NOTIFICATION OF ADDITIONAL RECIPIENTS OF EMAIL MESSAGES

• US 20100293475A1
• Filed: 05/03/2010
• Published: 11/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: NOTTINGHAM, ALASDAIR, WARD, TIMOTHY J., SMITH, KEVIN B.
• Application Number:
  US12/772,645
• Publication Number:
  US 20100293475A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/752
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages

Abstract

An email client software application can include a sending component, a receiving component, a notifier, and a reply-all option. The sending component can be for sending email messages to a set of recipients. The receiving component can be for receiving email messages. The notifier can be for receiving notifications from recipients to whom email messages have been previously sent. The received notifications can indicate that previously sent email messages have been forwarded to others. The reply-all option can be provided such that when triggered it automatically sends a reply message to a subset of recipients associated with an initial one of the email messages and to the others that have been sent the initial one of the email messages. The others included in the subset can be determined from the notifications received and processed by the notifier.

Claims

1. A method for providing notification to email clients with recipient updates resulting from email forwards comprising:

sending an initial email message to a plurality of recipients;

receiving a notification message from a first one of the recipients responsive to the first one forwarding the initial email message to an additional recipient, wherein the notification message indicates that the first one has forwarded the email message to at least one additional recipient;

responsive to receipt of the notification message, composing an update message, wherein the update message indicates that the first one has forwarded the message to the additional recipient; and

sending the update message to at least one of the plurality of recipients other than the first one.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending further comprises:

sending the update message to each other plurality of recipients other than the first one.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending of initial email message, the receiving of the notification message, the composing of the update message, and the sending of the update message are performed by software of an email client being executed by a processor.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving of the notification message, the composing of the update message, and the sending of the update message occur automatically without any manual interactions being performed by the originator of the initial email message or by any of the recipients.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

updating a record of the initial email message maintained by an email client that sent the initial email message to indicate that the additional recipient received the initial email message.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

showing the initial email message within a graphical user interface of the email client after the record of the initial email message has been updated, wherein when showing the initial email message within the graphical user interface and visual indicator is presented that indicates the additional recipient has received the initial email message.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

responsive to at least a second email client receiving the sent update message, the second email client updating a record of the initial email message maintained by the second email client to indicate that the additional recipient received the initial email message.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the notification message, an email client that sent the initial message receiving a user command to reply-to-all recipients of the initial email message, wherein the reply-to-all corresponds to a follow-up email message; and

responsive to receiving the user command, the email client sending the follow-up email message to each of the plurality of recipients and to the additional recipient.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after receiving the update message, an email client that received the initial message but that is not the first one of the recipients receiving a user command to reply-to-all recipients of the initial email message, wherein the reply-to-all corresponds to a follow-up email message; and

responsive to receiving the user command, the email client sending the follow-up email message to each of the plurality of recipients other than itself, to the sender of the initial email message, and to the additional recipient.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the notification message and the update message are email messages.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the email client that sent the initial email message is enhanced to identify the notification message and to treat it differently than standard email message, wherein the notification message is not displayed to a user within a user interface of the email client but instead triggers the email client to perform the composing and sending automatically without manual user input being received for performing the composing and sending.

12. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising:

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to send an initial email message to a plurality of recipients;

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to receive a notification message from a first one of the recipients responsive to the first one forwarding the initial email message to an additional recipient, wherein the notification message indicates that the first one has forwarded the email message to at least one additional recipient;

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to, responsive to receipt of the notification message, compose an update message, wherein the update message indicates that the first one has forwarded the message to the additional recipient; and

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to send the update message to at least one of the plurality of recipients other than the first one.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to update a record of the initial email message maintained by an email client that sent the initial email message to indicate that the additional recipient received the initial email message.

14. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to show the initial email message within a graphical user interface of the email client after the record of the initial email message has been updated, wherein when showing the initial email message within the graphical user interface a visual indicator is presented that indicates the additional recipient has received the initial email message.

15. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable program code stored on a tangible storage medium that when executed by a processor is operable to, responsive to at least a second email client receiving the sent update message, cause the second email client to update a record of the initial email message maintained by the second email client to indicate that the additional recipient received the initial email message.

16. An email client software application executable by a processor of the apparatus, wherein the email client software application is stored on a tangible storage medium, the apparatus comprising:

a sending component for sending email messages to a plurality of recipients;

a receiving component for receiving email messages;

a notifier for receiving notifications from recipients to whom email messages have been previously sent, said received notifications indicating that previously sent email messages have been forwarded to others; and

a reply-all option of the email client, wherein when triggered automatically sends a reply message to a subset of recipients associated with an initial one of the email messages and to the others that have been sent the initial one of the email messages as determined from the notifications received and processed by the notifier.

17. The email client of claim 16, wherein in absence of the notifications, the email client would be unaware of the others and would not be able to send the others the reply message responsive a triggering of the reply-all option.

18. The email client of claim 16, further comprising:

an updater for sending updates to a subset of the recipients to inform each of the subset of recipients of the others responsive to the notifier receiving and processing notifications regarding email messages, wherein the subset includes a set of recipients that received one of the previously sent email messages.

19. The email client of claim 16, further comprising:

a history log for maintaining records of sent and received email messages;

wherein a list of recipients that received email messages as maintained in the records is updated responsive to the notifier processing the notifications.

20. The email client of claim 16, further comprising:

a graphical user interface comprising a visually displayed section showing previously sent email messages, wherein showing previously sent email messages for which the notifier has received at least one notification for others, the graphical user interface shows a visual indicator proximate to the corresponding sent email message that indicates the others have received the corresponding sent email.