Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Jade Kessler

Benjamin Gustav Wilde

Ryan Shaffer

Juliana Cherston

Douglas Lane Milvaney

Suzan Marashi

Derik Bjorn Stenerson

Patrick Michael Gan

Joan Catharine Weaver

Erin M O'Connell

Ashlyn D Zoecklein

Erin M O'CONNELL

Implementations of enhanced content collaboration technology are disclosed herein. In an implementation, a collaboration service determines which collaboration commands to surface in association with each user in a list of users collaborating on a document. The collaboration commands are selected based on each user's collaboration state. The service updates local applications with information indicative of the user state, so that the local applications may surface a user-specific, collaboration state-driven selection of commands.

State-specific commands in collaboration services

In an end user application running on a computer, for the purpose of collaborative modification of shared electronic documents, a graphical user interface is provided that facilitates storing an electronic document in shared storage. This graphical user interface includes a graphical element that conveys information about shared status of the currently accessed electronic document to the end user. Through input devices of the end user computer, an end user can manipulate this graphical element. Certain manipulations of this graphical element instruct the end user computer to store the currently accessed electronic document in shared storage if that electronic document has not yet been stored in shared storage. After the electronic document is stored in shared storage, the graphical user interface facilitates sharing of the electronic document with others. A graphical user interface that allows an electronic document to be quickly shared improves user efficiency and productivity in collaborative authoring.

Graphical user interface facilitating uploading of electronic documents to shared storage

In an end user application running on a computer, for collaborative modification of shared electronic documents, a graphical user interface is provided that facilitates identifying other users to collaborate with and for storing an electronic document in shared storage. This graphical user interface includes a graphical element that conveys information about shared status of the currently accessed electronic document to the end user. Through input devices of the end user computer, an end user can manipulate this graphical element. Certain manipulations of this graphical element instruct the end user computer to determine if the electronic document can be shared. If the document can be shared, the graphical user interface prompts the user for additional users with whom the document is to be shared and then stores the document in shared storage. A graphical user interface that allows an electronic document to be quickly shared improves user efficiency and productivity in collaborative authoring.

Inline command functionality for automatically sharing a document with user access permissions is provided. Automatic sharing of a document is performed in response to a trigger entry within the document. When a trigger entry and a user identifier entry is received, an auto-share system automatically resolves user access permissions in the background, detects sharing permissions, and shares the document with user access permissions without requiring the user who is sharing the document to manually input data. A notification is provided to the sharing user informing the user that the document is being shared, and another notification is provided to the user with whom the document is being shared including a link to the document. If the document was unintentionally shared, the sharing user is enabled to select the notification, and quickly and easily make modifications to the user access permissions for the document.

Automatically sharing a document with user access permissions

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Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Jade Kessler