OUT-OF-OFFICE NOTIFICATION MECHANISM FOR EMAIL CLIENTS

• US 20160055456A1
• Filed: 04/02/2015
• Published: 02/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bhide, Manish A., Shenoy, Nithinkrishna
• Granted Patent: US 9,536,229 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/047 Pattern matching networks; Rete networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]

Abstract

A method for an out-of-office message notification system to notify at least one sender who has sent an email in a pre-defined time span prior to a start time associated with an out-of-office notification being set by a user is provided. The method may include identifying an unresponded email within a plurality of unresponded emails in an inbox received within the predefined time span prior to the start time associated with the out-of-office notification being set by a user. The method may also include sending an out-of-office message notification to the sender associated with the unresponded email.

Claims

1. A method for an out-of-office message notification system to notify at least one sender who has sent an email in a pre-defined time span prior to a start time associated with an out-of-office notification being set by a user, the method comprising:

identifying an unresponded email within a plurality of unresponded emails in an inbox received within the pre-defined time span prior to the start time associated with the out-of-office notification being set by a user; and

sending an out-of-office message notification to the sender associated with the unresponded email.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring the plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox associated with the out-of-office notification;

filtering a plurality of generic emails from the monitored plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox; and

creating a list of a plurality of senders associated with a plurality of emails which require a response from the monitored plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the pre-defined time span comprises determining a current time;

setting a start time associated with the out-of-office notification;

setting an end time associated with the out-of-office notification; and

determining a pre-determined time window wherein the pre-determined time window begins at time that is less than the start time.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the pre-determined time window comprises a time duration that is configurable by the user.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the monitoring and the analyzing the plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox occurs for a duration from the set start time minus the predetermined time window until the set start time and comprises adding the plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox to a shortlist.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox comprises monitoring if an email within the plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox has been responded to by the user.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox comprises removing a name associated with a recipient of the email in the inbox that has been responded to by the user.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of unresponded emails in the inbox comprises using a set of pre-defined rules created by the user.