The present invention relates to the field of collaboration sessions, and in particular to a technique of providing information about invited participants in a scheduled collaboration session.
A collaboration session is defined as an audio, video, content (or a combination of such) session between multiple parties. If such a session is scheduled beforehand, then it is considered a scheduled session.
Scheduling a session typically involves the host of the session using a scheduling tool (e.g., Outlook® Calendar) to specify a time, date, subject, agenda, and a list of participants (required or optional) that are invited to the scheduled session. (OUTLOOK is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.) When the session starts, there is no simple way for the host (or other participants) to find out who was invited, who has not joined, and why a missing invitee has not joined.
Conventional collaboration tools provide a roster which contains information about participants that have joined the session along with their info such as name, profile image, email, etc. A host who wants to find out information about missing participants has to compare the roster with the scheduling system (e.g., Outlook Calendar) and the presence status of the participants in the Presence tool (e.g., Microsoft Skype® for Business (SKYPE is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation)). Many times the host will have to contact (or attempt to contact) the missing participant via instant messaging (IM) or phone to find out if the missing participant is going to join the session or why the person has not yet joined the session. Providing a easier way to obtain that information would be desirable.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate an implementation of apparatus and methods consistent with the present invention and, together with the detailed description, serve to explain advantages and principles consistent with the invention. In the drawings,
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, structure and devices are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the invention. References to numbers without subscripts or suffixes are understood to reference all instance of subscripts and suffixes corresponding to the referenced number. Moreover, the language used in this disclosure has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter, resort to the claims being necessary to determine such inventive subject matter. Reference in the specification to “one embodiment” or to “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiments is included in at least one embodiment of the invention, and multiple references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” should not be understood as necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.
The terms “a,” “an,” and “the” are not intended to refer to a singular entity unless explicitly so defined, but include the general class of which a specific example may be used for illustration. The use of the terms “a” or “an” may therefore mean any number that is at least one, including “one,” “one or more,” “at least one,” and “one or more than one.”
The term “or” means any of the alternatives and any combination of the alternatives, including all of the alternatives, unless the alternatives are explicitly indicated as mutually exclusive.
The phrase “at least one of” when combined with a list of items, means a single item from the list or any combination of items in the list. The phrase does not require all of the listed items unless explicitly so defined.
As used herein, the term “a computer system” can refer to a single computer or a plurality of computers working together to perform the function described as being performed on or by a computer system.
As used herein, the term “processing element” can refer to a single hardware processing element or a plurality of hardware processing elements that together may be programmed to perform the indicated actions. The hardware processing elements may be implemented as virtual hardware processing elements of a virtual programmable device hosted on a physical hardware device. Instructions that when executed program the processing element to perform an action may program any or all of the processing elements to perform the indicated action. Where the processing element is one or more multi-core processors, instructions that when executed program the processing element to perform an action may program any or all of the multiple cores to perform the indicated action.
As used herein, the term “medium” can refer to a single physical medium or a plurality of media that together store the information described as being stored on the medium.
As used herein, the term “memory” can refer to a single memory device or a plurality of memory devices that together store the information described as being stored on the medium. The memory may be any type of storage device, including random access memory, read-only memory, optical and electromechanical disk drives, etc.
As illustrated in
A collaboration system may involve one or more servers as well as one or more endpoints for the participants in a collaboration session. The collaboration tool 110 may be implemented in the server and the endpoints. For example, in some scenarios, the server may not have access to all of the scheduling system 120 or presence and location system 130, but the endpoint, such as a mobile phone may. In such a scenario, the endpoint may collect the data for use with the enhanced roster and provide the data to the server. In other scenarios, the server may have access to the scheduling system 120 and presence and location system 130 and may not need data from the endpoints. In still other scenarios, different endpoints may have different capabilities and the server may collect different data from different endpoints, while the server obtains different data for some endpoints that the server does for others. In some embodiments, the collaboration tool 110 may allow recording the roster and changes to the roster, independently of whether the collaboration session itself is recorded.
An example of using the scheduling system 120 is to show the list of all the invited participants in the roster and designate them separately by showing who has not yet joined the session.
In the example of
Because participants may come and go during a collaboration session, an entry in the roster may change status between that of a present participant or attendee and a former participant or attendee, as often as that participant joins or leaves the session.
Entries 340 of
In some embodiments, grouping may be employed to display expandable and collapsible groups of participants or invitees, so that all of the not present participants may be collapsed into a single group entry for “not present” that may use similar visual cues as the individual “not present” entries to indicate the status of the entire group, without taking space in the roster for each such person. A person authorized to expand a collapsed group may click or otherwise select the group entry and cause it to expand into entries for the members of the group. Similarly the person could select a group entry that is expanded and cause it to collapse into just the group entry to save space in the roster display. Embodiments may use an expanded or collapsed state for the group of entries as a default display, which may be configurable.
Any desired ordering of invitees may be provided, and the user of the roster may be provided controls to rearrange or regroup the roster entries as desired, or to filter the roster. For example, the roster may be sorted, either by default or by a user-activated control, with the current participants at the top of the roster, former participants in the middle, and not yet joined invitees at the bottom. Any arrangement may be allowed or provided. Filtering may be provided to allow the user of the roster to see only certain subsets of the roster, such as only those people who have not yet joined the session, or only people having certain user-configured characteristics.
The information in the roster of
Machine learning techniques may be used to learn information about participants. For example, over time, the system may learn that a participant at point A usually takes X minutes to arrive at point B, and can update the roster information to make use of the learned information.
Although as illustrated in
Embodiments may control what information in the roster participants may see, based on roles or other criteria. For example, an embodiment may allow only the host to see status information about the participants, while non-host participants only see the list of names on the roster. In another example, registered participants may see the status information, while guest participants may not. Any desired set of controls may be imposed on the roster information.
In addition, some embodiments may allow an invitee to control what information is provided to the roster for privacy or other security concerns. The collaboration tool may allow a user to define preferences to control access to the data, such as giving (or denying) access to the user's scheduling information in the scheduling system 120 or presence or location information for the user in the presence and location system. The preferences may be time of day based or use other types of rules to control access. For example, a user may not wish to have location information provided to the roster when the user is in particular places or types of places. In some embodiments, individualized controls may be provided that allow an invitee to control individually who can see what about that person. Similarly, embodiments may allow a host to control individually what each invitee is able to see in the roster.
These various indicators (and others) may be generated based on information received from the scheduling system 120, the presence and location system 130, or both. In some embodiments, where location information is available, an indication that the invitee is en-route may be provided, including information on an expected arrival time. Or the indication may show the current location of the invitee. Any useful or desired information about the invitee that is obtainable from the scheduling and presence and location systems 120, 130 may be employed in the roster entry for assistance to the person viewing the roster 310.
Although a single collaboration tool 110 is illustrated in
Each of the collaboration tool 110, scheduling system 120, and presence and location systems 130 may be implemented as hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. One or more computer readable media may be used to store instructions that when executed by one or more of the processors 510 cause at least some of those processors to perform the techniques described above. The computer readable media may be one or more physical media that together hold the instructions, and may include magnetic media, such as hard discs, optical media, such as CDROMs, or any other type of media that may be used by the programmable device for delivery and storage of the software or firmware. In addition, the instructions may be stored in memory such as ROM 516 or RAM 514.
Having all the information in the roster makes managing a meeting very easy. A host of the meeting can easily see who has not joined yet and why. The additional information about why someone has not joined is also useful for a host to decide if the host should wait for that user or move ahead without the missing person. By putting the additional information into the roster, non-productive time spent at the start of a meeting can be reduced. In addition, by recording the roster information and its changes over time, analytics may be performed on the collaboration session later, even if the collaboration session itself was not recorded.
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 therefore should be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201631018911 | Jun 2016 | IN | national |