Collection folders in a content management system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10650155-B2
Application number	US-201615221556-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2016
Priority date	Jul 23, 2014
Publication date	May 12, 2020
Grant date	May 12, 2020

Abstract

A content management system allows a user to create a collection folder to which a submitting user can add content items without being able to access content items added to the folder by other submitting users. A collection folder is created in a namespace of a collecting user and folder is made available to multiple submitting users to allow the submitting users to add items to the folder. When a submitting user first request to store a content item in the collection folder, the content management system creates a sub-folder associated with the submitting user in the collection folder and stores the content item in the sub-folder. The submitting user is given rights to the sub-folder, but is not given rights to sub-folders created for other submitting users.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
creating and storing, in a computer-readable storage medium by a content management system implemented in a cloud computing system, a collection folder associated with a collecting user account;
receiving, from a collecting user associated with the collecting user account, information identifying a plurality of potential submitting users;
responsive to receiving the information, sending, to each of the plurality of potential submitting users based on the information, an electronic invitation to upload a content item to the collection folder;
identifying, based on electronic responses to the invitation, a plurality of submitting users;
receiving, from each respective submitting user of the plurality of submitting users, an upload of a respective content item to add to the collection folder;
responsive to receiving each respective content item, creating, in the collection folder, a respective unique sub-folder for the respective submitting user; and
providing the respective submitting user with access rights to the respective unique sub-folder, the access rights specifying that the respective submitting user can write to the respective unique sub-folder and cannot write to or view contents of any other sub-folder in the collection folder.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
granting the collecting user account read rights to each submitting user's sub-folder created within the collection folder.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
associating an expiration date with the collection folder;
receiving a request from a potential submitting user to upload a corresponding content item to the collection folder; and
responsive to the expiration date associated with the collection folder being surpassed, denying the request.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
responsive to the collecting user requesting to grant administrative rights to an additional user, providing the additional user with read rights to each submitting user's sub-folder in the collection folder.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein a copy of a seed document is automatically included in each sub-folder created within the collection folder.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information identifying a plurality of potential submitting users includes a communication identifier and further comprising verifying the communication identifier by:
sending a message with verification information to the communication identifier; and
responsive to receiving the verification information from a potential submitting user of the plurality of potential submitting users, verifying the communication identifier.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: responsive to receiving a content item, automatically recording a timestamp representative of a time at which the content item was received.

8. The method of claim 3 , further comprising: after the expiration date, generating, by the content management system, an analytics report representative of the collection folder.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the analytics report includes 1) a list identifying each submitting user who has uploaded a content item to a corresponding sub-folder, 2) a time associated with each listed user that identifies when a corresponding content item was uploaded by the listed user, 3) a total numeric number of invited potential submitting users, and 4) a numeric number of users that have uploaded a content item.

10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising: sending, by the content management system to a client device associated with the collecting user, the analytics report representative of the collection folder, the client device comprising an interface configured to display the analytics report to the collecting user.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more instructions that, when executed by a cloud computing system, cause the cloud computing system to perform operations comprising:
creating and storing, in a computer-readable storage medium by a content management system implemented in a cloud computing system, a collection folder associated with a collecting user account;
receiving, from a collecting user associated with the collecting user account, information identifying a plurality of potential submitting users;
responsive to receiving the information, sending, to each of the plurality of potential submitting users based on the information, an electronic invitation to upload a content item to the collection folder;
identifying, based on electronic responses to the invitation, a plurality of submitting users;
receiving, from each respective submitting user of the plurality of submitting users, an upload of a respective content item to add to the collection folder;
responsive to receiving each respective content item, creating, in the collection folder, a respective unique sub-folder for the respective submitting user; and
providing the respective submitting user with access rights to the respective unique sub-folder, the access rights specifying that the respective submitting user can write to the respective unique sub-folder and cannot write to or view contents of any other sub-folder in the collection folder.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise:
after receiving the upload of the respective content item from the respective submitting user, receiving, from the respective submitting user, an upload of an additional content item to add to the collection folder; and
responsive to determining that the collection folder includes the respective unique sub-folder associated with the respective submitting user, adding the additional content item to the respective unique sub-folder.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the operations further comprise:
granting the collecting user account read rights to each submitting user's sub-folder created within the collection folder.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , the operations further comprising:
associating an expiration date with the collection folder;
receiving a request from a potential submitting user to upload a corresponding content item to the collection folder; and
responsive to the expiration date associated with the collection folder being surpassed, denying the request.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 11 , the operations further comprising:
responsive to the collecting user requesting to grant administrative rights to an additional user, providing the additional user with read rights to each submitting user's sub-folder in the collection folder.

16. A cloud computing system comprising:
one or more processors;
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing one or more instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
creating and storing, in a computer-readable storage medium by a content management system implemented in a cloud computing system, a collection folder associated with a collecting user account;
receiving, from a collecting user associated with the collecting user account, information identifying a plurality of potential submitting users;
responsive to receiving the information, sending, to each of the plurality of potential submitting users based on the information, an electronic invitation to upload a content item to the collection folder;
identifying, based on electronic responses to the invitation, a plurality of su

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Staley Aaron
• Jain Aditi
• Ferrazares Aisha
• Chen Alicia
• Warty Ashish
• Adams John
• Hui Joseph
• Siegel Kathryn
• Jansson Lennart
• Pan Matteus
• Baesman Rob
• Xu Siyao

Classifications

• G06F16/176

  Support for shared access to files; File sharing support · CPC title

• G06F16/3337

  Translation of the query language, e.g. Chinese to English · CPC title

• G06F21/6218 Primary

  to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database · CPC title

• G06F16/2445

  Data retrieval commands; View definitions · CPC title

• G06F16/16

  File or folder operations, e.g. details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems · CPC title