Activity state viewing and recording system

• US 6,618,756 B1
• Filed: 08/30/1999
• Issued: 09/09/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Katsurabayashi, Hiroshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Assistant Examiner(s): LIN, KENNY S
• Application Number:
  US09/385,471
• Time in Patent Office: 1,471 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/224, 709/223, 709/225, 709/227, 709/229, 709/318, 709/313, 709/217, 702/188, 702/186, 713/187, 713/177, 707/9, 707/104.1, 705/10, 434/350
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

The states of activities by a plurality of users regarding a given project are kept track of, including activities personally carried out by individual users. An information processing unit processes, upon request from a user, work data in a joint work data management unit and personal work data management units. A shared activity information management unit and personal activity information management units manage joint work data and personal work data in the joint work data management unit and the personal work data management units as activity information. An activity information tracing unit, on the basis of activity information separately managed by the shared activity information management unit and the personal activity information management units, extracts particulars of a sequence of operations performed on a specific activity. The states of activities can be thereby kept track of, including activities personally carried out by individual users.

Claims

1. An activity state general viewing system for keeping track of circumstances and states of activities where a plurality of persons are working in conjunction on said activities, the system comprising:

a plurality of work data management units for storing work data representing contents of the activities;

a state information management unit for judging and managing the state of the activities including presented and unpresented contributions by the plurality of persons working on the activities;

an information processing unit for processing work data in the work data management units in compliance with requests from users;

a plurality of activity information management units, one provided for each of said work data management units, for managing, as activity information, particulars of at least one operation performed on work data, stored in the corresponding one of said work data management units;

a relative contribution calculating unit for calculating the relative contribution of each of the plurality of persons including presented and unpresented contributions; and

an activity information tracing unit for extracting, on a basis of activity information, separately managed by the plurality of said activity information management units, data representative of particulars of a sequence of operations performed on a specific activity.

2. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 1, wherein:

said work data management units comprise a joint work data management unit for managing joint work data available for use by a plurality of users, and personal work data management units for managing personal work data each of which is available for exclusive use by a user, and

said activity information management units comprise a shared activity information management unit for managing activity information regarding at least one operation performed on joint work data, managed by said joint work data management unit, and personal activity information management units, one for each of the plurality of users, for managing activity information regarding at least one operation performed on personal work data managed by said personal work data management units.

3. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 2, further provided with an access authority control unit for determining whether or not to permit access to said personal activity information management unit from said activity information tracing unit.

4. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 3, wherein said access authority control unit effects access authority control separately over, (a) access to operational information that is complete within said personal activity information management units, and (b) operational information including transmission and reception to and from outside said personal activity information management units.

5. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 2, provided with an unproposed information quantity assessing unit for assessing the quantity of information not proposed as joint work data, out of all activity information managed by said personal activity information management units.

6. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 2, further provided with a contributory relationship analyzing unit for analyzing a contents of (a) activity information managed by said shared activity information management, and (b) said personal activity information management units, and determining what aspect of a conclusion or project each person has contributed to.

7. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 6, further provided with a relative contribution calculating unit for analyzing the contents of (a) activity information managed by said shared activity information management unit, and (b) said personal activity information management units, and determining how much each person has contributed to the conclusion or project.

8. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 7, further provided with an alternative retrieval unit for analyzing a contents of activity information managed by said activity information management unit, and retrieving, as possible alternatives to the conclusion, unadopted opinions which were among opinions proposed in a process leading to the conclusion but did not find their way into the conclusion.

9. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 1, further provided with an activity information compressed storage unit for collecting activity information regarding completed joint work in said activity information management unit, and storing the activity information in a compressed form by deleting any duplicated information regarding any similar operation.

10. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 1, further provided with a work process retrieval unit for retrieving job commissioning relationships within a project managed by said joint work data management unit.

11. The activity state general viewing system, as claimed in claim 1, further provided with a state management unit for managing a state of a project on a basis of activity information managed by said activity information management units.

12. An activity state general viewing method for keeping track of circumstances and states of activities where a plurality of persons are working in conjunction on said activities, whereby:

particulars of at least one operation performed on work data stored in a plurality of work data management units are managed as activity information for each of said work data management units,

states of activities are judged and managed by a state information management unit, including presented and unpresented contributions by the plurality of persons working on each activity;

data representative of particulars of a sequence of operations performed on a specific activity are extracted by an activity information tracing unit on a basis of activity information managed for each of said work data management units; and

relative contributions of each of the plurality of persons working on each activity are determined, including presented and unpresented contributions, by a relative contribution calculating unit.

13. An activity state general viewing program, recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, for keeping track of circumstances and states of activities where a plurality of persons are working in conjunction on said activities,

said program causing a computer to function as:

a plurality of work data management units for storing work data representing contents of the activities;

an information processing unit for processing work data in said work data management units in compliance with request from users;

a state information management unit for judging and managing the state of each activity, including presented and unpresented contributions;

a plurality of activity information management units, one provided for each of said work data management units, for managing, as activity information, particulars of at least one operation performed on work data stored in a corresponding one of said work data management units;

a relative contribution calculating unit for calculating the relative contribution of each of a plurality of persons working on each activity, including presented and unpresented contributions; and

an activity information tracing unit for extracting, on a basis of activity information separately managed by the plurality of said activity information management units, data representative of particulars of a sequence of operations performed on a specific activity.