Aggregation of Emailed Product Order and Shipping Information

• US 20140358814A1
• Filed: 08/12/2014
• Published: 12/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/19/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nielsen Consumer LLC (Nielsen Holdings plc)
• Original Assignee: Slice Technologies, Inc. (Rakuten Group, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brady, Scott J., Suppe, Benjamin A., Botto, Eric J., Madan, Harpinder Singh, Khosla, Aditya, Mykhaylov, Dmytry B., Mastierov, Ievgen, Verbytskyi, Georgii
• Granted Patent: US 9,641,474 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/330
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes

Abstract

Product order and shipping information received via email messages is automatically aggregated for ready user review. Once the user is authenticated, authorization to access their email mailbox is obtained and the email message headers of their emails are analyzed to identify those messages of interest. The bodies of the email messages of interest are parsed to extract the product order and shipping information which is stored and presented for display to the user typically grouped by individual product thus greatly simplifying user review of orders.

Claims

1. A method performed by server computer apparatus, the method comprising:

obtaining headers of email messages of a user, the headers comprising structured data fields associated with message relevant data;

identifying ones of email messages in the user'"'"'s email mailbox based on the message relevant data in associated ones of the email message headers;

for each of respective ones of the identified email messages,

retrieving a respective email message body of the identified email messages;

based on the message relevant data in the associated email message header, selecting a respective parsing template from a predefined set of parsing templates, wherein each parsing template comprises a respective grammar for recognizing in the respective email message body product purchase relevant fields associated with product purchase relevant data,

applying the selected parsing template to the respective email message body to extract respective product purchase relevant data from the respective email message body; and

to a network node associated with the user, transmitting data for displaying a view on the extracted product purchase relevant data.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying comprises:

in each of respective ones of the associated email message headers, ascertaining a respective message sender and a respective message type based on the message relevant data.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein, for each of respective ones of the associated email message headers:

the respective message sender is ascertained from a sender structured data field of the associated email message header; and

the respective message type is ascertained from a subject structured data field of the associated email message header.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the selecting of the respective parsing template is based on the ascertained respective message sender and the ascertained respective message type.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the ascertained message sender corresponds to a merchant selected from a predefined set of merchants.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the ascertained message type corresponds to a message type selected from a predefined set of message types.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the predefined set of message types comprises an order confirmation message type and a shipping confirmation message type.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the selecting comprises choosing a respective one of the parsing templates in the predefined set based on identification of a sender of the email message from a predefined set of merchants.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the choosing the respective parsing templates is further based on identification of a type of the email message selected from a predefined set of email message types.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the predefined set of email message types comprises an order confirmation message type and a shipping confirmation message type.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein, for each of respective ones of the identified email messages, the choosing the respective parsing templates is further based on identification of a format of the email message body selected from a predefined set of email message body formats.

28. The method of claim 1, wherein for each of respective ones of the parsing templates, the respective grammar describes a respective format of the product purchase relevant fields.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the grammar of a respective one of the parsing template describes a format of a set of product purchase relevant fields comprising a greeting field, an order details field, a purchase item details field, and a tax and totals field.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein the applying of the respective grammar of each of respective ones of the parsing templates results in extraction of product purchase relevant data corresponding to order number, product description, product name, product price, and order total.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein the applying of the respective grammar of each of respective ones of the parsing templates results in extraction of product purchase relevant data corresponding to tracking number, shipping address, estimated shipping date, and estimated delivery date.

32. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the extracted product purchase relevant data in a database, wherein the storing comprises, for each product order, creating a respective database record, and aggregating the product purchase relevant data extracted from ones of the email messages relating to the product order in the respective database record.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting to the network node associated with the user data for displaying in the view extracted purchase relevant data grouped by individual ordered product.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the transmitting comprises transmitting to the network node associated with the user data for displaying in the view extracted purchase relevant data comprising information corresponding to product order date, product description, product price, product merchant, and product order status.

2-17. -17. (canceled)

35. Apparatus, comprising a memory storing processor-readable instructions, and a processor coupled to the memory, operable to execute the instructions, and based at least in part on the execution of the instructions operable to perform operations comprising:

obtaining headers of email messages of a user, the headers comprising structured data fields associated with message relevant data;

identifying ones of email messages in the user'"'"'s email mailbox based on the message relevant data in associated ones of the email message headers;

for each of respective ones of the identified email messages,

retrieving a respective email message body of the identified email message,

based on the message relevant data in the associated email message header,

selecting a respective parsing template from a predefined set of parsing templates, wherein each parsing template comprises a respective grammar for recognizing in the respective email message body product purchase relevant fields associated with product purchase relevant data,

applying the selected parsing template to the respective email message body to extract respective product purchase relevant data from the respective email message body; and

to a network node associated with the user, transmitting data for displaying a view on the extracted product purchase relevant data.

36. At least one computer-readable medium having processor-readable program code embodied therein, the processor-readable program code adapted to be executed by a processor to perform operations comprising:

obtaining headers of email messages of a user, the headers comprising structured data fields associated with message relevant data;

identifying ones of email messages in the user'"'"'s email mailbox based on the message relevant data in associated ones of the email message headers;

for each of respective ones of the identified email messages,

retrieving a respective email message body of the identified email message,

based on the message relevant data in the associated email message header,

selecting a respective parsing template from a predefined set of parsing templates, wherein each parsing template comprises a respective grammar for recognizing in the respective email message body product purchase relevant fields associated with product purchase relevant data,

applying the selected parsing template to the respective email message body to extract respective product purchase relevant data from the respective email message body; and

to a network node associated with the user, transmitting data for displaying a view on the extracted product purchase relevant data.