicates that the first user is currently interacting with the target resource; and

causing, by the server computing system, a plurality of display devices to repeatedly update user interfaces displayed by the plurality of display devices such that the user interfaces reflect a substantially current state of the canvas, the substantially current state of the canvas being the plurality of discrete graphical elements along with locations within the canvas of the graphical elements of the plurality of discrete graphical elements at a substantially current moment,

wherein each of the user interfaces displayed by each of the plurality of display devices reflects a different portion of the canvas, wherein a portion of the canvas comprises a contiguous graphical subspace within the canvas,

wherein a first display device of the plurality of display devices displays a first portion of the canvas defined by a first set of a plurality of coordinates, and

wherein a second display device of the plurality of display devices displays a second portion of the canvas defined by a second set of a plurality of the coordinates.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each resource in the plurality of resources is associated with a project, the project being a planned undertaking of an enterprise to achieve a specific goal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first graphical element is located within the canvas at the location within the canvas corresponding to a portion of the canvas that is currently being displayed to the first user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the interaction input comprises:

receiving, at the server computing system, a request to open the target resource, the server computing system receiving the request from the client computing system; and

in response to receiving the request, sending, from the server computing system to the client computing system, information needed by the client computing system to open the target resource.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a given graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically represents a file in the plurality of resources, the given graphical element comprising a thumbnail of the file.

6. The method of claim 1,

wherein the target resource is a file;

and

wherein causing the plurality of display devices to repeatedly update the user interfaces comprises updating, by the server computing system, a thumbnail of the target resource such that the thumbnail is based on a part of the target resource with which the first user is currently interacting.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a given graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically represents a given user in the plurality of users, the given graphical element comprising an image selected by the given user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the interaction indicator comprises a line connecting the first graphical element and the target graphical element.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the canvas is an infinite canvas.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving, by the server computing system, message input from a given user in the plurality of users, the message input specifying a message; and

in response to receiving the message input, modifying, by the server computing system, the canvas to include a message box containing the message, the message box located in the canvas adjacent to a given graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements, the given graphical element graphically representing the given user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each user in the plurality of users is linked to the first user in a social networking service.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the canvas is three-dimensional.

13. The method of claim 1,

wherein the plurality of display devices are communicatively connected to a plurality of client computing systems;

and

wherein causing the display devices to repeatedly update the user interfaces comprises sending, by the server computing system, canvas display data to each client computing system in the plurality of client computing systems, each client computing system in the plurality of client computing systems configured to use the canvas display data to update the user interfaces on the display devices such that the user interfaces reflect the substantially current state of the canvas.

14. The method of claim 1,

wherein the server computing system comprises a data storage system and a processing unit, the data storage system comprising at least one computer-readable data storage medium that stores software instructions, the processing unit comprising at least one integrated circuit;

and

wherein the software instructions cause the server computing system to perform the steps of claim 1 when the processing unit executes the software instructions.

15. A computing system comprising:

a processing unit comprising at least one integrated circuit; and

a data storage system comprising at least one computer-readable data storage medium, the data storage system storing software instructions that, when executed by the processing unit, cause the computing system to;

determine whether the processing unit has received interaction input, the interaction input indicating that a first user in a plurality of users wants to interact with a target resource in a plurality of resources, the plurality of resources associated with a canvas shared by the plurality of users, the canvas being a multidimensional graphical space, each resource in the plurality of resources graphically represented by a graphical element in a plurality of discrete graphical elements, each graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements located at an arbitrary location within the canvas, each user in the plurality of users being a resource in the plurality of resources, a first graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically representing the first user, a target graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically representing the target resource;

modify, in response to determining that the processing unit has received the interaction input, the canvas to include an interaction indicator, the interaction indicator being a graphical element, the interaction indicator graphically indicating a relationship between the first graphical element and the target graphical element such that the interaction indicator indicates that the first user is currently interacting with the target resource; and

cause a plurality of display devices associated with the plurality of users to repeatedly update user interfaces displayed by the plurality of display devices such that the user interfaces reflect a substantially current state of the canvas, the substantially current state of the canvas being the plurality of discrete graphical elements along with locations within the canvas of the graphical elements of the plurality of discrete graphical elements at a substantially current moment,

wherein each of the user interfaces displayed by each of the plurality of display devices reflects a different portion of the canvas,

wherein a portion of the canvas comprises a contiguous graphical subspace within the canvas,

wherein a first display device of the plurality of display devices displays a first portion of the canvas defined by a first set of a plurality of coordinates, and

wherein a second display device of the plurality of display devices displays a second portion of the canvas defined by a second set of a plurality of coordinates.

16. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the software instructions, when executed by the processing unit, further cause the processing unit to automatically locate the first graphical element within the canvas based on a portion of the canvas that is displayed to the first user.

17. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the software instructions, when executed by the processing unit, further cause the computing system to:

determine whether the processing unit has received a message input from a given user, wherein a given graphical element in the plurality of discrete graphical elements graphically represents the given user; and

in response to determining that the processing unit has received the message input from the given user, modifying the canvas to include a message box located within the canvas adjacent to the given graphical element, the message box containing a message that the given user wishes to express to other users.

18. The computing system of claim 15, wherein the software instructions, when executed by the processing unit, further cause the computing system to:

determine whether the processing unit has received a canvas open input from a given user in the plurality of users, the canvas open input indicating that the given user wishes to view the canvas; and

in response to determining that the processing unit has received the canvas open input from the given user, modifying the canvas to include a new graphical element, the new graphical element graphically representing the given user.

19. A computer-based method for sharing a collaboration canvas among a plurality of users, wherein the collaboration canvas is a displayed continuous electronic graphical space containing a plurality of graphical elements, each of the plurality of graphical elements representing a different discrete resource, the method comprising:

receiving a request from a first user to access at least one of the plurality of discrete resources;

based on receipt of the request from the first user;

providing the first user with access to the at least one discrete resource;

displaying a graphical element representative of the first user on the collaboration canvas, and

displaying a graphical interaction indicator on the collaboration canvas, the graphical interaction indicator indicating interaction between the first user and the at least one discrete resource;

updating the collaboration canvas for each of the respective plurality of users to reflect a current state of the collaboration canvas,

wherein the collaboration canvas for each of the respective plurality of users comprises a different discrete portion of the collaboration canvas and wherein each different discrete portion of the canvas comprises a discrete graphical subspace of the collaboration canvas that is defined by a discrete plurality of coordinates.