Client-Side Author Identifier Management for Collaborative Documents

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing document sharing systems face challenges in managing author identifiers for large electronic documents with numerous elements and authors, leading to resource-intensive management and cumbersome visual differentiation for users.

Innovation Solution

The client device manages author identifiers by selecting and displaying visual indicators for currently or recently displayed authors, predicting which elements will be displayed based on user behavior, and assigning different visual identifiers to authors across different devices and times, reducing the load on the server and improving performance.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the server manages and provides visual identifiers for all authors of all document elements, then complete author identification is achieved, but server resource consumption increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveauthor identification completenessVSAvoidserver resource consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the visual identifier management function from the server and relocates it to the client device. The client now independently manages and assigns visual identifiers to authors based on current document views, eliminating the need for the server to maintain and provide identifiers for all authors across all document elements, thereby significantly reducing server resource consumption while maintaining complete author identification capability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The client device performs self-service by autonomously managing visual identifiers without server intervention. The client predicts which authors will be needed based on current document views and proactively assigns visual identifiers, eliminating continuous server requests and reducing server resource consumption while maintaining reliable author identification.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

2Reliability

If visual identifiers are provided for all authors in the document, then complete author differentiation is achieved, but user interface complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveauthor differentiation completenessVSAvoiduser interface complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by providing visual identifiers only for authors whose document elements are currently visible or predicted to be needed in the local view. Instead of displaying identifiers for all authors throughout the entire document, the system dynamically assigns and displays identifiers only where relevant to the current user view, reducing interface complexity while maintaining complete author differentiation capability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system uses partial action by providing visual identifiers only for a subset of authors that are currently relevant to the document view, rather than all authors. The client predicts which authors will be needed and provides identifiers for those specific authors, avoiding the excessive complexity of managing identifiers for every author in the document.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Reliability

If the server continuously provides updates for all document elements, then real-time collaboration is maintained, but network traffic and processing load increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvereal-time collaboration accuracyVSAvoidnetwork traffic and processing load

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

The client device performs preliminary action by predicting which document elements and authors will be needed based on current views and proactively managing visual identifiers for those elements. This eliminates the need for continuous server updates for all document elements, reducing network traffic and processing load while maintaining accurate real-time collaboration information for the currently relevant elements.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent extracts the real-time update requirement from the server by having the client independently predict and manage visual identifiers for currently relevant document elements. The server no longer needs to continuously provide updates for all elements, reducing network traffic and processing load while maintaining real-time collaboration accuracy for the active view.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS11055485B2Electronic document author identification

Publication Date: 2021.07.06 WORKIVA INC

AI summary

A method on a client device is described. First document content information that corresponds to a first plurality of document elements of an electronic document is received from a data server. A graphical user interface that represents the first plurality of document elements is generated based on the first document content information. First author identifiers that indicate most recent authors for the first plurality of document elements are received. The first document content information and the first author identifiers correspond to a first timestamp. Visual identifiers for the first author identifiers are selected based on the graphical user interface. The visual identifiers are generated to indicate which of the first author identifiers correspond to the first plurality of document elements represented by the graphical user interface.