Abstract: Techniques for detecting one or more focus areas of a user and structuring activities and content around the focus area(s) are disclosed. The activities of a user, the people associated with the activities, and/or the content associated with the activities are automatically inferred or detected based on the channels of collaboration associated with the focus area(s). Example channels of collaboration include, but are not limited to, electronic mail, instant messages, documents, and in-person and online meetings. Some or all of the activities, people, and/or content are grouped into one or more focus areas, where a focus area relates to an endeavor in which the user focuses on over a period of time. Some or all of the focus areas are presented to the user.

Abstract: Technology is disclosed for controlling the processing and presentation of group data on computing devices to provide improved computing applications, electronic communications, and user computing experiences. Data indicating a group of people may be programmatically determined or inferred, such as from the user activity of a particular user. Group data characterizing the group of people may be generated and contextualized or personalized for the user based on a user context or intent. Aspects of the contextualized group data may be provided to the user in response to an interaction with an indication of the group or group member. The group data may be provided as a set of group information items, and further may be formatted or assembled for presentation based on the user context, and/or may be consumed by a computing application or service to provide an improved user computing experience.

Abstract: Techniques for detecting one or more focus areas of a user and structuring activities and content around the focus area(s) are disclosed. The activities of a user, the people associated with the activities, and/or the content associated with the activities are automatically inferred or detected based on the channels of collaboration associated with the focus area(s). Example channels of collaboration include, but are not limited to, electronic mail, instant messages, documents, and in-person and online meetings. Some or all of the activities, people, and/or content are grouped into one or more focus areas, where a focus area relates to an endeavor in which the user focuses on over a period of time. Some or all of the focus areas are presented to the user.

Abstract: Context and social distance aware fast live people cards are described. A user context and/or a relevant person context may be determined in response to detecting a user interest in viewing contact information. The user context may include user's attributes such as organizational position, preferences, location, working hours, which application the user is employing, etc. Relevant person context may include context information (similar to the user's) for people within a predefined social distance such as the user's peers, supervisor(s), close friends, etc. Information associated with one or more persons of interest to the user may then be selected and retrieved from a cache storage at a server a productivity service to be provided to a client application for display to the user. Information to be stored in server cache for rapid retrieval may also be selected based on user and relevant person context using observed user behavior.

Abstract: Techniques of electronic message generation using organizational data are disclosed herein. One example technique includes recognizing a contact a user previously communicated with in an input to an address field of a draft email in the email client. The technique can then include determining whether the input also contains a preset keyword or key phrase indicating an intention of the user to send the draft email to a related entity of the contact. In response to determining that the input also contains a preset keyword or key phrase, the technique includes querying a relationship map corresponding to the contact for an identity and email address of the related entity of the contact and surface the identity and email address in the email client as a suggested destination address for selection by the user.

Abstract: Techniques of electronic message generation using organizational data are disclosed herein. One example technique includes recognizing a contact a user previously communicated with in an input to an address field of a draft email in the email client. The technique can then include determining whether the input also contains a preset keyword or key phrase indicating an intention of the user to send the draft email to a related entity of the contact. In response to determining that the input also contains a preset keyword or key phrase, the technique includes querying a relationship map corresponding to the contact for an identity and email address of the related entity of the contact and surface the identity and email address in the email client as a suggested destination address for selection by the user.

Abstract: Context and social distance aware fast live people cards are described. A user context and/or a relevant person context may be determined in response to detecting a user interest in viewing contact information. The user context may include user's attributes such as organizational position, preferences, location, working hours, which application the user is employing, etc. Relevant person context may include context information (similar to the user's) for people within a predefined social distance such as the user's peers, supervisor(s), close friends, etc. Information associated with one or more persons of interest to the user may then be selected and retrieved from a cache storage at a server a productivity service to be provided to a client application for display to the user. Information to be stored in server cache for rapid retrieval may also be selected based on user and relevant person context using observed user behavior.

Abstract: Context and social distance aware fast live people cards are described. A user context and/or a relevant person context may be determined in response to detecting a user interest in viewing contact information. The user context may include user's attributes such as organizational position, preferences, location, working hours, which application the user is employing, etc. Relevant person context may include context information (similar to the user's) for people within a predefined social distance such as the user's peers, supervisor(s), close friends, etc. Information associated with one or more persons of interest to the user may then be selected and retrieved from a cache storage at a server a productivity service to be provided to a client application for display to the user. Information to be stored in server cache for rapid retrieval may also be selected based on user and relevant person context using observed user behavior.

Abstract: An API on a server system automatically gathers an instance of each multiple resources from different sources, storing each instance in the server system. Later, a call to the API is received from a querying application, the call comprising a search query comprising. In response, the API selects one or more of the plurality of resources as search results based on evaluating the criterion or criteria against the already-gathered instances of the resources as stored in the server system. The API returns a search response to the querying application, making the corresponding stored instances available to a consuming party In embodiments the API is “holistic” in nature, in that the search results may comprise different types of resource (e.g. file, email, task), from different types source (e.g. type of application they originate from), and/or related to the consuming part by different types of activity (e.g. used, modified shared, trending).

Abstract: Context and social distance aware fast live people cards are described. A user context and/or a relevant person context may be determined in response to detecting a user interest in viewing contact information. The user context may include user's attributes such as organizational position, preferences, location, working hours, which application the user is employing, etc. Relevant person context may include context information (similar to the user's) for people within a predefined social distance such as the user's peers, supervisor(s), close friends, etc. Information associated with one or more persons of interest to the user may then be selected and retrieved from a cache storage at a server a productivity service to be provided to a client application for display to the user. Information to be stored in server cache for rapid retrieval may also be selected based on user and relevant person context using observed user behavior.

Abstract: A method, computer program product, and system for initiating, routing and scheduling video conferences. A dial URL is introduced with a prefix unique for calling purposes. When a user activates such an URL in his web browser, a content handler associated with the browser will recognize the type of URL and send a request to a managing tool to determine an available calling route between the user's preferred end-point and the end-point being addressed in the URL with the required resources. The managing tool then schedules the resources and initiates the call between the end-points, thereby allowing for a one-click initiation of ad-hoc video calls and video conferences.

Abstract: A method, computer program product, and system for initiating, routing and scheduling video conferences. A dial URL is introduced with a prefix unique for calling purposes. When a user activates such an URL in his web browser, a content handler associated with the browser will recognize the type of URL and send a request to a managing tool to determine an available calling route between the user's preferred end-point and the end-point being addressed in the URL with the required resources. The managing tool then schedules the resources and initiates the call between the end-points, thereby allowing for a one-click initiation of ad-hoc video calls and video conferences.