AGGREGATING INFORMATION SOURCES TO DYNAMICALLY UPDATE A CALENDAR AND TO NOTIFY USERS OF CHANGES

• US 20090259674A1
• Filed: 04/15/2008
• Published: 10/15/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: GRIFFIN, DAVID L., HAYDEN, HAROLD STEPHEN
• Application Number:
  US12/103,123
• Publication Number:
  US 20090259674A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

Received information from a set of information sources can be processed. The processing can convert the received information into a standardized form. An effect that the converted information has upon a set of scheduled events of a calendaring application can be determined based upon a set of configurable rules. One or more programmatic action relating to the scheduled events can be taken based upon the determined effect. Programmatic actions can include notifying a user associated with the effected scheduled event and automatically changing an attribute associated with the scheduled event within a database used by the calendaring application.

Claims

1. A method for permitting calendar events to adjust based upon information source data comprising:

processing received information from a plurality of information sources, said processing converting said received information into a standardized form;

determining an effect of said converted information upon a plurality of scheduled events of a calendaring application based upon a plurality of rules; and

performing at least one programmatic action relating to the at least one scheduled events based upon the determined effect, wherein said at least one programmatic action comprises at least one action selected from a group of actions consisting of constructing and conveying a notification to at least one user associated with an effected scheduled event, and an action of automatically changing an attribute associated with an effected scheduled event within a database used by the calendaring application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a plurality of source modules, each source module being associated with an information source;

determining a source module associated with a data source before processing information received from each information source; and

utilizing the determined source module to convert information from the associated source into said standardized form.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said at least one performed programmatic action comprises the action of automatically changing an attribute associated with an effected scheduled event within the database used by the calendaring application.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said changed attribute comprises a change from one participation type associated with the scheduled event to another participation type, wherein said participation type comprises physical attendance of the scheduled event, and at least one tele-presence participation mode for the scheduled event.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein said at least one performed programmatic action comprises the action of constructing and conveying a notification to at least one user associated with an effected scheduled event.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said processing of received information, said determining the effect, and said performing of the at least one programmatic action is performed in real-time or near-real-time.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein said constructing comprises creating synthesized speech content that is said notification, wherein said conveying of the notification comprises dialing a phone number associated with said at least one user and audibly conveying said created synthesized speech when a telephony communication session is initiated related to said dialing.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said notification is personalized for said at least one user.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said processing of received information, said determining the effect, and said performing of the at least one programmatic action is performed by an aggregating network element operating independent of the calendaring application, where said aggregating network element is communicatively linked to the calendaring application.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said aggregating network element is configured to interoperate with a plurality of different commercial-off-the-shelf calendaring applications.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein said processing of received information, said determining the effect, and said performing of the at least one programmatic action are actions performed by a Web service, to which a user of the calendaring application subscribes.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of rules are user configurable rules specific to at least one user, wherein said scheduled events to which said plurality of rules are applied are scheduled events associated with said at least one user.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said user configurable rules specify variable details determining behavior of said performed at least one programmatic action specific to said at least one user.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said at least one effected scheduled event is associated with a plurality of different users, wherein at least two different user configurable rule sets exist which corresponding to different ones of plurality of different users, wherein said at least two different user configurable rule sets result in a performance of at least two different programmatic actions, each different programmatic action being performed responsive to one of the different user configurable rule sets.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein one of said plurality of information sources comprises a public Web source, and wherein a different one of said plurality of information sources comprises a private Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) source whose access is restricted to authorized entities, wherein another one of said plurality of information sources comprises a digital Frequency Modulation (FM) broadcast, and wherein still another one of said plurality of information sources comprises a digital sensor.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein one of said plurality of information sources comprises a digital sensor;

said method further comprising;

said digital sensor detecting an environmental condition of an ambient environment and generating a value for said detected environmental condition;

processing said generated value as an element of said received information, thereby converting the generated value into a standardized form;

comparing a user configured threshold established within one of the plurality of rules against the standardized form of the generated value; and

determining based upon said comparing that conditions of said ambient environment result in a time adjustment of said effected scheduled event, wherein said programmatic action are associated with said time adjustment.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein one of said plurality of information sources comprises a private Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) source whose access is restricted to authorized entities, wherein said plurality of rules are user configurable rules specific to at least one user, wherein said scheduled events to which said plurality of rules are applied are scheduled events associated with said at least one user, said method further comprising:

establishing a data store of entity authorizing information for accessing the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) source, said entity authorizing information being associated with at least one authorized user;

retrieving from the data store the entity authorizing information when processing said SOA portion of received information from the Service Oriented Architecture source; and

applying said SOA portion when determining the effect and performing the at least one programmatic action based upon said SOA portion only for a subset of users that are associated with the entity authorizing information.

18. A computer program product for permitting calendar events to adjust based upon information source data comprising, a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising:

a computer usable program code configured to process received information from a plurality of information sources, said processing converting said received information into a standardized form;

a computer usable program code configured to determine an effect of said converted information upon a plurality of scheduled events of a calendaring application based upon a plurality of rules; and

a computer usable program code configured to perform at least one programmatic action relating to the at least one scheduled events based upon the determined effect, wherein said at least one programmatic action comprises at least one action selected from a group of actions consisting of constructing and conveying a notification to at least one user associated with an effected scheduled event and an action of automatically changing an attribute associated with an effected scheduled event within a database used by the calendaring application.

19. A system for permitting calendar events to adjust based upon information source data comprising:

a bus;

a memory connected to the bus, wherein the memory contains a set of instructions; and

a processor connected to the bus, wherein the processor is operable to execute the instructions, wherein said instructions;

process received information from a plurality of information sources, said processing converting said received information into a standardized form;

determine an effect of said converted information upon a plurality of scheduled events of a calendaring application based upon a plurality of rules; and

perform at least one programmatic action relating to the at least one scheduled events based upon the determined effect, wherein said at least one programmatic action comprises at least one action selected from a group of actions consisting of constructing and conveying a notification to at least one user associated with an effected scheduled event and an action of automatically changing an attribute associated with an effected scheduled event within a database used by the calendaring application.