Patent Application
20110040834
This disclosure relates generally to the field of video conferencing. More particularly, but not by way of limitation, this disclosure relates to a method of providing an interface between a meeting scheduling system and equipment utilized to facilitate the meeting whereby content shared during or after the meeting may be automatically archived and then shared via the meeting scheduling system interface.
In today's corporate environment, it is typical to schedule meetings via meeting scheduling software. The meeting scheduling software sends a message to “meeting invitees” and usually allows for automatic creation of a calendar entry in the invited participants personal calendar. Examples of meeting scheduling software include MobileMe available from Apple Inc., Cupertino, Calif. (MobileMe is a registered trademark of Apple Inc.); Google Calendaring available from Google, Inc., Mountain View, Calif.; Mozilla Sunbird available from Mozilla Corporation, Mountain View, Calif,; and Microsoft Outlook/Exchange available from Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash.
Presently, to access content from a meeting (e.g., notes, presentations, audio, transcripts, documents, and video recordings) after a meeting the content needs to be saved and manually placed in a location for sharing amongst participants. This requires a person to email the documents to the meeting invitees or post the documents in a shared location. After the documents are placed in a shared location, security constraints pertaining to the shared location should be considered. Special consideration must be taken into account if access to the meeting content is restricted to meeting participants. This shared location may be a Wiki site, a Sharepoint site, or simply a shared network directory.
When a meeting invitee who was unable to attend the meeting desires access to these documents, that person needs to search the possible locations or retrieve an email sent after the meeting. Furthermore, if no one posts the content or if no one sends out information about where the content is posted it may be difficult, if not impossible, to find the stored meeting content.
What is needed is a method and system to provide an interface to meeting scheduling software such that meeting content may be easily retrieved either before (pre-meeting information) or after (post meeting information including an optional recording of the meeting) the meeting has occurred. It would also be desirable for this information to be automatically made available via the regular interface to the scheduling software (e.g., via a plug-in or extension to the regular interface software).
In one embodiment, a conferencing device is configured with a programmable control device. The programmable control device is programmed to receive indications of calendar events and data associated with the calendar event. Upon receipt of the location of data the programmable control device automatically adds information to the calendar entry such that meeting invitees may be able to access the information directly from their interface to the meeting scheduling software. The data associated with the calendar event may include actual recordings of audio, video and or data that was shared with meeting participants able to attend the meeting. Those meeting invitees that were unable to attend the original meeting may also gain easy access to the information presented or recorded during the actual conference.
In another embodiment, a method of maintaining meeting content is disclosed. A meeting scheduler (i.e., organizer) creates a meeting entry in meeting scheduling software. The organizer invites meeting participants and those able to attend conduct a meeting or a conference. Any content recorded during the meeting is associated to the original meeting invite automatically such that meeting participants and unavailable invites may have access to the meeting content via the original calendar entry created in the meeting scheduling software.
Methods, devices and systems to maintain content information in an associated calendar meeting entry are described. A calendar meeting entry can be graphically represented as a meeting notice in a display interface of calendaring and scheduling software. Calendaring and scheduling software typically provides services such as appointment scheduling, room scheduling, meeting scheduling, facility scheduling and employee scheduling. Meetings may be scheduled and may possibly be recurring or they may be created ad hoc with the video and/or audio portion of the call being automatically posted to a calendar entry at the end of the meeting. Disclosed is a method and systems to provide an interface to meeting scheduling software such that meeting content may be easily retrieved either before (pre-meeting information) or after (post meeting information including an optional recording of the meeting) the meeting has occurred. In one disclosed embodiment, this information is made available from the regular interface to the scheduling software (e.g., via a plug-in or extension to the regular interface software). Although the methods and systems disclosed herein may at times refer to the Microsoft Outlook client and the Microsoft Exchange server, one of ordinary skill in the art, given the benefit of this disclosure, will recognize the inventive concepts disclosed herein are applicable to different calendaring and scheduling software implementations.
As shown in
Next,
Exchange server 150 is an example server to support one implementation of meeting scheduling software. Exchange server 150 is communicatively coupled to network 120. Exchange server 150 can be configured to support a meeting scheduling client application (e.g., Microsoft Outlook (not shown)) providing a calendar type interface to end users. End users of a network in a corporate environment are typically a superset of the users invited to a meeting (i.e., meeting invitees) and potentially become conference participants. As used herein, “meeting invitees,” includes all of the people receiving an invitation to the meeting. In some cases, these people will be selected by the meeting organizer while in other cases original invitees may forward the meeting invite to additional people.
Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) 160 is also communicatively coupled to network 120. Multipoint audio and/or multimedia calls are typically scheduled in advance through companies that own MCUs or audio bridges. An MCU 160 provides the capability for three or more terminals to participate in a multipoint audio and/or multimedia conference. An audio bridge provides the capability for three or more terminals to participate in a multipoint audio conference. In this disclosure the term MCU may also refer to an audio bridge used for multipoint audio conferences; therefore, in the description words such as MCU and audio bridge may have the same meaning. A terminal is an end-point on a network, capable or real-time, two-way audio, data and/or visual communication with other terminals or an MCU 160. The information communicated between the terminals and/or the MCU 160 includes control signals, indicators, audio moving color video pictures and/or data. A terminal may provide speech only, speech and data, speech and video, or speech, data and video. One or more MCUs 160 may be configured to support a conference. One example of an MCU 160 is the MGC+100 provided by Polycom Inc., Pleasanton, Calif.
One or more conference rooms 170 may also be utilized during a conference. These conference rooms 170 may be physical conference rooms where meeting participants are physically present and in the proximity of cameras, microphones or other conference supporting equipment. Additionally, conference rooms 170 may be virtual conference rooms where participants are not physically located but are logically grouped such that they appear to other participants as if they were in the same conference room. In each implementation of conference room 170 there are devices communicatively coupled to network 120.
Network file server or webserver 180 represents a server configured to store and share meeting content. In one embodiment, meeting content may be stored on the Exchange server 150. In another preferred embodiment, Exchange server 150 is not utilized to store actual content from the meeting but instead stores a link (e.g., Universal Resource Locator, URL) pointing to a storage server (e.g., network fileserver or web server 180). In this preferred embodiment the Exchange server is off loaded of the responsibility for storing possibly voluminous meeting content and allowed to support its primary function of Exchange/Outlook support.
Referring now to
Next, at block 220 meeting invitees may optionally attach pre-meeting content to the calendar entry and thus provide easy access to this content either before or during the meeting. Pre-meeting content may include slide presentations, other office documents, meeting agenda and meeting preparation materials. At the scheduled time of the meeting, block 230, the meeting takes place with the available participants. At block 240, it is determined if the meeting content (e.g., audio and/or video) was recorded. If so, the YES prong of block 240, flow continues to block 250 where the calendar entry is automatically updated with a copy of the recorded information or a link to the recorded information. Those of skill in the art will recognize that links may include but are not limited to, hyperlinks, icons or thumbnail representations indicating content corresponding to the meeting. If the meeting content is not recorded, the NO prong of block 240, flow continues directly to block 260. At block 260 the meeting has concluded and if necessary meeting invitees are notified that meeting materials are available. Flow then continues to block 270 where meeting participants may review the meeting information or unavailable meeting invitees (i.e., invitees that were not able to attend the actual meeting) can review meeting materials and replay any recorded content from the conference. One of ordinary skill in the art will also recognize, given the benefit of this disclosure, that a review of meeting materials may take place from several different types of devices, including but not limited to, individual computer workstations or other exemplary video conferencing devices equipped with an interface to the calendar scheduling software or an interface to email software.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Program control device 510 may be included in a conferencing device and be programmed to perform methods in accordance with this disclosure (e.g., those illustrated in
Aspects of the invention are described as a method of control or manipulation of data, and may be implemented in one or a combination of hardware, firmware, and software. Embodiments of the invention may also be implemented as instructions stored on a machine-readable medium, which may be read and executed by at least one processor to perform the operations described herein. A machine-readable medium may include any mechanism for tangibly embodying information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a machine-readable medium (sometimes referred to as a program storage device or a computer readable medium) may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disc storage media, optical storage media, flash-memory devices, electrical, optical, and others.
In the above detailed description, various features are occasionally grouped together in a single embodiment for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is not to be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimed embodiments of the subject matter require more features than are expressly recited in each claim.
Various changes in the details of the illustrated operational methods are possible without departing from the scope of the following claims. For instance, illustrative flow chart steps of
It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. For example, the above-described embodiments may be used in combination with each other. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and “wherein.”
