METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR EMAIL MESSAGING

• US 20110078587A1
• Filed: 12/09/2010
• Published: 03/31/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Soroka, Vladimir, Mizrachi, Boaz, Guy, Ido
• Granted Patent: US 8,271,598 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/752
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A method and system for preventing sending of messages to incorrect email recipients are provided. The method includes determining (120) the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending and comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups (126, 122). Potential errors in the intended recipients are identified and a prompt (125) is provided to amend the intended recipients. The prompt (125) provides a suggestion to replace, add or remove an intended recipient. The defined recipient groups include one or more of groups of recipients formed from an organization data structure (122), groups of recipients defined by a user, and groups of recipients (126) mined from one or more user'"'"'s previous email correspondence.

Claims

1. A method for email messaging, comprising:

executing an email client application on a computer system;

with a user interface of the email client application determining intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;

determining that the intended recipients comprise a subgroup of one or more defined recipient groups, wherein each of the defined recipient groups has a plurality of other members;

ranking the defined recipient groups according to a predefined strength function;

identifying one of the defined recipient groups as a top ranked recipient group among the defined recipient groups;

providing a prompt to select the top ranked recipient group to thereby add all of the other members of the top ranked recipient group as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the top ranked recipient group; and

responsively to a user response to the prompt automatically adding all the other members as addressees of the email message.

15. The method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising providing a transfer option prompt to amend the intended recipients by moving the intended recipients from a “

to”

addressee list to a blind carbon copy (“

bcc”

) addressee list when a number of the intended recipients exceeds a threshold value; and

automatically transferring the intended recipients to the bcc addressee list responsively to a user transfer response to the transfer option prompt.

28. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

providing an additional prompt to add a plurality of members of other defined recipient groups as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the other defined recipient groups; and

responsively to a user response to the additional prompt automatically adding the plurality of members of the other defined recipient groups as the new recipients of the email message.

29. The method according to claim 1, further comprising deriving the defined recipient groups from senders and recipients of previous email messages, wherein the strength function comprises at least one of a number and respective dates of the previous email messages.

30. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of deriving the defined recipient groups comprises defining a variable for each pair of an individual in an organization and the organization that indicates a likelihood of the individual sending email correspondence to the organization.

2-14. -14. (canceled)

16-27. -27. (canceled)

31. A computer software product for email messaging, including a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium in which computer program instructions are stored, which instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising:

executing an email client application;

with a user interface of the email client application accepting as input intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;

determining that the intended recipients comprise a subgroup of one or more defined recipient groups, wherein each of the defined recipient groups has a plurality of other members;

ranking the defined recipient groups according to a predefined strength function;

identifying one of the defined recipient groups as a top ranked recipient group among the defined recipient groups;

providing a prompt to select the top ranked recipient group to thereby add all of the other members of the top ranked recipient group as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the top ranked recipient group; and

responsively to a user response to the prompt automatically adding all the other members as addressees of the email message.

32. The computer software product as claimed in claim 31, wherein the instructions cause the computer to perform the additional steps of:

providing a transfer option prompt to amend the intended recipients by moving the intended recipients from a “

to”

addressee list to a blind carbon copy (“

bcc”

) addressee list when a number of the intended recipients exceeds a threshold value; and

automatically transferring the intended recipients to the bcc addressee list responsively to a user transfer response to the transfer option prompt.

33. The computer software product according to claim 31, wherein the instructions cause the computer to perform the additional steps of:

providing an additional prompt to add a plurality of members of other defined recipient groups as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the other defined recipient groups; and

responsively to a user response to the additional prompt automatically adding the plurality of members of the other defined recipient groups as the new recipients of the email message.

34. The computer software product according to claim 31, wherein the instructions cause the computer to perform the additional step of deriving the defined recipient groups from senders and recipients of previous email messages, wherein the strength function comprises at least one of a number and respective dates of the previous email messages.

35. The computer software product according to claim 31, wherein the instructions cause the computer to perform the additional step of deriving the defined recipient groups by defining a variable for each pair of an individual in an organization and the organization that indicates a likelihood of the individual sending email correspondence to the organization.

36. A data processing system for email messaging, comprising:

a processor;

a memory accessible to the processor storing programs and data objects therein, the programs including an email client application and an email user interface, wherein execution of the programs cause the processor to perform the steps of;

accepting as input intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;

determining that the intended recipients comprise a subgroup of one or more defined recipient groups, wherein each of the defined recipient groups has a plurality of other members;

ranking the defined recipient groups according to a predefined strength function;

identifying one of the defined recipient groups as a top ranked recipient group among the defined recipient groups;

providing a prompt to select the top ranked recipient group to thereby add all of the other members of the top ranked recipient group as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the top ranked recipient group; and

responsively to a user response to the prompt automatically adding all the other members as addressees of the email message.

37. The data processing system as claimed in claim 36, wherein the programs cause the processor to perform the additional steps of:

providing a transfer option prompt to amend the intended recipients by moving the intended recipients from a “

to”

addressee list to a blind carbon copy (“

bcc”

) addressee list when a number of the intended recipients exceeds a threshold value; and

automatically transferring the intended recipients to the bcc addressee list responsively to a user transfer response to the transfer option prompt.

38. The data processing system according to claim 36, wherein the programs cause the processor to perform the additional steps of:

providing an additional prompt to add a plurality of members of other defined recipient groups as new recipients of the email message so as to direct the email message to all the members of the other defined recipient groups; and

responsively to a user response to the additional prompt automatically adding the plurality of members of the other defined recipient groups as the new recipients of the email message.

39. The data processing system according to claim 36, wherein the programs cause the processor to perform the additional step of deriving the defined recipient groups from senders and recipients of previous email messages, wherein the strength function comprises at least one of a number and respective dates of the previous email messages.

40. The data processing system according to claim 36, wherein the programs cause the processor to perform the additional step of deriving the defined recipient groups by defining a variable for each pair of an individual in an organization and the organization that indicates a likelihood of the individual sending email correspondence to the organization.