METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR RECIPIENT MANAGEMENT WITH ELECTRONIC MESSAGES

• US 20150372964A1
• Filed: 06/15/2015
• Published: 12/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pecan Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Pecan Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: VOLACH, Ben
• Granted Patent: US 10,341,284 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]

Abstract

There is provided a method of recipient management with electronic messages having time defined actions, comprising: defining for an electronic message to a recipient, according to data inputted by a user at a user client terminal, one or more actions for the recipient to perform and a time frame for performance of the one or more actions; sending the electronic message to a recipient client terminal of a recipient to trigger a monitoring of performance of the one or more actions by the recipient at the client terminal during the time frame; receiving an indication of the performance of the one or more actions based on the monitoring from the recipient client terminal; and presenting on the user client terminal a notification in response to the indication.

Claims

1. A method of recipient management with electronic messages having time defined actions comprising:

defining for an electronic message to a recipient, according to data inputted by a user at a user client terminal, at least one action for the recipient to perform and a time frame for performance of the at least one action;

sending the electronic message to a recipient client terminal of a recipient to trigger a monitoring of performance of the at least one action by the recipient at the client terminal during the time frame;

receiving an indication of the performance of the at least one action based on the monitoring from the recipient client terminal; and

presenting on the user client terminal a notification in response to the indication.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is performed by an application locally installed on the recipient client terminal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is performed by messages sent from the recipient client terminal to an external source, the messages analyzed at the external source.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is location based, and wherein the monitoring detects the recipient being at the location.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is the recipient being in a location within a certain time frame.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein defining comprises defining a chain of the at least one actions that defines the order of performance of the at least one actions by the recipient.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the chain is hierarchal and/or sequential.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein defining comprises defining rule dependent actions that detect performance of the rule dependent actions when at least one rule terms are held.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving an update to the at least one action, and sending a message to the recipient client terminal indicative of the updated action, to monitor performance of the updated action.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving an indication comprises receiving an electronic message automatically generated by the client terminal indicative of the performance.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending or locally presenting at least one alert to the recipient to perform the at least one action for the electronic message within the time frame.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising sending or locally presenting a plurality of alerts over time to one or both of the recipient and the user based on the amount of time left until the end of the time frame.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the time frame comprises a deadline time and/or a date for performing the at least one action.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the time frame comprises number of minutes left until expiration of the electronic message.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is selected from the group:

read electronic message, delete electronic message, forward electronic message, label folder with electronic message, move electronic message from inbox into a certain folder, click link in electronic message, press radio button in electronic message, reply to electronic message, open an attachment of the electronic message, reassign a task to another party, and mark task as completed.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic message is selected from the group:

email, instant message, short message service (SMS) message.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically adjusting the time frame in response to the monitoring of performance of the at least one action, at least one of before and after the time frame has elapsed.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the adjusting comprises automatically snoozing the electronic message after the time frame has elapsed so that a deadline time and/or date is delayed by a predefined amount.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein defining comprises receiving a manual definition from the user of the electronic message.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically deleting the electronic message after the time frame has lapsed.

21. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring for performance of actions other than the at least one action at least one of before and after the time frame.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising providing the monitoring of actions other than the at least one action for presentation on the user client terminal.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein each action of a plurality of at least one actions has a different time frame.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising alerting one or both of the recipient and the user with different alerts based on the different time frames.

25. The method of claim 1, further comprising alerting one or both of the recipient and the user that the electronic message will be expiring based on the amount of time left until the end of the time frame.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein sending comprises sending the electronic message to a plurality of recipients;

and detecting comprises detecting the performance of the at least one action by at least one of the plurality of recipients.

27. The method of claim 1, further comprising diverting the electronic message and related at least one action, from the recipient to a different recipient.

28. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is performed outside the scope of the electronic message.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein monitoring comprises monitoring for partial completion of the at least one action.

30. A system for electronic message communications having time defined actions, comprising:

a hardware processor;

a non-transitory memory having stored thereon program modules for instruction execution by the hardware processor, comprising;

a definition module for defining for an electronic message to a recipient;

according to data inputted by a user at a user client terminal, at least one action for the recipient to perform and a time frame for performance of the at least one action;

a sending module for sending the electronic message to a recipient client terminal of the recipient;

a detection module for monitoring of performance of the at least one action by the recipient at the client terminal during the time frame, the monitoring triggered by the sending of the electronic message;

a receiving module for receiving an indication of the performance of the at least one action based on the monitoring from the recipient client terminal;

a presentation module for presenting on the user client terminal a notification in response to the indication.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein the detection module resides on the recipient client terminal as a locally installed application, and the detection module is further programmed to send messages from the recipient client terminal to the receiving module, the receiving module installed on the user terminal.

32. The system of claim 31, wherein the detection module resides on the recipient client terminal, the detection module is programmed to send electronic messages to an analysis module located on an external server, the analysis module analyzing the contents of the electronic messages to determine when the action has been performed.

33. The system of claim 30, further comprising an update module for updating the at least one action.

34. The system of claim 30, further comprising:

a user interface for manually receiving the at least one action from the user of the electronic message.

35. The system of claim 30, further comprising:

an email access module for accessing the email account of the recipient to perform the monitoring for performance of the at least one action.

36. The system of claim 30, further comprising:

a deletion module for deleting the electronic message from an email account of the one or both of the user and the recipient based on the detection.

37. The system of claim 30, wherein at least one of the modules resides on a remote server, at least one of the user and a recipient are registered users on the remote server, the remote server having access data for accessing email accounts of the at least one of the user and the recipient.

38. The system of claim 30, further comprising a link module for generating a link to a server storing contents of the electronic message, wherein the sending modules sends the link to the recipient, wherein the detection module automatically detects the performance of actions based on the link, and wherein the definition module defines the action for the link.

39. The system of claim 30, wherein the system resides on a processor remotely located from the recipient and sender, the system acting as one or both of a client and a server with respect to one or both of the recipient and sender.

40. The system of claim 30, wherein the sent message contains metadata defining the action and time frame.

41. The system of claim 30, further comprises a second hardware processor and a second non-transitory memory for storing modules, wherein:

the hardware processor and non-transitory memory storing the definition module, sending module, receiving module and presentation module are operated by the user;

the second hardware processor and second non-transitory memory storing the detection module are operated by the recipient.

42. The system of claim 30, wherein the system resides on a server remotely located from the recipient and user, the system further comprising a network interface for allowing one or both of the recipient and user to remotely access the system.

43. The system of claim 30, further comprising a synchronization module for allowing the detecting module to operate in an offline mode without a network connection, the synchronization module connecting to a remote server when operating in an online mode with the network connection.

44. The system of claim 43, further comprising an alert generating module for generating alerts to the recipient for performance of the at least one action based on the time frame, the alert generating module generating alerts based on a local time module when in offline mode, and the alert generating module generating alerts based on synchronization with a time server when in online mode.

45. The system of claim 30, further comprising an external action interface for monitoring actions of the recipient for performance of the at least one action, wherein the at least one action is outside the scope of the electronic message.

46. The system of claim 45, further comprising one or more elements for monitoring actions of the recipient, comprising:

a location based server for detecting the position of the recipient, a call module for monitoring phone calls of the recipient, a short message service (SMS) module for monitoring SMS sent by the recipient, a download module for monitoring application downloads by the recipient, and a purchase module for monitoring online purchases by the recipient.