Patent Application
20180329616
Document management systems allow users to create, edit, and share electronic documents. Some document management systems may contain large repositories of electronic documents, presenting challenges to users seeking to find particular documents or documents with particular characteristics. Embodiments of the present disclosure address these and other issues.
In the drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, like numerals may describe similar components in different views. Like numerals having different letter suffixes may represent different instances of similar components. Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example, and not limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which:
The description that follows includes systems, methods, techniques, instruction sequences, and computing machine program products that embody illustrative embodiments of the disclosure. In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide an understanding of various embodiments of the inventive subject matter. It will be evident, however, to those skilled in the art, that embodiments of the inventive subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In general, well-known instruction instances, protocols, structures, and techniques are not necessarily shown in detail.
Among other things, embodiments of the present disclosure help improve the functionality of electronic document management software and systems by generating customized filter options to enhance the search criteria available to users in finding documents in the document management system. In some embodiments, the system may analyze metadata for an electronic document to identify interactions between users of the document management system and the document, and generate filter options based on such metadata that can be used to find and filter documents having various characteristics.
Embodiments of the present disclosure described herein may be implemented using any combination of hardware, firmware, and software. Embodiments may also be implemented as instructions stored on a machine-readable storage device, which may be read and executed by at least one processor to perform the operations described herein. A machine-readable storage device may include any non-transitory mechanism for storing information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable storage device may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash-memory devices, and other storage devices and media.
Embodiments of the present disclosure may include, or may operate in conjunction with, various logic, components, modules, and mechanisms. Such components may include any combination of hardware, software, or firmware communicatively coupled to one or more processors in order to carry out the operations described herein. Components may be hardware components, and as such components may be considered tangible entities capable of performing specified operations and may be configured or arranged in a certain manner. For example, circuits may be arranged (e.g., internally or with respect to external entities such as other circuits) in a specified manner as a component. The whole or part of one or more computer systems (e.g., a standalone, client or server computer system) or one or more hardware processors may be configured by firmware or software (e.g., instructions, an application portion, or an application) as a component that operates to perform specified operations. In an example, the software may reside on a machine-readable medium.
In some exemplary embodiments, software, when executed by the underlying hardware of the component, causes the hardware to perform the specified operations. Accordingly, the term hardware component is understood to encompass a tangible entity, be that an entity that is physically constructed, specifically configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarily (e.g., transitorily) configured (e.g., programmed) to operate in a specified manner or to perform part or all of any operation described herein. Considering examples in which components are temporarily configured, each of the modules need not be instantiated at any one moment in time. For example, where the components comprise a general-purpose hardware processor configured using software; the general-purpose hardware processor may be configured as respective different components at different times. Software may accordingly configure a hardware processor, for example, to constitute a particular component at one instance of time and to constitute a different component at a different instance of time. Components may also be software or firmware components, which operate to perform the methodologies described herein.
While only a single computer system is illustrated in
The exemplary computer system 100 in
The storage device 116 includes a machine-readable medium 122 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures and instructions 124 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the methodologies or functions described herein. The instructions 124 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 104, static memory 106, and/or within the processor 102 during execution thereof by the computer system 100, with the main memory 104, static memory 106, and the processor 102 also constituting machine-readable media.
While the machine-readable medium 122 is illustrated to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that store the one or more instructions 124. The term “machine-readable medium” may include any tangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologies of the present disclosure or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying data structures utilized by or associated with such instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” may include, for example, solid-state memories, and optical and magnetic media. Specific examples of machine-readable media include non-volatile memory, including but not limited to, by way of example, semiconductor memory devices (e.g., electrically programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.
The instructions 124 may be transmitted or received over a communications network 126 using a transmission medium via the network interface device 120 utilizing any one of a number of well-known transfer protocols (e.g., HTTP). Examples of communication networks include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), the Internet, mobile telephone networks, plain old telephone (POTS) networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G LTE/LTE-A or WiMAX networks). The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine, and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible medium to facilitate communication of such software.
In various exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, filters may be used to narrow down a set of items in a repository to a set of items that match a particular set of criteria. For example, when browsing a SharePoint document library, users can use filters associated with column headings to filter documents by their value in the associated column. Additionally, embodiments of the disclosure can provide smart filter suggestions based on the shape of the data a user is currently looking at.
Embodiments of the present disclosure can retrieve (205) a variety of information regarding any number of different users of a document management system. The document management system (e.g., Sharepoint by Microsoft Corporation) may be implemented by the system (in whole or in part) by the system(s) performing the functionality of method 200, as well as by any combination of other systems and devices (e.g., in communication with each other via a network such as the Internet). Embodiments of the present disclosure may also operate in conjunction with content published by other types of software applications and systems, such as social media systems. In some exemplary embodiments, the system may retrieve (205) information such as the user's name or user identifier, organizations to which the user belongs, the user's title or role in such organizations, and documents within the document management system the user interacts with (e.g., accesses, modifies, saves, etc.).
The system may identify interactions (210) between users of the document management system and various documents in the document management system based on, for example, metadata stored with each respective document. For example, the system may analyze documents in the document management system to identify when a document was last modified, the user that performed the modification, other users associated with the document, a library or other repository within the document management system associated with the document, and other information.
The system may identify (210) a variety of different interactions between users of the document management system and various documents, such as accessing a document (e.g., opening the document, selecting the document to obtain information about the document, etc.), modifying the document (e.g., creating or deleting a document as well as adding, removing, or changing content within an existing document), and saving the document.
The system may generate (215) any number of different filtering options based on the interactions between one or more users with one or more documents, as well as based on other criteria. As used herein, the terms “filtering options,” “filter options,” or “filter values” refers generally to any criteria a user may select to filter a view or search of documents in the document management system. For example, in
In some exemplary embodiments, the system generates filtering options by identifying a metadata field within an electronic document and generating a filtering option based on information in the metadata field. Such metadata fields may have data entered by a user of the electronic document management system, such as tags identifying that the document belongs to a particular project, for example. Metadata fields may also include as data entered automatically by the document management system, such as information on who last modified a document and when, as well as identifying characteristics of the document determined by the system from content within the document.
In some embodiments, the system may generate filtering options based on a plurality of interactions between a single user of the electronic document management system and a single document or multiple documents in the system. Similarly, filtering options may be generated based on a plurality of interactions between multiple users of the electronic document management system and a single document, or multiple users and multiple documents.
The filtering options may also be generated based on a document's location, format, or other characteristics. For example, filtering options may be generated based on the library or other repository containing a particular document. In cases where multiple documents are contained within a plurality of different libraries, filtering options may be generated for each respective library to allow a search to focus on selected libraries.
The system may generate filter options based on the libraries or repositories where the user is currently working, or repositories that contain similar content. During the course of work, the user might tag the items he's working on with metadata values, or type sentences or words inside documents that match metadata values that are used inside the repository for classification. Updating, saving, or “writing” particularly metadata values into a first document may coincide with a need to find other related documents in the repository that are classified with these same metadata values. Accordingly, when a user enters a browsing or searching experience in that repository, or a related repository, the system may generate filters that include those values that the user previously used in his/her own work. Moreover, the system may prioritize the ordering of such filter options to be presented ahead of other filter options that may be determined to be less relevant. Relevance of a filter option for purposes of ordering in the filter options pane (e.g., as shown in
In some embodiments, various heuristics may be used to rank filter options for presentation to the user. For example, the system may prioritize filters that best divide the current working set. Likewise, the system may prioritize filters have been most frequently clicked by other users.
Filtering options may be generated based on connections between users of the electronic document management system. For example, the system may identify connections between a plurality of users who are part of the same organization (e.g., part of the same company). Such connections may include, for example, a first user who reports to a second user, users that share a common management chain (e.g., teams of members under a common manager), users who are part of a common subgroup within the organization (e.g., a division within the company, a team within the division, etc.), a first user who is a peer of a second user (e.g., users that have the same grade level or rank within the company), and users who exchange communications (e.g., emails, texts, phone calls, voicemails, etc.) with each other.
In some exemplary embodiments, the filtering options may be generated based on characteristics of the interaction between a user and a document. For example, a filtering option may be generated based on a number of interactions between a user and the document. The filtering option may be generated based on the total number of interactions between a user (or multiple users) and the document, or based on the number of interactions over a predetermined time period (e.g., one week, one month, etc.). Likewise, filtering options may be generated based on the amount of time a user (or users) spend interacting with a document, as well as when a document was last modified.
In some embodiments, a document management system employed in collaborative environments (e.g., where people are working together on a set of files, using metadata to classify files and keep them organized) the system may generate and display filters that help users find sets of documents/files most likely to be relevant to that particular user. For example, when a user is browsing a set of content and using filters to find a particular item, the filters presented to the user can be initially constructed by examining metadata associated with the documents in the document management system and personalized filters generated based on work that user has done in the past. For example, if a user frequently adds metadata tags to files with “Midwest US” in the “Region” column because the user is a sales manager for the Midwest US region, the system may generate filter options to filter items by North America. In another example, if a user frequently works with “Jane” in the Alberta sales region, then the system may generate filter options to show documents associated with the Alberta region.
In method 200 shown in
In some cases, particularly when browsing the contents of a large repository where items are classified using metadata, filters are useful for narrowing down to a smaller set of items, but large repositories that contain items with a lot of metadata, may result in a large number of filters being generated by the system. This can make presenting the best filters to a user to allow the user to find the documents most likely to be relevant to him/her a challenge.
Accordingly, in some exemplary embodiments, different filtering options may be ordered (e.g., based on the interactions between users and documents) and presented in the filter options pane based on the determined ordering. Filter options (as well as specific filter values for a filter option) may be ordered based on the most recent interactions between users of the document management system and one or more electronic documents. The filters may be used by users of the system to narrow down a set of items in a repository to a set of items that match a particular set of criteria. Users may, when browsing a document library, use filters associated with column headings to filter documents by their value in the associated column. In
Additionally, the system may generate filter options for the user (displayed in the right-hand panes of
As noted above, the filter options may be generated based on metadata in documents within the document management system. In
Similarly, as shown in
In some embodiments, users may manually add, remove, and order (e.g., via drag and drop) filter options within the filter pane themselves. Additionally or alternatively, the system may order the filter options based on a determined priority as described above. The ordering of filter options may be performed according to any desired weighting of the filter options, and such weighting may vary across different users.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document may contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Where a phrase similar to “at least one of A, B, or C,” “at least one of A, B, and C,” “one or more A, B, or C,” or “one or more of A, B, and C” is used herein, it is intended that the phrase be interpreted to mean that A alone may be present in an embodiment, B alone may be present in an embodiment, C alone may be present in an embodiment, or that any combination of the elements A, B and C may be present in a single embodiment; for example, A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C.
Changes and modifications may be made to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope of the present disclosure. These and other changes or modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the present disclosure, as expressed in the following claims.
