Deferred, on-demand loading of user presence within a real-time collaborative service

Abstract

Techniques disclosed herein include systems and methods that enable a relatively large number of users to connect to a collaborative communication application with a comparatively lower investment in service hardware (CPU, network) while still providing identification of contributing client devices. Techniques disclosed herein can also include systems and methods that enable an application developer to build higher-performing applications that reduce a computational load for client devices. A session manager, for a collaborative service session, provides selective transmission of user records on an as-needed basis, and thus avoids sending user records until those records are actually needed or requested, typically as a result of a user's active participation within the collaboration environment. The session manager thus reveals the presence of connected users on-demand, thereby saving CPU and network resources, and allowing collaborative applications to more easily scale into the tens of thousands of users.