SYNCHRONIZE COLLABORATION ENTITY FILES

• US 20170024410A1
• Filed: 07/24/2015
• Published: 01/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Pola, Peda Venkateswarlu
• Granted Patent: US 10,152,489 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

A database system is arranged to support collaboration among users of a file in a feed system of a multi-user social network database driven system, wherein at least some of the users are permitted to upload a file to the feed from a remote computing device, and other users may have permission to collaborate on modifying the file. A sync client application executable on a remote user machine enables an authorize user to select “sync all files in the feed,” which triggers (a) download of the latest version of all files in the feed from the cloud to all users associated with the feed, and (b) subsequent automatic synchronization of the files by selectively uploading to the cloud database a modified local copy of the file from a user machine, and then downloading a latest version of the modified file to all of the users associated with the feed.

Claims

1. A method for a database system to support collaboration among users of a file in a feed system of a multi-user social network provided by the database system, the feed system managing and electronically publishing at least one feed comprising a series of feed items, the feed accessible to a set of users associated with the feed for communicating among the set of users, wherein at least some of the users are permitted to upload a file to the feed from a remote computing device, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing at the database system a connection with a remote computing device;

receiving at the database system a request from the remote computing device to synchronize all files in a selected feed;

at the database system, responsive to the request, identifying a set of at least one file associated to the selected feed;

at the database system, identifying a latest version of each file in the set; and

automatically downloading the latest version of each file in the set to the remote computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying all users who are synchronization subscribers to at least one of the set of files; and

automatically downloading the latest version of each file to which a user is a synchronization subscriber, to a machine associated with the corresponding user.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the automatic downloading step includes identifying at least one machine associated to each synchronization subscriber and downloading the latest version of the file to all of the identified machines.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the selected feed is associated with one of a group of CRM objects, the group comprising an account, a contact, and an opportunity.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising associating a selected local file folder in the remote computing device to the selected feed, and downloading the latest version of each file in the set to the associated local file folder.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the database system includes at least one application server;

the connection with a remote computing device is established with the application server;

the request from the remote computing device is received at the application server;

responsive to the request, the application server identifies the set of at least one file;

the application server identifies the latest version of each file in the set; and

the application server causes the downloading of the latest version of each file in the set to the remote computing device.

7. The method of claim 6 and further comprising:

identifying all users who are synchronization subscribers to at least one of the set of files; and

automatically downloading the latest version of each file to which a user is a synchronization subscriber, to the corresponding user.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the selected feed is associated with one of a group of CRM objects, the group comprising an account, a contact, and an opportunity.

9. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

monitoring the remote computing device to detect a modification of one of the files in the selected feed;

responsive to detecting a modification of the file, uploading the modified file to the database system as the latest version of the modified file; and

downloading the latest version of the modified file from the database system to each user who previously subscribed to synchronization of the file.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein:

downloading the latest version of the modified file includes identifying at least one machine associated to each synchronization subscriber and

downloading the latest version of the file to all of the identified machines.

downloading the latest version of the file to each one of the identified machines associated to each synchronization subscriber.

11. A cloud computing system comprising:

a database system arranged to support collaboration among users of a file in a feed system of a multi-user social network provided by the database system, the feed system managing and electronically publishing at least one feed comprising a series of feed items, the feed accessible to a set of users associated with the feed for communicating among the set of users, wherein at least some of the users are permitted to upload a file to the feed from a remote computing device;

the database system including at least one application server arranged to provide services, and run applications, for users or client entities of the database system, wherein the application server is configured to communicate selected events to the notification server introduced below, the events selected as those affecting a particular file among a selected set of files uploaded to the feed; and

the database system including a notification server configured to receive the selected events from the application server and to publish notifications of the selected events to remote client devices;

wherein the published notifications are arranged to be used by the remote client devices to trigger synchronization of a corresponding local copy of the particular file on each client device to a cloud copy of the particular file maintained in the database system.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the notification server is implemented as a software component.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the selected events include uploading a new file to the feed and modifying an existing file in the feed, so as to enable the remote client devices to maintain synchronization by downloading the new file or modifying a local copy of the modified file, as applicable, responsive to receiving a notification of the selected event.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the selected events include deleting or renaming a file in the feed, so as to enable the remote client devices to maintain synchronization by deleting or renaming a local copy of the affected file, as applicable, responsive to receiving a notification of the selected event.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the feed is associated with one of a group of CRM objects, the group comprising an account, a contact, and an opportunity.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein:

the database system is configured to maintain a record of users who are subscribed for synchronization of a particular file; and

the notification server is configured to publish notifications of the selected events to the users who are subscribed for synchronization of the particular file.

17. A method comprising:

at a user machine, establishing a connection with a cloud computing system that implements a feed system of a multi-user social network, the feed system managing and electronically publishing at least one feed comprising a series of feed items, the feed accessible to a set of users associated with the feed for communicating among the set of users, wherein at least some of the users are permitted to upload a file to the feed from a remote computing device;

via the connection, receiving a notification of an event from the cloud computing system, wherein the event affects a selected file associated to the feed;

at the user machine, maintaining a journal of the notifications received from the cloud computing system of events that affect a cloud copy of the selected file;

at the user machine, monitoring a local file system to detect changes that affect a local copy of the selected file;

at the user machine, adding to the journal indicia of the detected changes to the local copy;

at the user machine, based at least in part on the journal entries, determining a task to synchronize the local copy and the cloud copy of the selected file; and

at the user machine, executing the task to sync to synchronize the local copy and the cloud copy of the selected file to a most recently changed version of the file, wherein executing the task includes communicating with the cloud computing system.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein determining the task includes obtaining metadata about the cloud copy of the selected file from the cloud computing system, and comparing the obtained metadata to metadata generated by said monitoring of the local file system to detect changes that affect the local copy of the selected file, to determine which is the most recently changed version of the file.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein executing the task includes one of uploading the local copy of the selected file to the cloud computing system and downloading the cloud copy of the selected file to the local file system.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein executing the task to sync to synchronize the local copy includes communicating with an application server of the cloud computing system.