CORPORATE USER DISCOVERY AND IDENTIFICATION OF RECOMMENDED COLLABORATORS IN A CLOUD PLATFORM

• US 20140101251A1
• Filed: 10/04/2013
• Published: 04/10/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Inventors: Savage, Brandon, Jordan, Dave, Thang, Raymond, Tong, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,705,967 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure include systems and methods for user discovery (e.g., corporate user discovery) and/or identification of recommended or suggested collaborators in a collaboration platform which may be a cloud-based platform. The disclosed technology enables a user to discover a network of users that they could be collaborating with but are not. This feature, can for example, identify the relevant users or the suggested users and depict the users in the user interface. The identification and selection of the suggested users/potential collaborators can be based on some criteria (e.g., email domain, when the account was created, etc.). These criteria can be set by system default, adjusted by individual users and/or configured/set by admins if a user belongs to a corporate account/enterprise account.

Claims

1. A method of recommending collaborators on a cloud-based collaboration platform, comprising the steps of:

generating for a user a list of one or more potential collaborators to collaborate on an item managed by the cloud-based collaboration platform from other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item; and

presenting the list of the one or more potential collaborators to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is generated is based on when a user joined the cloud-based collaboration platform.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is generated based on a user'"'"'s location.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a user location can be represented as a physical address, an email address, or a uniform resource locator (URL).

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is generated based on a collection of one or more items of which a user is a collaborator.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of accepting the user'"'"'s selection from the list.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of inviting one or more users to collaborate on the item according to the user'"'"'s selection.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the item is to be collaboratively accessed using multiple physical devices by the collaborators of the item;

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the multiple physical devices include a mobile device.

10. The method of claim 1,

wherein the cloud-based collaboration platform hosts workspaces, each comprising one or more work items, and

wherein the item is a workspace or a work item.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the selection is based on a list of workspaces and/or work items of which a user is a collaborator.

12. A system for recommending collaborators on a cloud-based collaboration platform, comprising:

a generating unit which generates for a user a list of one or more potential collaborators to collaborate on an item managed by the cloud-based collaboration platform from other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item; and

a presenting unit which presents the list of the one or more potential collaborators to the user.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the list is generated is based on when a user joined the cloud-based collaboration platform.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the list is generated based on a user'"'"'s location.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the list is generated based on a collection of one or more items of which a user is a collaborator.

16. A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which when executed by a processor perform a method of recommending collaborators on a cloud-based collaboration platform, the method comprising the steps of:

generating for a user a list of one or more potential collaborators to collaborate on an item managed by the cloud-based collaboration platform from other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item; and

presenting the list of the one or more potential collaborators to the user.