Coordinate: Probabilistic Forecasting of Presence and Availability

We present methods employed in Coordinate, a prototype service that supports collaboration and communication by learning predictive models that provide forecasts of users’ presence and availability. We describe how data is collected about user activity and proximity from multiple devices, in addition to analysis of the content of users’ calendars, the time of day, and day of week. We review applications of presence forecasting embedded in the Priorities application and then present details of the Coordinate service that was informed by the earlier efforts.