Automatic project content suggestion

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9519883-B2
Application number	US-201113170850-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 28, 2011
Priority date	Jun 28, 2011
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

Automatically suggesting content, for example, documents, contacts information, tasks, calendar items, and the like, for inclusion into an electronic collaborative workspace is provided. Given a short description of a given project or collaborative workspace, an initial project membership list, and identification of local or external content repositories, content associated with the project or workspace may be retrieved and recommended to one or more users for inclusion into the project or collaborative workspace. Thus, the time and effort required for initially populating an electronic workspace with needed content is dramatically reduced.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method of automatically suggesting content for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:
providing the project workspace via a collaborative environment, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and one or more data repositories;
receiving a first content item for inclusion in the project workspace, the first content item including one of electronic documents, contact information, calendar items and task items;
parsing the first content item for one or more links stored directly within the first content item, the one or more links citing to linked content items included in the project workspace, the linked content items including one or more of linked electronic documents, linked contact information, linked calendar items and linked task items;
utilizing one or more keywords and associated metadata items from the first content item for searching one or more repositories for additional content items to be suggested for inclusion in the project workspace, the additional content items including one or more of additional electronic documents, additional contact information, additional calendar items and additional task items; and
suggesting the linked content items and the additional content items to a user for receiving user feedback on whether one or more of the linked content items content items or one or more of the additional content items should be included in the project workspace.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein suggesting the linked content items to the user includes presenting the suggested linked content items to the user via a computer-generated user interface component for acceptance by the user of one or more of the suggested linked content items for inclusion in the project workspace.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein if the user accepts one or more of the suggested linked content items, associating content items associated with the accepted one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein associating the content items associated with the accepted one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace includes storing the accepted one or more suggested linked content items in the project workspace.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested linked content items, receiving a correction to one or more of the suggested linked content items, and associating content items associated with the corrected one or more suggested linked content items with the project workspace.

6. The method of claim 3 , wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the suggested linked content items, receiving a replacement link to one or more of the suggested linked content items, and associating content items associated with the replacement link with the project workspace.

7. The method of claim 1 , prior to receiving a first content item for inclusion in the project workspace, further comprising receiving an identification of the project workspace, and receiving an identification of one or more repositories from which content items are suggested for inclusion in the project workspace.

8. The method of claim 1 , prior to suggesting links to the linked content items and the additional content items to a user, merging the linked content items and the additional content items for suggestion to the user as a set of content items.

9. The method of claim 8 , after merging the linked content items and links to the additional content items for suggestion to the user as a set of content items, ranking one or more content items contained in the set, and wherein suggesting the linked content items and the additional content items to a user includes suggesting one or more highly ranked content items from the set to the user.

10. A method of automatically suggesting contact items for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:
providing the project workspace via a collaborative environment, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and one or more data repositories;
receiving one or more content items from the project workspace, the first content item including one of electronic documents, contact information, calendar items and task items;
parsing the one or more content items from the project workspace for one or more links stored directly within the first content item, the one or more links citing to linked content items to be included in the project workspace, the linked content items including one or more of linked electronic documents, linked contact information, linked calendar items and linked task items;
parsing the one or more content items from the project workspace for one or more keywords that are associated with one or more contact items;
searching one or more data repositories for the one or more contact items associated with the one or more keywords and for additional content items to be suggested, for inclusion in the project workspace, the additional content items including one or more of additional electronic documents, additional contact information, additional calendar items and additional task items; and
presenting the linked content items, the additional content items and the one or more contact items to a user via a computer-generated user interface for receiving user feedback on whether the presented linked content items, additional content items and the one or more contact items should be included in the project workspace.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving one or more linked content items interacted with by one or more users who are members of the project workspace;
extracting identification information from the one or more linked content items about one or more persons for whom contact items are to be suggested for inclusion in the project workspace;
searching one or more data repositories for the one or more additional contact items associated with the extracted identification information; and
presenting the one or more additional contact items to the user via the computer-generated user interface for receiving user feedback on whether the presented one or more additional contact items should be included in the project workspace.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein if the user accepts one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, storing the accepted one or more contact items or one or more additional contact items in the project workspace.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, receiving a correction to one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, and storing the corrected one or more contact items in the project workspace.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein if the user does not accept one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, receiving a replacement to one or more of the contact items or one or more of the additional contact items, and storing the replacement in the project workspace.

15. A computer readable storage device having computer executable instructions which when executed by a computer perform a method of automatically suggesting content for inclusion in a project workspace, comprising:
receiving an identification of the project workspace, and receiving an identification of one or more repositories from which content items are suggested for inclusion in the project workspace, wherein the project workspace includes a workspace membership and the one or more repositories inclu

Assignees

• Childs Benjamin Edward
• Caldwell Nicholas
• Azzam Saliha
• O'Keefe Courtney Anne
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Childs Benjamin Edward
• Caldwell Nicholas
• Azzam Saliha
• O'Keefe Courtney Anne

Classifications

• G06F16/907

  Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually · CPC title

• G06Q10/10 Primary

  Office automation; Time management · CPC title

• G06F17/30997

  Physics · mapped topic