JP3420796B2 - Email system - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a plurality of information processing systems.
Mail host system with mail and mail storage and exchange function
In an electronic mail system having the information processing sheet
System user is absent from the mail host system
If an email arrives from the email sender after
Mail host system, the absence of the user who registered
It is determined whether or not you are using the serial data processing system, used
An electronic mail system is characterized in that when it is determined that the user is using the service, the user is instructed to cancel the absence registration. 2. Description of the Related Art Generally, there is known an electronic mail system for transmitting information by transmitting a desired mail from a sender to a desired receiver. Conventionally, in the above-described e-mail system, when the recipient is absent, the absence is registered by the recipient, so that the e-mail sent to the recipient is stored in a predetermined place, that is, the mail host system, After returning, an absence registration method for receiving the retained mail has been proposed. However, in the absence registration method described above, when the user performs absence registration and returns from home, no message is displayed from the mail host to the recipient even though the user is present. Operation can be forgotten. For this reason, the mail addressed to the recipient stays in the mail host system, and there is a drawback that the recipient cannot read the mail. Further, in a conventional e-mail system, a technology (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-90236) has been proposed in which a recipient is notified of whether or not a recipient has read an e-mail. If the mail was staying, the recipient's reading of the mail was delayed, and there was a possibility that the receiver would incorrectly judge that the mail had not been read. [0003] Next, the disadvantages when the recipient reads the mail will be described. In today's world, there is a great deal of information and it is extremely difficult for recipients to read all the mails addressed to them. is there. However, in the conventional e-mail system, when a recipient reads a mail, the contents of the mail are read on a screen such as a CRT after transferring all the contents of the mail from the external memory to the internal memory. Is large, the transfer time from the external memory to the internal memory also increases in proportion to the capacity, and when the recipient reads the mail on the screen, to know whether it is related to himself, There was a problem that I could not understand without reading a few pages. And after reading a few pages, I noticed that the email was not relevant to me. That is, in the related art, since there is no information squeezing function, there is a drawback that information that is not very relevant to the user is read and that much time is required. [0004] On the other hand, the problem of mail reading information (confirmation information of mail reading) sent from the mail sender to the mail sender will be described below. That is, in the prior art,
When the recipient opens the mail on the screen, the above-mentioned mail reading information is transmitted to the sender, so that there is a drawback that it is impossible to know how much the recipient has read the mail. That is,
In extreme cases, you may have opened the mail and read a few lines, then closed the mail immediately, and if the sender did not get the recipient to read the mail carefully, Troubles could occur between them. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to efficiently transmit a mail to a recipient and confirm the reading of the mail by the recipient. An object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail system that can perform well and can efficiently determine important mails related to the recipient. [0006] SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION To achieve the above object, the present invention is double
Number of information processing systems and mail storage and exchange
In an electronic mail system having a mail host system, a user of the information processing system
Email from email sender after registering for absence
If a mail arrives, this mail host system
It is determined whether the user who the recording is using the information processing system, when it is determined to be used, the
It is characterized by giving an instruction to cancel the absence registration to the user . According to the present invention , in an e-mail system networked by a telephone line or the like, when a recipient performs an absence registration and forgets to cancel it, and uses the e-mail system, Immediately, the mail host system detects this and notifies the recipient. As a result, it is possible to prevent the mail addressed to the recipient from staying in the mail host system, and the recipient can read the mail earlier than before. Also, the sender can know the information that the recipient has read the mail earlier than before . An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electronic mail system embodying the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the electronic mail system has a configuration in which an information processing system 1 such as a plurality of workstations (WS) is connected to a telephone line 7 via a LAN 3 and a mail host system 5. I have. Then, the information processing system 1
It comprises a CPU 9, an internal memory 11, an external memory 13, a line interface 15, a text / voice conversion circuit 17, an input device use determination circuit 19, a CRT 21, an input device 23, an output device 25, and a voice input / output circuit 27. Then, in this e-mail system, when an e-mail is received from the e-mail sender when the receiver registers in advance, the absence signal is automatically sent to the sender,
If the recipient is not absent and a mail arrives during normal use, a signal is sent from the mail system to the recipient to read the mail, and the information processing system 1 is sent to the recipient without canceling the absence registration. It is configured such that it is determined whether or not it is being used, and if it is used without the above-mentioned cancellation, an absence registration cancellation instruction message is sent to the recipient. Also, when the recipient opens and reads the email, it displays the title and part of the body of the entire email so that the recipient can determine whether it is important to him or her. The file containing the created reply signal is opened at the same time, and a signal indicating that the mail has been read is sent to the sender. FIG. 2 shows the file configuration (in the external memory of the receiving-side mail host system) in the electronic mail system. Next, the operation of the electronic mail system will be described with reference to the operation flowchart of FIG.
First, in step 101, when a mail from a sender is received, the mail is stored in the mail host system 5 on the receiver side.
It is determined whether the absence is registered in the absence file of the mail host system 5 (see FIG. 2). In step 103, if the absence registration has not been performed, the process proceeds to step 119 described later. If the absence registration has been performed, in step 105, the user is present and the information processing system is used for a certain period of time. Is determined. In other words, the recipient comes back from home,
It is determined whether the information processing system 1 has been used for a certain period of time without canceling the absence registration. If it is determined in step 105 that the mail host system 5 is not being used, then in step 107 the mail host system 5
The received information in the information processing system 1 is sent to the external memory 13 of the information processing system 1, and in step 109, an absence notification signal (see FIG. 2) created by the recipient in the mail host system 5 in advance is added to the received information. The status of the outgoing mail status file in the mail host system 5 of the sender becomes "absent", and the absence is signaled to the sender, and the process proceeds to step 103. Return. Here, the details of the determination processing for determining whether or not the receiver uses the information processing system without canceling the absence registration in step 105 will be described with reference to the explanatory diagram of FIG. explain. As shown in FIG. 4, first, in this determination processing, an interrupt check of the input device 23 is started after a time t1 when the absence registration is performed by the receiver. That is, it checks whether or not an input means such as a key on a keyboard or a mouse button on a mouse is operated by the recipient. For example, if any key on the keyboard is pressed during the interrupt check,
And this is stored in the internal memory 11. If none of the input devices 23 is operated, the result is stored in the internal memory 11 as 0. Thereafter, this check is performed every t2 hours, and the results are stored in the internal memory 11, respectively. Here, if the value of 1 as a result stored in the internal memory 11 is repeated X times, it is determined that the receiver is present and using the information processing system, and the interrupt check is performed at t3. Ends after hours. Returning to FIG. 3, if the mail system determines in step 105 that the recipient is using the information processing system 1 without canceling the absence registration, in step 111, the mail system In response to this, an absentee registration cancellation instruction message is sent. Next, in step 113, the receiver selects whether or not to release from the transmitted signal. If the user selects not to release, the process returns to step 103, and if the user selects release, the process returns to step 11
5, the absence registration release signal file 2 of the mail host system 5 (see FIG. 2) is stored in the mail host system 5.
In step 117, the information read by the reader and the reception information added thereto is sent to the information processing system 1 of the sender, and transmitted to the sender. Here, the status of the outgoing mail status file in the sender's mail host system is changed from “absent” to “not connected”. Next, if step 117 is completed or if the receiver has not registered absent in step 103, and a mail arrives from the sender, step 11
At 9, the mail host system 5 instructs the recipient to read the mail, and determines whether the recipient reads the mail. If the recipient decides to read the email,
In step 121, the mail is opened for the recipient to read the mail, and the contents of the mail stored in the mail host system 5 are stored in the C of the information processing system 1.
It is displayed on the screen of RT21. At this time, as shown in FIG. 5, what is displayed on the screen is the first page of the first page of the mail.
With only / 3, the rest is not displayed on the screen and is not loaded on the internal memory of the mail host system 5. Therefore, the recipient only has to read the title and a part of the body of the entire mail. Here, it is determined whether or not this mail is relevant and important mail. As a method of providing information for making the above determination, the following method is provided. is there. First, the recipient stores in the mail host system 5 a file in which important keywords related to the recipient are collected (important keyword file). Then, when the mail is received by the mail host system 5,
Using the keywords registered in the important keyword file as a key, the contents of the mail are searched. When the search is completed, a matching keyword file as shown in FIG. When the recipient opens the mail, in the display screen shown in FIG. 5, in addition to the window displaying the mail, a window showing the matching keyword information shown in FIG. 7 is displayed for reference to the matching keyword file. Is done. The recipient determines whether to read the rest of the mail by referring to the information shown in FIG. 7 in addition to the information shown in FIG. 5 (step 123). Next, another method for providing information for determining whether the recipient is an important mail or not will be described. Also in this case, the recipient is the mail host system 5
Save the important keyword file. When the recipient opens the mail file, the display screen is almost the same as the state shown in FIG. 5, but the difference is that the selected object is added to the upper left of the mail window as shown in FIG. When the recipient selects this object with a mouse, a keyboard, or the like, the entire contents of the mail are searched using the keyword in the important keyword file as a key, and a window of information on matching keywords in FIG. 7 is displayed. From the part of the mail displayed by the above method and the keyword information, the recipient determines whether to read the remaining part of the mail (step 123). Step 12 above
In step 3, the mail host system 5 determines that the rest of the mail is not read and closes the mail. In step 125, the mail host system 5 detects this, and checks the status of the outgoing mail status file in the mail host system 5 on the sender side. To "head reading" indicating that the recipient has read the head of the mail (see FIG. 2). This is performed in the process of sending the head reading signal file to which the reception information and the viewed date and time information have been added to the sender (step 127). If the receiver determines in step 123 that the remaining portion has been read, then in step 129, the receiver selects the entire upper left object of the mail window. As a result, the entire remaining part of the mail is loaded into the internal memory of the mail host system 5, and the lower two-thirds of the first page of the mail are displayed in the mail window on the screen. You can see up to the end of the email.
Then, in step 131, when the recipient finishes reading the mail and closes the mail, the mail host system detects this and the receiver checks the status of the outgoing mail status file in the sender's mail host system, and checks the status of the mail. Change to "read" to indicate that you have read to some extent or carefully. This is performed in the process of sending the read signal file with the received information and the date and time information of the read to the sender. The signal sent to the information processing system 1 on the sender side may be, for example, "PM 5: 00A on January 20, 1993" when the recipient reads the head of the mail.
The head of the email to Mr. has been read. In addition to a message such as "", the text-to-speech conversion circuit 17 can also provide a sound having the same contents. Further, it is also possible to make it possible to create the content of the voice, the type of the bell sound, the synthetic voice, the voice of the recording, and the like on both the transmitting side and the receiving side. Finally, in step 133, the receiver determines whether or not to read the next mail.
Returning to step 9, if no reading is made, the operation processing ends. As described above, according to the present invention, in an e-mail system networked by a telephone line or the like, a recipient registers an absence and forgets to cancel it. If the information processing system is used, the mail host system immediately detects this and notifies the recipient. As a result, it is possible to prevent the mail addressed to the recipient from staying in the mail host system, and the recipient can read the mail earlier than before. Also,
The sender can know that the recipient has read the e-mail more quickly than before . [0018]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of an electronic mail system embodying the present invention. FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a file configuration of the electronic mail system shown in FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation of the electronic mail system shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of a determination process for determining whether or not the recipient uses the information processing system without canceling the absence registration in the operation shown in FIG. 3; FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a display example of a CRT of the information processing system shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a matching keyword file created in the mail host system shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 7 is a diagram showing matching keyword information displayed on the CRT shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a selected object additionally displayed. [Description of Signs] 1 ... Information processing system 3 ... LA
N, 5: mail host system, 7: telephone line, 9: CPU, 1
1 ... internal memory, 13 ... external memory,
15: line I / F, 17: text-to-speech conversion circuit, 19: input device use determination circuit, 21: C
RT, 23 ... input device, 2
5 output device 27 audio input / output circuit 101 to 133 each step

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) H04L 12/58 100 G06F 13/00 610

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] [Claim 1] Mail storage exchange with a plurality of information processing systems
In an e-mail system having a mail host system having a switching function, a user of the information processing system
Mail after registering absence in the mail host system
When mail arrives from the sender, this mail host system
Stem, it determines whether the user who absence registration is using the information processing system <br/> arm, determined to be used
An e-mail system for instructing the user to cancel the absence registration.