Real-Time Document Open Status Indication System
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing collaboration software systems fail to scale effectively in providing real-time indications of active documents, requiring users to register for each document they are interested in, which is impractical for large numbers of documents and does not account for whether a document is currently open by another user.
Innovation Solution
A scalable system that detects document open and close operations, maintains lists of open documents on a server, and conveys this information to clients, allowing users to view which documents are currently open by other users of interest through visual, auditory, or tactile indications without requiring registration for each document.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If users register for each document they are interested in to receive status information, then users can determine which documents are currently open by others, but the system does not scale well when users access very large numbers of documents
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary that maintains document status information centrally. Instead of users directly registering for each document, the server automatically tracks which users have which documents open and provides this information on demand through a simplified interface, eliminating the need for complex per-document registration while ensuring accurate status information is delivered.
2Ease of operation
If existing systems provide indications of which documents are currently being edited, then users can coordinate their efforts, but these systems do not scale in realistic operational environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex document status tracking functionality from individual user clients and consolidates it on a centralized server. This allows the system to scale efficiently because the computational burden of tracking numerous document states is handled by the server rather than requiring each client to manage complex registration and status monitoring for potentially millions of documents.
Solution Approach 2:
The server provides a universal document status service that handles multiple functions: tracking which users have documents open, determining online status, and providing this information to any user who needs it. This multi-functional approach eliminates the need for separate specialized systems and improves scalability by consolidating functionality.
3Reliability
If source code control systems lock documents when opened, then other users cannot open them, but these systems provide no indication of whether a document is currently open by another user
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the server continuously monitors document open status and actively communicates this information to users. When a user opens or closes a document, the server detects this operation, updates its internal state, and provides status information to other users who are interested, ensuring real-time awareness of document availability without interfering with the locking mechanism.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for providing indications of documents currently opened by members of a group, in which document open and close operations are detected, and conveyed to a server system. The server system receives the document operation messages, and uses them to maintain lists of open documents associated with individual users through records in a user database that also indicate individual users' on-line status. When the server system transmits the on-line status of a user to other users that have an interest in that user (e.g. fellow members of a collaboration team, development project or the like, or user's having entered that user in their buddy list, etc.), an open documents list for that user is included in the message along with his or her on-line status information. The client systems maintain lists of currently accessing users for open documents they have received identifiers of within open documents lists contained in such on-line status messages. As a result, a user can select a user interface view, such as a file directory or other type of interface providing indications of multiple shared documents, and the disclosed system allows the user to quickly determine which documents are currently open by other users in a group.