Locating relevant content items across multiple disparate content sources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9996618-B2
Application number	US-201615201124-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 1, 2016
Priority date	Nov 14, 2011
Publication date	Jun 12, 2018
Grant date	Jun 12, 2018

Abstract

Technologies are described herein for locating relevant content items across multiple disparate content sources. Query parameters are received from a user interface for defining a query for searching a number of content sources located on multiple, disparate content servers. A native search is executed on each of the content servers based on the received query parameters, and query statistics and other data regarding content items in the content sources matching the query parameters are received. The query statistics are aggregated across the content servers and presented in the user interface. The presentation of the query statistics may be broken out by each content source, by each query phrase segmented from the query, and the like. In addition, a preview of a number of content items matching the query parameters is presented based on the data received.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for locating content items in a plurality of content sources across different content servers, the system comprising:
one or more processors;
a memory coupled to the one or more processors; and
an e-discovery client application residing in the memory and comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to:
receive query parameters to define a query associated with a source specification of a pre-established case dataset, the source specification identifying a remote content source containing searchable content items;
save the query as a query specification in the pre-established case dataset;
execute the query of the saved query specification including applying the query against the searchable content items in the remote content source that is identified within the saved query specification by the source specification associated with the query;
receive data regarding content items located through application of the query;
aggregate query statistics based on the received data; and
present the query statistics.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the e-discovery client application comprises further computer-executable instructions that cause the system to:
present a filter category along with one or more values for the filter category in the user interface based on the received data;
receive a selection of one of the one or more values for the filter category;
modify the query parameters to include a filter category/value pair based on the selection; and
re-execute the query of the retrieved query specification based on the modified query parameters.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the filter category is specific to a type of content items being searched in the remote content source.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the remote content source identified by a first source specification comprises an email server and the remote content source identified by a second source specification comprises a content site server.

5. A computer-implemented method for locating content items in a plurality of content sources across different content servers, the method comprising:
receiving from a user query parameters to define a query associated with a source specification of a pre-established case dataset, the source specification identifying a remote content source containing searchable content items;
saving the query as a query specification in the pre-established case dataset;
executing the query of the saved query specification including applying the query against the searchable content items in the remote content source that is identified within the saved query specification by the source specification associated with the query;
receiving data regarding content items located through application of the query;
aggregating query statistics based on the received data; and
presenting the query statistics to the user.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein query statistics are presented regarding each content source defined by the source specification associated with the query.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6 , wherein query statistics regarding each content source are grouped together by content source type.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising segmenting the query, wherein query statistics are presented regarding each of a plurality of query phrases segmented from the query.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8 , wherein the plurality of query phrases are segmented from the query at each explicit or implied OR junction.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising: presenting a preview of one or more content items matching the query to the user from the received data.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the preview of the one or more content items is presented for content items from content sources of a same type.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:
receiving from the user a modification of the query parameters of the saved query;
executing the modified query;
receiving data regarding the content items located through application of the modified query against searchable contents items; and
upon receiving the data, updating the query statistics presented to the user.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising:
presenting a filter category along with one or more values for the filter category to the user based on the received data;
receiving a selection of one of the one or more values for the filter category from the user;
modifying the query parameters to include a filter category/value pair based on the selection;
saving the modified query as a retrievable modified query specification;
retrieving the modified query specification and executing the modified query specification;
receiving data regarding the content items located through application of the modified query; and
upon receiving the data, updating the query statistics presented to the user.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , wherein the remote content source identified by a first source specification comprises an email server and the remote content source identified by a second source specification comprises a content site server.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 5 , further comprising defining a plurality of the source specifications as a content collection within the pre-established case dataset.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15 , further comprising applying a filter to the content collection prior to executing the query.

17. A computer-readable storage device encoded with computer executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:
receive query parameters defining a query that is associated with a source specification of a pre-established case dataset for e-discovery, the source specification identifying a plurality of remote content sources containing searchable content items, the query parameters comprising a free-text query;
save the query as a query specification in the pre-established case dataset;
execute the query of the saved query specification including applying the query against the searchable content items in the content source that is identified within the query specification by the source specification associated with the query;
receive data regarding content items matching the query parameters found during execution of the query;
aggregate query statistics based on the received data; and
present the query statistics.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17 , wherein the instructions further cause the computer to present a preview of one or more content items matching the query for content items from content sources of a same type.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17 , wherein the query phrases are grouped into query phrases, the query phrases being segmented from the free-text-query at each explicit or implied OR junction between query phrases.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17 , wherein a first of the at least two content servers comprises an email server and a second of the at least two content servers comprises a file server.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Stevenson Bradley
• Harmetz Adam David
• Christensen Quentin Gary
• Smith Julian Zbogar
• Janardhan Anupama
• Argott Hernandez Carlos David
• Somasundaram Ramanathan
• Rinaca Benjamin Joseph
• Mao Fan
• Mcmynn Graham Lee
• Alspaugh Jessica Anne
• Piaseczny Michal
• Baraboi Tudor
• Malgi Ashish Shrikrishna
• Sriram Thottam R
• Arifin Zainal
• Fan John D
• Jayaraman Kameshwar

Classifications

• G06F16/951 Primary

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title

• G06F17/30864 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/953 Primary

  Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines · CPC title