Methods and systems to facilitate providing spreadsheet and database data to users via a social network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9330080-B2
Application number	US-201113169325-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 27, 2011
Priority date	Jun 27, 2011
Publication date	May 3, 2016
Grant date	May 3, 2016

Abstract

A spreadsheet application platform facilitates accessing a spreadsheet stored using a spreadsheet database at a server computer. The spreadsheet application platform includes a computer-implemented social network, and a publisher may use the social network to publish a spreadsheet so that other users of the social network may subscribe to and access the spreadsheet's data. Further, a subscribed user may generate other spreadsheets that reference the publisher's spreadsheet via the application platform. When a stored value for a cell of the publisher's spreadsheet is updated at the spreadsheet database, the application platform may generate update requests for one or more target spreadsheet cells that reference the updated cell. An update request may indicate that a target cell is to be updated, and the application platform may process a plurality of update requests in parallel to update the stored values for a corresponding plurality of spreadsheet cells.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a first update request for a second cell of a second spreadsheet from a second user that owns the second spreadsheet, the first update request indicating that the second cell of the second spreadsheet is to be updated, the second cell including a reference to a first cell of a first spreadsheet, the first spreadsheet being owned by a first user, the second user not being the first user;
based on the reference to the first cell, determining a stored value being stored on a server computer for the first cell;
granting the second user access to read the first cell responsive to the second user subscribing to the first cell, the subscribing to the first cell by the second user including a fee;
using at least one processor, computing a first updated value for the second cell of the second spreadsheet based on the stored value for the first cell; and
providing, to a computing device, a query result that includes the stored value for the first cell.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a second updated value for the first cell of the first spreadsheet;
storing, at the server computer, the second updated value for the first cell, the stored value including a reference to the first cell; and
generating a notification to the second user responsive to determining that the second cell of the second spreadsheet references the first cell.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the receiving of the second updated value comprises an operation selected from the group consisting of:
receiving a data entry; the data entry including the updated value for the first cell of the first spreadsheet;
receiving a database query result; and
computing the second updated value in response to receiving a second update request indicating that the first cell of the first spreadsheet is to be updated.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
responsive to the receiving of the second updated value for the first cell, determining that a third cell of a third spreadsheet references the first cell; and
computing a third updated value for the third cell in parallel to the computing of the first updated value for the second cell.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, from the computing device, a database query that includes the reference to the first cell; and
wherein:
the providing, to the computing device, of the query result that includes the stored value for the first cell is in response to the receiving of the database query.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reference includes an identifier selected from the group consisting of:
a logical reference; and
a static reference indicating a cell within a spreadsheet.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the server computer includes a computer implemented social network.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the first user and the second user are users of the computer-implemented social network.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein access to a spreadsheet includes at least one of:
read-only access, read-write access, and results-only access; and
wherein the method further comprises:
responsive to determining that a third user has results-only access to the second spreadsheet, attributing the third user with access to read the first updated value for the second cell of the second spreadsheet without providing the third user access to read an expression used to compute the first updated value.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein at most one user of the computer-implemented social network has read-write access to the second spreadsheet.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein
the first user and the second user are members of an organization; wherein
a relationship between the first user and the second user within the computer-implemented social network is based on an organization chart for the organization; and
wherein the providing of the stored value to the second spreadsheet comprises determining that the second user has access to read at least the first cell of the first spreadsheet based on the relationship between the first user and the second user.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
publishing the first cell of the first spreadsheet using the computer-implemented social network responsive to receiving a publication request from the first user; and
wherein the computing of the first updated value based on the stored value for the first cell comprises determining that the second user has access to read the first cell of the first spreadsheet.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, from a client computing device, an access request to access the first spreadsheet;
determining display capabilities of the client computing device;
selecting a spreadsheet template based on the display capabilities, the layout of the spreadsheet template being customized for the display capabilities of the client computing device; and
providing, to the client computing device, contents of the first spreadsheet using the spreadsheet template.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein
the receiving of the access request includes receiving location data associated with the client computing device; and wherein
the providing of the contents of the first spreadsheet to the client computing device comprises selecting data elements of the first spreadsheet that are associated with the location data.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising causing the second user to be presented with a notification to update the second cell, based on detecting that the stored value of the first cell has changed; and wherein the first update request was generated by a response to the notification.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second user has results-only access to the first cell.

17. An apparatus comprising:
a memory having instructions embodied thereon;
one or more processors coupled to the memory and configured by the instructions to perform operations comprising;
receiving a first update request for a second spreadsheet owned by a second user, the first update request indicating that at least a second cell of the second spreadsheet is to be updated, the second cell including a reference to a first cell of a first spreadsheet owned by a first user; and
responsive to determining that the second user has results-only access to the second cell, attributing the second user with access to read a first updated value for the second cell without providing the second user access to read an expression used to compute the first updated value;
determining, based on the reference to the first cell, a stored value being stored on a server computer for the first cell; and
granting the second user access to read the first cell responsive to the second user subscribing to the first cell, the subscribing to the first cell by the second user including a fee;
computing the first updated value for the second cell of the second spreadsheet based on the stored value for the first cell; and
providing to a computing device, a query result that includes the stored value for the first cell.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the receiving of the first update request comprises receiving an indication from the second user that at least the second cell of the second spreadsheet is to be updated.

19. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the receiving of the first update request comprises:
receiving a second updated value for the first cell of the first spreadsheet;
storing, at t

Assignees

• Muenkel Christian
• Sap Se

Inventors

• Muenkel Christian

Classifications

• G06F16/245

  Query processing · CPC title

• G06F40/18 Primary

  of spreadsheets (form-filling G06F40/174) · CPC title

• G06F17/246 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30424

  Physics · mapped topic