System for managing event notifications to client devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10110536-B2
Application number	US-201414257708-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 21, 2014
Priority date	Apr 21, 2014
Publication date	Oct 23, 2018
Grant date	Oct 23, 2018

Abstract

An online content management service can manage distribution of event notifications to client devices based on notification keys. Client devices can register with the content management service to receive event notifications associated with one or more specific notification keys of interest. The content management service can receive information about events, determine a notification key for each event, and selectively send notifications to clients that are registered for that notification key. The content management service can store event notifications for client devices that are generated during a period when the client device is not in communication with the content management service and can send the missed event notifications to the client device when the client device reestablishes communication with the content management service.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
defining, by a content management system, a notification key for a specific category of events at the content management system, the notification key comprising a unique value that uniquely identifies the specific category of events at the content management system;
receiving, by the content management system, a request to register a client device to receive notifications of events corresponding to the notification key, wherein the client device is associated with a user account of the content management system, and the content management system stores one or more content items for the user account;
in response to the request, storing, by the content management system, an association between the notification key and a unique client identifier of the client device, wherein the association registers the client device to receive notifications of events associated with the notification key;
classifying one or more events detected by the content management system as corresponding to the specific category of events;
based on the classifying of the one or more events as corresponding to the specific category of events, assigning the notification key to the one or more events to yield an assigned notification key associated with the one or more events;
based on the assigning of the notification key, determining that the client device is registered to receive an event notification;
sending, during a time period, the event notification for the one or more events of the assigned notification key to the client device;
storing, by the content management system, the event notification as a missed event notification for future delivery to the client device when the client device is unable to communicate with the content management system during the time period, wherein the missed event notification is stored with the unique client identifier and the assigned notification key;
receiving, from the client device, a count of event notifications received by the client device for the assigned notification key during the time period;
determining a count of event notifications associated with the assigned notification key for the client device during the time period;
determining a count of event notifications associated with the assigned notification key sent to the client device during the time period;
determining a count of event notifications not received by the client device during the time period for the assigned notification key based on the count of event notifications received by the client device for the assigned notification key during the time period, the count of event notifications associated with the assigned notification key for the client device during the time period, and the count of event notifications associated with the assigned notification key sent to the client device during the time period;
determining that event notifications not received by the client device for the time period exceed a threshold, based on the count of event notifications not received by the client device during the time period for the assigned notification key; and
determining to send missed event notifications to the client device for the time period, based on event notifications not received by the client device for the time period exceeding the threshold.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the specific category of events comprises changes to a content item on the content management system, and wherein the event notification includes an indication of a change to the content item.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining, by the content management system, that a client device from the one or more identified recipient devices is unable to receive the event notification from the content management system based on a communication status associated with the client device;
associating, by the content management system, the missed event notification with an expiration setting defining an expiration triggering event, wherein the expiration triggering event causes the missed event notification to be removed from a list of missing event notifications associated with the client device, the expiration triggering event comprising at least one of an exceeding a period of time associated with the missed event notification, exceeding a number of missing event notifications in the list of missing event notifications, or exceeding a storage amount used by missing event notifications associated with the client device;
determining that the missed event notification has not expired when the expiration triggering event defined in the expiration setting has not been detected; and
based on a new communication status associated with the client device that indicates that the client device has established communication with the content management system, sending, by the content management system, the missed event notification to the client device when the missed event notification has not expired.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
identifying a second missed event notification that has not been sent to the client device;
determining that the second missed event notification has expired based on the expiration triggering event; and
in response to determining that the second missed event notification has expired, disassociating the respective unique client identifier of the client device from a respective notification key associated with the second missed event notification.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating a notification record associated with the notification key, the notification record comprising a plurality of fields comprising:
a first field corresponding to the notification key, the first field containing the unique value associated with the notification key,
a second field corresponding to devices registered to the notification key, the second field containing the respective unique client identifier,
a third field indicating a content item associated with the one or more events corresponding to the notification key, and
a fourth field indicating a command applied to the content item via the one or more events;

generating the event notification based on the notification record associated with the notification key, the event notification comprising a first indication of the content item associated with the third field and a second indication that the command associated with the fourth field has been applied to the content item; and
wherein storing the association in response to the respective request comprises adding the respective unique identifier of the one or more client devices to the second field corresponding to devices registered to the notification key.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining, by the content management system, that a client device from the one or more identified recipient devices is unable to receive the event notification from the content management system based on a communication status associated with the client device;
in response to a new communication status associated with the client device, determining that the client device did not previously receive the missed event notification; and
sending the missed event notification to the client device, wherein sending the missed event notification to the client device is further based on determining that the client device did not previously receive the missed event notification.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
maintaining, by the content management system, a first count of event notifications sent to the client device;
receiving, from the client device, a notification request for event notifications that were not previously received by the client device;
receiving, from the client

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Vincent Jonathan

Classifications

• H04L51/24 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L51/32

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L51/224 Primary

  providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages · CPC title

• H04L51/52

  for supporting social networking services · CPC title