INTEGRATED REAL TIME COLLABORATION EXPERIENCES WITH ONLINE WORKSPACE

• US 20090192845A1
• Filed: 01/30/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sharma, Kapil, Ash, Andrew, Gudipaty, Ananta, Shaw, Donna, Desai, Natasha, Sawaya, Samer Fouad
• Application Number:
  US12/022,266
• Publication Number:
  US 20090192845A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.19
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15

Abstract

Online meeting experience is integrated with online and/or offline collaborative workspace(s). Documents and other content generated through team collaboration and managed by a content management system are automatically made available during the meeting, updated, and stored in collaborative workspace linked to a particular meeting. Newly generated content during the meeting is also added to the workspace. As a result, online meetings become part of the collaborative workspace rendering reusable and searchable data through meeting content and updates to associated documents.

Claims

1. A method to be executed at least in part in a computing device for integrating online meetings with shared workspaces, the method comprising:

receiving a request for an online meeting associated with at least a portion of content included in a shared workspace;

preparing a workspace for the online meeting that includes at least one from a set of;

links to the portion of content associated with the online meeting, a history of online meetings on a same subject, and a list of future scheduled meetings on the same subject;

enabling participants to configure at least one from a set of;

content associated with the online meeting, a meeting agenda, and invitees to the online meeting prior to the online meeting;

enabling participants of the online meeting to modify the portion of the content associated with the online meeting and to create new content associated with the online meeting;

at conclusion of the online meeting, automatically processing and storing any modified content and any newly created content during the online meeting in the shared workspace such that the stored content is reusable and searchable, and is associated with the concluded online meeting; and

making the stored content available to users of the shared workspace.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating a record of past online meetings and a record of future scheduled online meetings on the same subject based on the stored content associated with the concluded online meeting.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

organizing and initiating the online meeting from a selection of at least one document within the shared workspace.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

automatically determining a list of participants, the subject of the online meeting, the history of online meetings and the list of future scheduled meetings on the same subject, and a list of additional documents to be linked to the online meeting based on the selection of the at least one document in the shared workspace.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein processing any modified content and any newly created content during the online meeting includes:

formatting the modified content and the newly created content such that the data associated with the modified content and the newly created content is reusable for any application program associated with the shared workspace;

indexing the modified content and the newly created content such that the data associated with the modified content and the newly created content is searchable within the shared workspace; and

linking the modified content and the newly created content with the concluded meeting.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling a user of the shared workspace to prepare the online meeting by selecting at least one document associated with the shared workspace while offline and then by checking in the selected document into the shared workspace while online.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

enabling the user of the shared workspace to access results of the conclude online meeting by allowing any modified content and any newly created content during the meeting, and a recording of the meeting to be checked out for offline operations.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the newly created content during the online meeting includes at least one from a set of:

a newly opened document, a whiteboard capture document, an image captured during the online meeting, and a recording of the online meeting in one of;

audio, video, and textual form.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the online meeting originates from one of:

a user of the shared workspace and a scheduling application in response to a recurring meeting schedule and detection of an event associated with the shared workspace.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the online meeting is associated with a plurality of shared workspaces.

11. A collaborative team site service to be executed on at least one server for integrating online meetings with shared workspaces, the service comprising:

a storage module for storing data associated with the shared workspaces in at least one data store associated with the at least one server;

a collaboration module for managing processing of data associated with the shared workspaces by a plurality of data processing applications accessed by users of the shared workspaces;

a search module for enabling users to perform searches on the data associated with the shared workspaces; and

an online meeting module for organizing and facilitating an online meeting associated with at least one document within a shared workspace, the online module capable of;

preparing a workspace for the online meeting that includes at least one from a set of;

links to the at least one document associated with the online meeting, a history of online meetings on a same subject, and a list of future scheduled meetings on the same subject;

enabling participants of the online meeting to modify the at least one document associated with the online meeting and to create at least one other document associated with the online meeting; and

at conclusion of the online meeting, providing any modified and newly created documents and a recording of the online meeting to the collaboration module for automatic processing and storing in the shared workspace such that the stored documents are reusable, searchable, and associated with the concluded online meeting.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the collaboration module includes:

an online collaboration module for;

formatting any modified and newly created documents and the recording of the online meeting such that applications associated with the shared workspace can reuse data associated with any modified and newly created documents and the recording of the online meeting;

indexing any modified and newly created documents and the recording of the online meeting for searchability; and

linking any modified and newly created documents with the recording of the online meeting; and

an offline collaboration module for;

enabling users of the shared workspace to select documents for the online meeting while offline; and

retrieving results of the online meeting including any modified and newly created documents and the recording of the online meeting for offline operations.

13. The computing device of claim 12, wherein the applications associated with the shared workspace include at least one from a set of:

a word processing application, a spreadsheet application, a presentation application, an analysis application, a programming code editor, a search engine application, and an media player application.

14. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the online meeting module is configured to coordinate the online meeting with at least one from a set of:

an audio conference application, a video conference application, an electronic mail application, and an instant messaging application.

15. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the online meeting module is integrated with the collaboration module such that the online meeting can be prepared and initiated from a user interface of the collaboration module by selecting the at least one document.

16. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the preparation of the online meeting includes automatic determination of a subject, invitees for the online meeting, and links to associated documents within the shared workspace based on the selection of the at least one document in the user interface.

17. The computing device of claim 15, wherein the user interface of the collaboration module is configured to enable participants of the online meeting to include additional documents from the shared workspace in a meeting workspace during the online meeting for at least one of viewing and modification.

18. A computer-readable storage medium with instructions stored thereon for integrating online meetings with shared workspaces, the instructions comprising:

enabling online and offline collaborative operations on documents within a shared workspace;

providing a user interface for selection of the documents within the shared workspace;

in response to selection of at least one document in the user interface, providing an option to initiate an online meeting associate with the selected document;

in response to receiving an indication of a request for initiating the online meeting, preparing a workspace for the online meeting that includes at least one from a set of;

links to the at least one document associated with the online meeting, a history of online meetings on a same subject, and a list of future scheduled meetings on the same subject;

facilitating the online meeting by enabling participants of the online meeting to modify the at least one document associated with the online meeting and to create at least one other document associated with the online meeting;

at conclusion of the online meeting, automatically formatting, indexing, and linking any modified and newly created documents and a recording of the online meeting such that the documents and the recording of the meeting are stored in the shared workspace in a reusable and searchable manner available to online and offline users of the shared workspace.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions further comprise:

preparing the workspace for the meeting, initiating the meeting, and facilitating the meeting in response to detection of a predefined event associated with the shared workspace by a scheduling application.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions further comprise:

enabling a survey of participants to be taken during the online meeting; and

storing results of the survey in the shared workspace with a link to the recording of the online meeting.