Corporate user discovery and identification of recommended collaborators in a cloud platform

• US 9,705,967 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2013
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• 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
• Primary Examiner(s): Zand, Davoud
• Application Number:
  US14/046,294
• Publication Number:
  US 20140101251A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,376 Days
• Field of Search: 709204, 709202, 709206, 715751
• 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, wherein the cloud-based collaboration platform hosts workspaces, each comprising one or more work items, wherein the work item is collaboration content, and wherein the one or more potential collaborators being a subset of other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item;

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

receiving, from the user, a selection of at least one collaborator from the list of one or more potential collaborators; and

updating the list of one or more potential collaborators with at least one additional user based on a similarity of the at least one additional user to the at least one selected collaborator.

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

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is generated based on the other users'"'"' locations.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the other users'"'"' locations are represented as a physical address, an email address, a uniform resource locator (URL), or a combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the list is generated based on a collection of one or more items of which other users have been collaborators.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of inviting the at least one collaborator to collaborate on the item.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the item is to be collaboratively accessed using multiple physical devices by the one or more potential collaborators of the item.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the multiple physical devices include a mobile device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the multiple physical devices include a mobile device.

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

one or more processors;

one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media having instructions stored thereon, which when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to;

generate, for a user, a list of one or more potential collaborators to collaborate on an item managed by the cloud-based collaboration platform, wherein the cloud-based collaboration platform hosts workspaces, each comprising one or more work items, wherein the work item is collaboration content, and wherein the one or more potential collaborators being a subset of other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item;

present the list of the one or more potential collaborators to the user;

receive, from the user, a selection of at least one collaborator from the list of one or more potential collaborators; and

update the list of one or more potential collaborators with at least one additional user based on a similarity of the at least one additional user to the at least one selected collaborator.

11. The system claim 10, wherein the list is generated based on when the other users joined the cloud-based collaboration platform.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the list is generated based on the other users'"'"' locations.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the list is generated based on a collection of one or more items of which other users have been collaborators.

14. A non-transitory 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, wherein the cloud-based collaboration platform hosts workspaces, each comprising one or more work items, wherein the work item is collaboration content, and wherein the one or more potential collaborators being a subset of other users of the cloud-based collaboration platform who are not currently collaborators of the item;

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

receiving, from the user, a selection of at least one collaborator from the list of one or more potential collaborators; and

updating the list of one or more potential collaborators with at least one additional user based on a similarity of the at least one additional user to the at least one selected collaborator.