Transition to an organization directory

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11176164-B2
Application number	US-201715857772-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 29, 2017
Priority date	Dec 28, 2017
Publication date	Nov 16, 2021
Grant date	Nov 16, 2021

Abstract

The present technology pertains to a organization directory hosted by a synchronized content management system. The corporate directory can provide access to user accounts for all members of the organization to all content items in the organization directory on the respective file systems of the members' client devices. Members can reach any content item at the same path as other members relative to the organization directory root on their respective client device. In some embodiments novel access permissions are granted to maintain path consistency.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions stored thereon, when executed the instructions are effective to cause a content management system to:
transition a user account having an existing namespace at the content management system into a member account of an organization directory having an organization namespace at the content management system, wherein the organization directory is set as a root directory for all member accounts of the organization directory, the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
create a member folder for the user account within the existing namespace;
move all content items in the existing namespace into the member folder, wherein the member folder is a private folder and all contents in the member folder default to an access state of being private to the user account;
after moving all content items into the member folder, unmount the member folder from the existing namespace and mount the member folder in the organization directory, wherein each of a plurality of user accounts has a member folder mounted in the organization directory viewable only by each respective user account, and wherein non-member folders mounted to the organization directory are viewable by all user accounts absent restrictions;
after the member folder is mounted in the organization directory, unmount at least one nested folder in the member folder, wherein the at least one nested folder has restricted access; and
mount the at least one nested folder in a new location in the organization directory, wherein the at least one nested folder maintains the restricted access in the new location in the organization directory.

2. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
prior to the mount of the unmounted folders shared with the respective member accounts having access to the organization directory in the new locations in the organization directory, configuring the unmounted folders as confidential folders.

3. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
move some content items from within the member folder after it has been mounted in the organization directory to new locations in the organization directory.

4. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , comprising instructions to cause the content management system to:
transmit to a client device authorized to access the user account, an up-to-date view of a namespace within the organization directory, wherein the up-to-date view is filtered according to access privileges for the user account.

5. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 4 , comprising instructions to cause the content management system to:
populate a local file system of the client device according to the up-to-date view of the namespace within the organization directory.

6. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
prior to creation of the member folder within the existing namespace, create a convert-user task list and store the convert-user task list in association with the user account.

7. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
after completion of a task in the convert-user task list, remove the task from the convert-user task list.

8. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7 , wherein synchronization of the user account is suspended while the convert-user task list contains tasks.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 , comprising instructions to cause the content management system to:
after the new folder is mounted in the organization directory, move the one or more shared content items from the new folder to the organization directory, wherein the one or more unshared content items remain in the new folder and remain unshared with other user accounts having access to the organization directory.

10. A method comprising:
transitioning a user account having an existing namespace at a content management system into a member account of an organization directory having an organization namespace at the content management system, wherein the organization directory is set as a root directory for all member accounts of the organization directory, the transitioning including:
creating a member folder for the user account within the existing namespace;
moving all content items in the existing namespace into the member folder, wherein the member folder is a private folder and all contents in the member folder defaults to an access state of being private to the user account;
after moving all content items into the member folder, unmounting the member folder from the existing namespace and mount the member folder in the organization directory, wherein each of a plurality of user accounts has a member folder mounted in the organization directory viewable only by each respective user account, and wherein non-member folders mounted to the organization directory are viewable by all user accounts absent restrictions;
after the member folder is mounted in the organization directory, unmount at least one nested folder in the member folder, wherein the at least one nested folder has restricted access; and
mount the at least one nested folder in a new location in the organization directory, wherein the at least one nested folder maintains the restricted access in the new location in the organization directory.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the transitioning further includes:
moving folders shared with other user accounts having access to the organization directory from the member folder to a new location in the organization directory.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the transitioning further includes:
prior to the moving the folders shared with the other user accounts having access to the organization directory, configuring the folders as confidential folders.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the transitioning further includes:
prior to creation of the member folder within the existing namespace, creating a convert-user task list and store the convert-user task list in association with the user account; and
sending an instruction to pause a client synchronization service, wherein the convert-user task list includes a list of ordered tasks to be completed before sending a subsequent instruction to resume the client synchronization service.

14. A content management system comprising:
one or more processors; and
at least one memory having instructions stored thereon, that when executed the instructions are effective to cause the one or more processors to:
transition a user account having an existing namespace at the content management system into a member account of an organization directory having an organization namespace at the content management system, wherein the organization directory is set as a root directory for all member accounts of the organization directory, the transitioning includes causing the content management system to:
create a member folder for the user account within the existing namespace;
move all content items in the existing namespace into the member folder, wherein the member folder is a private folder and all contents in the member folder defaults to an access state of being private to the user account;
after moving all content items into the member folder, unmount the member

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Kleinpeter Thomas
• Xu Tony
• Albert Akos
• Bunger Nils
• Jau Sam
• WOODS Conor
• Staley Aaron

Classifications

• G06F16/27 Primary

  Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor · CPC title

• G06F16/11 Primary

  File system administration, e.g. details of archiving or snapshots (error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in operations G06F11/14) · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title

• G06F16/119

  Details of migration of file systems (migration mechanisms in storage systems G06F3/0647) · CPC title

• G06F2212/1052

  Security improvement · CPC title