Automatic Change Summary in Collaborative Documents
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Users face difficulties in tracking and summarizing changes made to documents during collaborative editing, as existing systems lack an efficient method to consolidate and communicate changes effectively among reviewers.
Innovation Solution
A summary manager automatically generates and inserts a summary of changes into electronic messages, including live information such as editors, edit history, and document state, ensuring that all recipients are updated on document modifications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If users manually track and summarize changes to documents during collaborative editing, then they can maintain awareness of document modifications, but it becomes difficult to keep up with all changes made by multiple co-authors and editors
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically generates change summaries without requiring manual intervention from users. The email client monitors document modifications and autonomously creates summary emails, eliminating the need for users to manually track and summarize changes while keeping them informed of all document modifications
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides automated feedback to users about document changes by generating and sending summary emails whenever a document is modified. This feedback loop ensures users stay informed of changes made by co-authors and editors without needing to actively monitor the document themselves
2Loss of information
If detailed change information is provided to all reviewers, then complete transparency is achieved, but the complexity of managing and reviewing multiple revisions increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only the essential change information from the full document and presents it in a condensed summary format. By taking out only the relevant modification details and presenting them in an organized manner, the system maintains information completeness while reducing the complexity of reviewing multiple revisions
Solution Approach 2:
The change summary is segmented into distinct sections that organize different types of modifications. This segmentation allows reviewers to systematically process changes by category, reducing the perceived complexity while maintaining complete information about all modifications made to the document
3Reliability
If users review all document changes manually, then thorough review is ensured, but productivity decreases due to the time required to track multiple revisions
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs the preliminary work of identifying and organizing all changes automatically, allowing users to review pre-processed information. This self-service approach ensures thorough review of all changes while significantly improving productivity by eliminating the manual effort required to track and compile revisions
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary analysis and organization of changes before presenting them to users. By pre-processing the change information and structuring it in an easily reviewable format, the system ensures thorough review capability while reducing the time users need to spend on the actual review process
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Changes made to a document are automatically summarized within an electronic message. The changes may be made to a document that is being collaborated on. For example, the document may be an attachment to an electronic message, a link to a shared document that is contained within the electronic message and/or a document that is being shared between a different users. The document may be any type of file to which changes/comments are made, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, slides, and the like. A reviewer may make many different types of changes to the document (e.g. deleting/adding content, adding comments, and the like). After making any changes to the document, a summary of the changes is automatically inserted into an electronic message that is then sent to one or more recipients. Live information relating to the document may also be displayed with one or more electronic messages.