Treatment of cloud-based and local attachments in communication applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9832149-B2
Application number	US-201414571948-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 16, 2014
Priority date	Sep 30, 2014
Publication date	Nov 28, 2017
Grant date	Nov 28, 2017

Abstract

Users of communication applications may be enabled to select from a user-friendly and efficiently provided list of files that may be of interest to them to attach to a correspondence and send to one or more recipients. For example, the communication application may retrieve information from one or more application programming interfaces (APIs) associated with applications of the user to determine the list of files. The files may be local files or cloud-based files, and a variety of criteria may be used to determine, group, and present the files to the user for selection. Once selected by the user, the files or links to cloud destinations of the files may be attached to the correspondence, where the files or links may be displayed in an attachment well or a body of the correspondence. Permissions associated with the attachments may be set by default, by user configuration, and/or modified by user.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for treatment of cloud-based and local attachments in a communication application, the method comprising:
detecting a user intent to attach a file to a correspondence;
determining a list of local and cloud-based files of interest to the user, wherein the list of local and cloud-based files includes files locally stored at the user's computing device, files stored at the user's network drive, files from social or professional networks, files from a collaboration service to which the user subscribes, and cloud-based files of other people that are associated with the user;
presenting the list of the local and cloud-based files to the user for selection;
upon selection of a file from the list, attaching the selected file to the correspondence, wherein the attached file is the selected file or a link to a location of the selected file;
determining a permission associated with the attached file based on one or more of original permissions associated with the file or a user configuration, wherein the permission includes one or more of view, edit, forward, or save;
displaying an option to the user to modify the permission associated with the attached file;
enforcing the modified permission upon receipt of the correspondence with the attached file by a recipient; and
in response to the recipient forwarding the correspondence with the attached file to one or more other recipients, displaying an option to the recipient to set a more restrictive permission than the modified permission associated with the attached file.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the list of local and cloud-based files of interest to the user comprises determining files based on whether the user has recently viewed, modified, saved, listened to, shared, pinned, or sent the files.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
one or more of ordering and grouping the list of local and cloud-based files based on whether the user has recently viewed, modified, saved, listened to, shared, pinned, or sent the files and one or more of a recentness of user interaction with a file, a type of user interaction with the file, and a type of the file.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
one or more of ordering and grouping the list of local and cloud-based files based on one or more default rules, a user configuration, and an inference by the communication application.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying the attached file in one or more of an attachment well and a body of an email correspondence using one or more of a textual and a graphical scheme to represent the attached file.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining the list of local and cloud-based files by receiving one or more lists of files from one or more application programming interfaces associated with one or more applications of the user.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
if the attached file is the link to the location of the selected file, determining whether the recipient of the correspondence with the attached file has access to the location of the selected file through a pre-existing service subscription;
if the recipient has access, enabling the recipient to access the attached file using their own credentials associated with the pre-existing service subscription; and
if the recipient does not have access, creating a one-time guest access for the recipient.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
if a locally stored file is the selected file, uploading the selected file to the cloud and attaching a link to a location of the uploaded file to the correspondence; and
if a cloud-based file is the selected file, downloading the selected file and attaching the downloaded file to the correspondence based on one of a default rule and a user configuration.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
if a cloud-based file is the selected file, enabling a recipient's client application to retrieve a latest version of the file if the recipient is online or to use a sent version of the attachment if the recipient is off-line.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
upon detecting insertion of a link to a cloud-based file within a body of an email correspondence by the user, automatically attaching the cloud-based file and displaying on a user experience as an attached file.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
upon transmission of the correspondence to multiple recipients and one of the recipients forwarding to a group of recipients that includes at least one of the multiple recipients and at least one new recipient, enabling transmission of the forwarded correspondence with the attached file to the at least one new recipient and without the attached file to the at least one of the multiple recipients.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
enabling a receiving client application that is capable of processing a link to a cloud-based file presented in an attachment well to present the link in one or both of the attachment well and a body of an email, and another receiving client that is not capable of processing the link to the cloud-based file presented in the attachment well to present the link as a link within the body of the email.

13. A computing device for treatment of cloud-based and local attachments in a communication application, the computing device comprising:
an input device;
a display device;
a memory configured to store instructions;
a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor, in conjunction with instructions stored in the memory, is configured to:
detect a user intent to attach a file to a correspondence through the input device;
determine a list of local and cloud-based files of interest to the user, wherein the list of local and cloud-based files includes files locally stored at the computing device, files stored at the user's network drive, files from social or professional networks, files from a collaboration service to which the user subscribes, and cloud-based files of other people that are associated with the user;
present the list of the local and cloud-based files to the user for selection through the display device; and
upon selection of a file from the list, attach the selected file to the correspondence, wherein the attached file is the selected file or a link to a location of the selected file and is displayed in one or more of an attachment well and a body of an email correspondence;
determine a permission associated with the attached file based on one or more of original permissions associated with the file or a user configuration, wherein the permission includes one or more of view, edit, forward, or save;
display an option to the user to modify the permission associated with the attached file;
enforce the modified permission upon receipt of the correspondence with the attached file by a recipient; and
in response to the recipient forwarding the correspondence with the attached file to one or more other recipients, display an option to set a more restrictive permission than the modified permission associated with the attached file.

14. The computing device of claim 13 , wherein the processor is configured to present the list of the local and cloud-based files to the user for selection through the display device by displaying one of a drop-down menu and a pop-up menu on a user experience.

15. The computing device of claim 14 , wherein is the processor is further configured to display a browse selection through one of the drop-down menu and the pop-up menu on the user experience

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Uraizee Misbah
• Walker Chris
• Lepofsky Steven

Classifications

• G06Q10/107 Primary

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · CPC title

• H04L51/08 Primary

  Annexed information, e.g. attachments · CPC title

• G06F16/168

  Details of user interfaces specifically adapted to file systems, e.g. browsing and visualisation, 2d or 3d GUIs (query results presentation G06F16/156) · CPC title

• G06F17/30126

  Physics · mapped topic