Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Eran Megiddo

Liviu Asnash

Daniel C Battagin

Jensen Michael Harris

Susan Theresa Dumais

Richard J Wolf

Tristan Davis

Gareth Alan Howell

David N Rasmussen

Sherman Der

Amir Netz

Joshua T Goodman

Cristian Petculescu

Shahar Prish

William Henry Gates, Iii

John S Campbell

Yoram Meriaz

Charles David Ellis

Robert G Hawking

Johnny S Campbell

Srikanth Shoroff

Michael Victor Ehrenberg

Bongshin Lee

Charles Simonyi

David John Rasmussen

Ira Levin

Dan Parish

Christian E Stich

Jeff Rambharack

Dan Y Khen

Simon Peyton-Jones

Scott Walter Bishel

Dan Battagin

Daniel Yancy Parish

Patrick John Baumgartner

Brian L Welcker

Michael Tholfsen

Pedram Faghihi Rezaei

Adam Donald Wilson

Greg R Smith

Sean Boon

Howard Morrison Crow, Iii

Boaz Chen

Amy Nicole Forstrom

Yariv Ben-Tovim

Andras Nagy

Diego M Oppenheimer

Alexander Martynov

Amarinder Singh Grewal

Justin Frederick Rockwood

Robert Archer

Andrew E Datars

Matthew J Longley

Ivan Hor Siu Han

Alfred Fai Hang Wong

Alexander Elijah Pardes

Allison Tran

Alfred Fai Wong

Greg Smith

Matt J Longley

Change tracking and collaborative communication are provided in authoring content in a collaborative environment. Monitored changes, comments, and similar input by the collaborating authors may be presented on demand or automatically to each author based on changes and/or comments that affect a particular author, that author's portion of collaborated content, type of changes/comments, or similar criteria. Change and/or comments notification may be provided in a complementary user interface of the collaborative authoring application or through a separate communication application such as email or text messaging.

Tracking changes in collaborative authoring environment

Groupware features are described that support asynchronous collaboration for a synchronous collaboration environment. During a synchronous collaboration session, a document is displayed at a user's computing device. As changes to the document are received at the user's computing device, a change list is updated and the modified document is displayed. Any changes from the user are broadcast to other participants. For asynchronous collaboration during the session, a user-specific fork is created in the change list to contain private changes for the user. For each private change from the user, the groupware updates the change list in the user-specific fork with the private change, which is not broadcast to the other participants for reconciliation.

Providing a private mode in asynchronous collaboration for a synchronous collaboration environment

Distributing content to multiple electronic documents or sections thereof, with various controlling users, documents states, and host devices quickly and accurately is provided herein. Content from a sender document is identified, reduced to its necessary parts, fixed in position, and validated so that it may be pushed to identified sections within the sender document or to sections in receiver documents on other host devices. Content is pushed from the sender document to sections identified as available, and each receiver section or document may have different sections and subsections available. The systems and methods provided herein operate without requiring the content to be encapsulated in new documents, and thus reduces the memory and bandwidth needed to share content remotely, and improves the user experience for sharing content.

Specific content distribution across documents

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is extended to syndicate structured data as well as general content via Really Simple Syndication for data (RSSd). RSSd provides a mechanism by which tables of data can easily be made available to users and across applications. RSSd provides the ability to syndicate data directly into applications, such as spread sheet applications. RSSd is backwards compatible with RSS. Standardized metadata is utilized in each element of RSSd to enable typing of data.

Really simple syndication for data

Disclosed are systems and methods that enable a workbook author to break a workbook out into a set of logically separate pieces, referred to herein as 'workbook parts.' Calculation dependencies between the workbook parts may be maintained, so that all the calculations are correct across the entire spreadsheet. An organization may be enabled to manage each workbook part separately, thus certain users may be denied access to view or edit certain workbook parts. Accordingly, where multiple authors are contributing to a tightly controlled workbook, the person responsible for spreadsheet management is enabled to allow each of those authors access to edit only the portion that they need to be concerned with.

Spreadsheet workbook part libraries

Techniques to automatically syndicate content over a network are described. An apparatus may comprise a client computer having a processing system with a processor and computer-readable medium. The computer readable medium may store program instructions for a syndication manager component communicatively coupled to a content producing component arranged to be executed by the processor. The syndication manager component may be operative to receive syndication content from the content producing component, and provide a syndication dialog through the content producing component to syndicate the syndication content using a content delivery platform. The syndication manager component may also syndicate the syndication content to form a syndication resource accessible from the content delivery platform over a network using a syndication referent. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques to automatically syndicate content over a network

Real-time co-authoring and support for the collaborative process is enabled by making it easy to initiate a collaborative document, to invite the proper people into the process, to collect existing artifacts, thoughts, and research, and then to divide and track the work to completion across a collaborating group. Monitored changes, comments, and similar input by the collaborating authors may be presented on demand or automatically to each author based on changes and/or comments that affect a particular author, that author's portion of collaborated content, type of changes/comments, or similar criteria Real-time or sequential communication such as email, text messaging, and video chat, may be enabled to further optimize the collaboration process.

Collaborative authoring with scratchpad functionality

The description relates to an interactive digital display. One example includes a display device configured to receive user input and recognize commands relative to data visualizations. The system also includes a graphical user interface configured to be presented on the display device that allows users to interact with the data visualizations via the user commands.

Interactive digital displays

A workflow includes an activity that takes advantage of spreadsheet calculations. For a spreadsheet activity, calculation and extraction of values from a spreadsheet is performed. Thus, spreadsheet calculations are integrated into workflows without user intervention. After the workflow is complete, or after a spreadsheet activity is calculated, or upon a threshold or condition being met, a user or system may be notified (e.g., by email, instant message, etc.). Values from previous activities in the workflow may be obtained and provided to the spreadsheet (e.g., cell values are set, modified, or adjusted). The spreadsheet may then be recalculated using these obtained values. Moreover, values from the spreadsheet may be used in subsequent parts of the workflow. Also, any number of spreadsheet activities may be incorporated into a workflow, and one spreadsheet activity may provide values to a second spreadsheet activity in the workflow.

Spreadsheet cell-based notifications

A method, system, and apparatus are provided for exposing and calling workbook models via remote function calls. According to the system, a client computer executes a spreadsheet program for creating a workbook model. The workbook model may be published to a server computer along with data defining a function name and the cells that should be used as inputs and outputs to the model. The system also includes a server computer that receives and responds to remote function calls directed toward workbook functions. When a function call is received at the server computer for a workbook function, the server computer populates the cells in the workbook identified as inputs with input parameters received with the function call and recalculates the workbook. The data contained in the output cells is then returned as a reply to the remote function call.

Method, system, and apparatus for providing access to workbook models through remote function calls

Multiple pieces of information can be arranged into a single construct that allows the employee to ascertain information quickly while at her workstation. Selection of information for placement into the construct can employ various statistical models and the like. Selective pieces of information can be masked for a user's construct based upon access rights of the user. Constructs can be configured by a user based on personal preferences as well as by an administrator. Population of metadata upon the construct can be performed automatically through an instruction of the administrator or be overridden by a user request. In addition, various types of synchronization can be implemented between constructs, such that identical or near-identical information is populated upon multiple constructs.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Eran Megiddo