IP Library Granted Patent US 9,928,241
Granted Patent B2
US 9,928,241 · App. 15/127,324 · Granted Mar 27, 2018

Systems and methods for analyzing electronic communications to dynamically improve efficiency and visualization of collaborative work environments

Inventors: Brent Frei (Bellevue, WA); Tony Jacobson (Kirkland, WA); Rajiv Arunkundram (Sammamish, WA); Erik Rucker (Seattle, WA); Thomas P. Maliska, Jr. (Olympia, WA)
Assignee: Smartsheet Inc.
G06F17/3002G06F3/0482G06F3/0483G06F17/218G06F17/22G06F17/3089G06Q90/00H04N21/84
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 9,928,241
App. No.
15/127,324
Granted
Mar 27, 2018
Kind
B2
Abstract

Systems and methods for managing a collaborative environment are provided. A plurality of sheets is stored in a collaboration system. The collaboration system tracks user interactions with the plurality of sheets and generates a collaboration graph based on the interactions. The collaboration graph is analyzed to determine similarities between the sheets and/or the users. One or more visualizations are generated based on the collaboration graph and the determined similarities. In some embodiments, the collaboration system is able to provide project management information even for dynamic workflows that are not explicitly defined.

Claims (53)

1. A system for managing online documents, the system comprising:

a sheet data store configured to store a plurality of sheets, wherein each sheet includes a set of rows, and wherein each row includes a set of columns;

an interaction monitoring engine configured to monitor interactions by users with the plurality of sheets;

an interaction data store configured to store records of the interactions monitored by the interaction monitoring engine;

a sheet metadata data store configured to store sheet metadata representing relationships between sheets of the plurality of sheets;

a collaboration graph generation engine configured to generate a collaboration graph that represents relationships between the sheets and the users based on the interaction records and the sheet metadata;

a collaboration graph analysis engine configured to analyze vertices the collaboration graph for similarities;

a visualization generation engine configured to generate one or more visualizations of collaboration graphs generated by the collaboration graph generation engine; and

a collaboration graph data store configured to store a plurality of collaboration graph versions generated over time;

wherein the visualizations include an animation that shows changes in the collaboration graph versions over time.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a user data store configured to store a plurality of user records identifying the users of the system.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the visualizations include a two-tier visualization that includes:

a first level that comprises a plurality of sheet icons; and

a second level that comprises a plurality of user icons.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the sheet icons are spatially arranged in the first level according to calculated similarity values.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the user icons are spatially arranged in the second level according to calculated similarity values.

6. The system of claim 3 , wherein the two-tier visualization further includes one or more connections between the sheet icons in the first level and the user icons in the second level to indicate interactions by the users related to the sheets.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein the visualization generation engine is configured to:

determine, based on the collaboration graph, that a user is over-utilized; and

insert an icon into a visualization that indicates the over-utilized user.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein determining that a user is over-utilized includes:

counting a length of time of all tasks assigned to the user; and

determining that the length of time is greater than a threshold amount.

9. The system of claim 1 , further comprising:

a front-end interface engine configured to provide a set of user interfaces to the sheets; wherein the set of user interfaces includes one or more of:

a sheet management interface; and

an email sharing interface.

10. The system of claim 9 , further comprising a plurality of computing devices configured to access the set of user interfaces provided by the front-end interface engine, wherein the plurality of computing devices include one or more of a desktop computing device, a smartphone computing device, a tablet computing device, and a laptop computing device.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the interactions include one or more of a view, an edit, and a share.

12. A method of automatically provisioning new sheets in a collaboration system to match existing sheets, the method comprising:

collecting, by a computing device, interaction information representing interactions between a plurality of users and a plurality of sheets stored in a sheet data store;

generating, by a computing device, a collaboration graph that represents relationships between the sheets and the users;

calculating, by a computing device, similarities between the sheets based in part on the relationships between the sheets and the users;

determining, by a computing device, one or more discrepancies within sheets determined to be similar; and

updating, by a computing device, the sheets determined to be similar to eliminate the discrepancies.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein calculating similarities between the sheets includes analyzing sheet metadata information that indicates relationships between the sheets along with the interaction information using a clustering algorithm.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the collaboration graph includes:

a plurality of user vertices that represent users;

a plurality of sheet vertices that represent sheets; and

a plurality of edges; wherein each edge connects a user vertex to a sheet vertex, and wherein each edge represents an interaction.

15. A method of generating a visualization of collaboratively edited data, the method comprising:

collecting, by a computing device, interaction information representing interactions between a plurality of users and a plurality of sheets;

generating, by a computing device, a collaboration graph that represents relationships between the sheets and the users;

updating, by a computing device, the collaboration graph with information regarding similarities between vertices; and

generating, by a computing device, a visualization based on the updated collaboration graph that illustrates relationships between sheets and relationships between users.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein generating the visualization includes:

presenting a set of sheet icons representing the plurality of sheets, wherein the set of sheet icons are arranged according to similarity groups.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein generating the visualization further includes presenting at least one connection from a user icon to one or more sheet icons to represent interactions between the user and the sheets.

18. The method of claim 15 , wherein the visualization is a first visualization, and wherein the method further comprises:

collecting further interaction information representing interactions between the plurality of users and the plurality of sheets since the generation of the collaboration graph;

generating an updated collaboration graph that represents relationships between the sheets and the users as updated by the further interaction information;

generating a second visualization based on the updated collaboration graph; and

generating an animation that illustrates the first visualization turning into the second visualization.

Assignments (3)
PATENT SECURITY AGREEMENT Recorded Jan 23, 2025
From: SMARTSHEET INC.; BRANDFOLDER, INC.
To: BLUE OWL CAPITAL CORPORATION, AS COLLATERAL AGENT
Reel/Frame 070478/0794 →
CHANGE OF NAME Recorded Feb 12, 2018
From: SMARTSHEET.COM, INC.
To: SMARTSHEET INC.
Reel/Frame 045309/0844 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Sep 20, 2016
From: FREI, BRENT; JACOBSON, TONY; ARUNKUNDRAM, RAJIV; RUCKER, ERIK; MALISKA, JR., THOMAS P.
To: SMARTSHEET.COM, INC.
Reel/Frame 039799/0799 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 61955119 · Mar 18, 2014
Related Publication 20170185592A1 · Jun 29, 2017