Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Joan Catharine Weaver

Benjamin Gustav Wilde

Douglas Lane Milvaney

Patrick Michael Gan

Erin M O'Connell

Aleksandr Polyakov

Lyndsy Marie Stopa

Graham Baker

Arthur David Berman

Christopher Ryan Botaish

Sudarshan Sundar

Nikhil Nathwani

Samantha N Powers

Suzan Marashi

Derik Bjorn Stenerson

Jade Kessler

Erin M O'CONNELL

Described herein is a system and method for creating a milestone associated with a version of an electronic file. A milestone creation input associated with the particular version of the electronic file is received. Milestone content to be associated with the particular version of the electronic file is further received. The milestone content is stored, and, the stored milestone content and the particular version of the electronic file are associated. Further described herein is a system and method for using a milestone associated with a version of an electronic file. Milestone indicator(s) are displayed, each milestone indicator associated with a milestone of a version of an electronic file. A selection of a particular milestone indicator is received. Milestone content associated with the selected particular milestone indicator is presented. The milestones can be searchable.

Milestones in file history timeline of an electronic document

Technology is disclosed herein for visualizing changes in documents. In an implementation, one or more computers, employing a change visualization process, maintain a record of changes made to a document over a period of time. The one or more computers identify a document scope within which to focus a visualization of one or more changes made to the document, wherein the document scope comprises a timeframe of interest. The one or more computers also identify, from the record of the changes, one or more changes made to the document within the document scope and surface a visualization of the one or more changes.

Visualizing changes based on document scope

A document modification event management system for notification of specific edits made to electronic content items, and a method of determining the relevance of the modification. As an example, a first user may make an edit to a portion of a document. A second user may receive a notification of this edit if the system determines the edit was relevant to the second user. In addition, during review of an electronic content item, a reader may select a specific portion of content and view the modifications that have occurred to only the selected portion. These tools can provide collaborative document users the ability to more readily monitor document development and stay up-to-date with changes that are important to them.

System and method for managing notifications of document modifications

To manage complexity related to messages and comments about collaboratively edited electronic documents, an electronic document has associated activity data and comment data, where a type of activity data includes messages among users. Message data is stored in a stream of activity data in a format that is accessible both to communication applications outside of the electronic document, and to end user applications for editing the electronic document. The message data can include a document identifier, a user identifier for a sender and/or a receiver, and content of the message. A communication application, given a user identifier, can access document messages for that user, from a single electronic document or over multiple electronic documents. Further, the communication application can be notified when new document messages related to a user identifier are added to one or more electronic documents. Additionally, the end user application, given a document identifier, can access document messages associated with that document identifier for inclusion in the activity data for the document.

Managing messages between users for collaborative editing of electronic documents

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

An end user application running on a local client computer stores activity data and comment data for an electronic document. Activity data includes data indicative of actions taken by users and associated with the electronic document, such as actions with respect to the electronic document itself, and actions with respect to comments, such as adding a comment and marking a comment as resolved. A displayed comment or comment thread can be marked as resolved in response to a user action. A corresponding action is stored in the activity data. Activity data can be displayed while the electronic document is open in the end user application. An action of resolving a comment can be accessed in the displayed activity data. In response to receiving an input associated with a displayed action of resolving a comment, the comment can be marked as unresolved.

Managing comments for collaborative editing of electronic documents

An end user application running on a local client computer is configured to store a collection of comment data for the electronic document. The comment data includes data representing a plurality of comment threads. Displays of comment data also include hints providing information about the content and context of previous and next comments outside of the currently viewed context of the document. When hints are used in combination with filtering of the comment data, a user can more quickly review comments based on a variety of filtering criteria. A comment map also can be provided as a spatial representation of the distribution of comments within a document. Such a comment map can be provided as a navigational aid for viewing the electronic document and reviewing comments. The comment map provides an additional way for a reviewer to quickly identify areas of a document which may require more review.

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Somerville, MA, United States of America

Joan Catharine Weaver