System and method for automatically populating appointment fields

• US 20060230115A1
• Filed: 04/06/2005
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Flynt, David Wayne, Brooke, Timothy Lawrence
• Granted Patent: US 7,487,456 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

A system and method for automatically populating appointment fields of an appointment template. A messaging client provides a message having message data associated with one or more fields. A field populator automatically transfers the message data associated with the one or more fields to an appropriate field of an appointment response. Time and place data is automatically transferred from a scheduler to an appropriate field of an appointment response.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automatically populating appointment fields, comprising:

providing a message having message data associated with at least one message field; and

transferring the message data to at least one appointment field.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the message is associated with at least one of:

a text message, an instant message, an SMS message, an e-mail message, and a voicemail message.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one message field includes at least one of:

a “

to”

field, a “

from”

field, a “

subject”

field, an “

attachment”

field, a “

body”

field, a “

carbon copy”

field, and a “

blind carbon copy”

field.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one appointment field includes at least one of:

an “

attendees”

field, a “

subject”

field, a “

time”

field, a “

place”

field, an “

attachment”

field, and a “

body”

field.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the message data includes data associated with a “

to”

field and a “

from”

field and the at least one appointment field includes an “

attendees”

field.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein transferring the message data further includes automatically transferring the message data associated with the “

to”

field and the “

from”

field to the “

attendees”

field.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one appointment field includes a “

time”

field and a “

place”

field.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the “

time”

field and the “

place”

field are manually populated.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, further comprising accessing a scheduler having time and place data and populating the “

time”

field and “

place”

field with the time and place data.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the scheduler includes attendee data, and wherein the attendee data includes at least one of:

calendar data, meeting data, room data, date data, time data, historical data, current data, and future appointment data.

11. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for automatically populating appointment fields of an appointment response, the instructions comprising:

providing a populated message template having sender and recipient data;

substantiating an appointment response to the populated message template; and

automatically populating an attendees field of the appointment response with the sender and recipient data.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein providing a populated message template further includes providing a populated message template having subject data, attachment data, and body data.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising automatically populating a “

subject”

field of the appointment response with the subject data, automatically populating an “

attachment”

field of the appointment response with the attachment data, and automatically populating a “

body”

field of the appointment response with the body data.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, further comprising providing a scheduler having time and place data.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, further comprising automatically populating a “

time”

field of the appointment response with the time data, and automatically populating a “

place”

field of the appointment response with the place data.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the time and place data is associated with the sender data and the recipient data.

17. An apparatus for automatically populating appointment fields of an appointment response, comprising:

a messaging client means for providing a message having at least one message field;

an appointment client means for providing an appointment request having at least one appointment field; and

a field populator means for automatically transferring data between the at least one message field and the at least one appointment field.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, further comprising a scheduler means for providing time and place data.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the field populator means further includes a means for automatically transferring time and place data between the scheduler and the at least one appointment field.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the time and place data is associated with a schedule of at least one attendee of the appointment response.