Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Karvell Li

Robert D Donner

Sanjay Garg

Amit Wadhwa

Gregory Akselrod

Tianyu Xie

Danny R Amirault

Chad R Shurtz

Gordon Hardy

David John Law

Rahul Sudhir Kumar

Scott Kurtzeborn

Gilbert Martin McQuillan

Jamie Marconi

Miriam Borkenhagen

Scott Kurtzebom

Vincent Bellet

Munir Mahmood

Donald Gordon Hardy

Gupta Garuda

Paul Y Sim

Abu Miah

Marc Christophe Pottier

Robert Donner

Systems and methods for providing status indicators for various forms of user activity that occurs across different digital contexts of a collaboration platform. A system can monitor activity that a particular user is performing within a particular digital context and provide status indicators to a different user within a different digital context when the monitored activity meets one or more criteria. For example, a system may cause a status indicator to be displayed in association with a data object within the digital context of a message thread when a specific type of user activity is occurring with respect to that data object within the digital context of an application that facilitates editing of the content of the data object. Thus, a system can deliver timely and contextually relevant status indicators about how team members are currently interacting with a data object without users having to switch between digital contexts.

Status indicators for communicating user activity across digital contexts

Technology is disclosed herein for licensing applications using a preferred authorization process dynamically identified based on conditions associated with an initiation of an application. Authorization is then attempted using the preferred authorization process. In some examples, the preferred authorization process is selected from at least a keyless authorization process and a key-based authorization process.

Dynamic selection of authorization processes

A method, system, and computer-readable storage media for licensing an application for a device are provided herein. The method includes providing a license for an application from a licensing service to a number of computing devices associated with a user, wherein the license includes credentials. The method also includes associating the credentials with each computing device and periodically determining a state of a subscription corresponding to the license on each computing device. Each computing device is configured to call the licensing service at configurable time periods in order to determine the state of the subscription.

Application licensing for devices

A method, system, and computer-readable storage media for providing licensing for services are provided herein. The method includes determining, via a service partner, whether a user exists in a user provisioning cache and whether the user is provisioned to use a service provided by the service partner. The method also includes querying a licensing service to determine updates to the user provisioning cache if the user does not exist in the user provisioning cache or is not provisioned to use the service, or both. Further, the method includes determining whether the user is provisioned to use the service based on the updates to the user provisioning cache and, if the user is provisioned to use the service, allowing the user access to the service.

Licensing for services

A method, system, and computer-readable storage media for licensing an application using sync providers are provided herein. The method includes receiving a request for a license for an application from a client sync provider at a licensing service and receiving information relating to the license from a commerce partner offering the application via a commerce partner sync provider. The method also includes returning the license for the application to a client computing device, receiving information relating to a state of the license from the client sync provider, and adjusting conditions of the license according to the state of the license.

Application licensing using sync providers

A method, system, and computer-readable storage media for licensing an application using multiple forms of licensing are provided herein. The method includes providing a first form of a license to a first computing device via a licensing service and providing a second form of the license to a second computing device via the licensing service. The method also includes determining a first state of the first form of the license and a second state of the second form of the license, synchronizing the first state and the second state to form a combined license state, and adjusting conditions of the license based on the combined license state.

Application licensing using multiple forms of licensing

Systems, methods, and software are disclosed herein for licensing applications using a preferred authorization process dynamically identified based on conditions associated with an initiation of an application. Authorization is then attempted using the preferred authorization process. In some examples, the preferred authorization process is selected from at least a keyless authorization process and a key-based authorization process.

A method, system, and computer-readable storage media for providing user based licensing of an application are provided herein. The method includes receiving user log-in information from a computing device at a licensing service in response to an input by a user and providing a license for an application to the computing device, wherein the license includes device specific information associated with the user. The method also includes activating the application on the computing device using the device specific information.

User based licensing for applications

Devising a centralized usage database for tracking and recording the usage of various services by various users may be difficult for several reasons, including the volume of data generated by each user in interacting with each service. Techniques are disclosed for streamlining usage data transmitted between the services, the users, and the usage database, such as by redistributing a portion of the computational burden to the users, and by characterizing the usage data based on the role of each user in interacting with each service. Additional techniques are disclosed for caching and authenticating the usage data, and for improving the response rate in the interaction of the usage database with users in order to provide a better user experience.

Role-based user tracking in service usage

User profile data that may be spread across different service providers and that may vary across different service providers can be aggregated to provide an aggregate user profile. An aggregate user profile can be generated regardless of, among other things, varying user profile semantics, differing data formats, data item conflicts, evolving server protocols and interfaces, and updates to the number, identity, location, and type of servers upon which the service providers are maintained.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Karvell Li