System and method for publishing calendar information to a publicly accessible location
First Claim
1. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for making availability information associated with a schedule file accessible to others without giving access to the schedule file, comprising:
- receiving, at a first calendar engine module, a first event input indicating the occurrence of an event for a user of the calendar engine module, the first event input comprising a start time for the first event, a duration for the first event, and a tentativeness identifier for the first event;
in response to receiving the first event input, instructing the calendar engine module to place the first event input in the schedule file, wherein the schedule file is maintained on a local machine that is not publicly accessible;
instructing the calendar engine module to parse the first event input for availability information comprising the start time for the first event, the duration of the first event, and the tentativeness identifier for the first event;
from the calendar engine module, forwarding the availability information to a publisher engine module;
in response to receiving the availability information, instructing the publisher engine module to create an availability file comprising the availability information;
wherein the availability file is stored in a non-proprietary format;
instructing the publisher engine module to publish the availability file to a server machine which is publicly accessible; and
scheduling, at a second calendar engine module, a second event by accessing the availability file to determine the tentativeness identifier and, based on the tentativeness identifier, determining whether the user is likely to be available to attend the second event.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Publishing to a publicly-accessible wide area network an availability file containing information on an individual'"'"'s availability to attend a proposed meeting. A user input, indicating the occurrence of an event, is accepted. Availability information is parsed out of the user input and published to an availability file located on a file server connected to a publicly accessible wide area network. The availability file is maintained in a commonly-recognized file format. Others can access the availability file over the publicly-accessible wide area network to ascertain the user'"'"'s availability to participate in a proposed event, such as attendance of a proposed meeting. These parties, however, do not have access to the user'"'"'s details of the occurrence of the event.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for making availability information associated with a schedule file accessible to others without giving access to the schedule file, comprising:
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receiving, at a first calendar engine module, a first event input indicating the occurrence of an event for a user of the calendar engine module, the first event input comprising a start time for the first event, a duration for the first event, and a tentativeness identifier for the first event;
in response to receiving the first event input, instructing the calendar engine module to place the first event input in the schedule file, wherein the schedule file is maintained on a local machine that is not publicly accessible;
instructing the calendar engine module to parse the first event input for availability information comprising the start time for the first event, the duration of the first event, and the tentativeness identifier for the first event;
from the calendar engine module, forwarding the availability information to a publisher engine module;
in response to receiving the availability information, instructing the publisher engine module to create an availability file comprising the availability information;
wherein the availability file is stored in a non-proprietary format;
instructing the publisher engine module to publish the availability file to a server machine which is publicly accessible; and
scheduling, at a second calendar engine module, a second event by accessing the availability file to determine the tentativeness identifier and, based on the tentativeness identifier, determining whether the user is likely to be available to attend the second event. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for planning a meeting having a proposed attendee, comprising:
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accepting, at a calendar engine module, a first input indicating a request to plan the meeting;
accepting, at the calendar engine module, a second input that identifies the proposed attendee;
in a background thread, retrieving an address indicating a publicly accessible location of an availability file containing availability information associated with the proposed attendee, the availability information comprising a start time for an event of the attendee, a duration for the event of the attendee, and a tentativeness identifier for the event of the attendee and the availability file being in a non-proprietary format;
accessing, at a publisher engine module, the availability file at the publicly accessible location to retrieve the availability information associated with the proposed attendee;
providing, at the calendar engine module, the availability information associated with the proposed attendee in a form that enables planning the meeting at a time when the proposed attendee does not have a scheduling conflict; and
scheduling, at the calendar engine module, the meeting by accessing the availability file to determine the tentativeness identifier and, based on the tentativeness identifier, determining whether the user is likely to be available to attend the second event. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11)
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12. A computer-readable medium having computer executable modules, comprising:
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a user interface module operative for receiving an event input defining an event, the event input comprising a start time for the event, a duration of the event, and a tentativeness identifier for the event;
a calendar engine module operative to parse the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier in response to receiving the event input from the user interface module, write the event input to a schedule file maintained at a location which is not publicly accessible, and transmit the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier;
a publisher engine module, responsive to the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier transmitted by the calendar engine module, operative to write the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier to an availability file maintained at a first publicly accessible location to make the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier publicly accessible; and
the publisher engine module further operative to access a remote file located at a second publicly accessible location over a publicly accessible wide area network containing the start time, the duration, and the tentativeness identifier and to access the availability file to determine the tentativeness identifier and, based on the tentativeness identifier, determining whether the user is likely to be available to attend a meeting. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14)
a header containing data representing an individual associated with the availability file and the number of days for which the availability file is valid. -
14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the start time comprises the date on which the event will occur.
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Specification