Central Time Service for Collaboration Workflow Timestamps
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing collaboration workflows that rely on local machine time for enforcing time-sensitive business rules are prone to errors due to potential modifications of machine time by users, leading to incorrect timestamping of events and disruption of the collaboration process, especially in multi-user environments across different time zones.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a central time service to provide a common time reference for collaboration workflows, ensuring that collaboration events are time-stamped with accurate and synchronized time, even when participants are in different time zones, by utilizing Internet, LAN, or WAN central time services, and updating local machine time with central time service time when connectivity is restored.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If local machine time is used for timestamping collaboration events, then the system is simple to implement and easy to operate, but the reliability of time enforcement deteriorates due to potential user modification of machine time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a central time service as an intermediary between clients and the time enforcement mechanism. This mediator provides a trusted time reference that neither the client nor the server can manipulate, resolving the contradiction by sacrificing local machine time reliability for a centralized solution that ensures accurate timestamping while maintaining system simplicity through a single time authority.
2Reliability
If central time service is implemented, then the reliability of time enforcement is improved, but the device complexity increases due to additional time synchronization mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service time synchronization where clients automatically query the central time service and update their local clocks without manual intervention. This reduces operational complexity while maintaining the reliability benefits of centralized time enforcement, as the system handles time synchronization autonomously through standard network protocols.
3Measurement precision
If machine time is modified by users, then ease of operation is improved for local tasks, but the accuracy of collaboration workflow timestamps deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments time management into two independent domains: local machine time for user convenience and operational flexibility, and central time service for accurate timestamping of collaboration events. This segmentation allows users to modify local time for their own tasks while the central service maintains accurate, manipulation-proof timestamps for workflow enforcement, resolving the contradiction between operational ease and measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
A method to enforce collaboration rules, in one example embodiment, comprises receiving a request to report a collaboration event to a collaboration workflow, receiving a reported time of the collaboration event, determining an origin of the reported time, updating the reported time with a central time service time when the origin of the reported time is not a central time service, and based on the updated reported time, selectively reporting the collaboration event into the collaboration workflow.