Method and apparatus for calendaring reminders

• US 8,108,436 B2
• Filed: 02/13/2008
• Issued: 01/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AOL Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Chhatrapati, Rupesh, Treitel, Richard J., Chester, Jon, Sobotka, David, Lao, Louis, Zaeske, Andrew, Vengadasubbu, Meera
• Primary Examiner(s): WILSON, KIMBERLY LOVEL
• Application Number:
  US12/030,796
• Publication Number:
  US 20080215691A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,448 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/796
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24547 Optimisations to support specific applications; Extensibility of optimisers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/951 Calendar or scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

An electronic calendar includes such features as recurring reminders, dividing unpredictable work loads into equal pieces, template free parsing, a reminders scheduling algorithm to reduce spikes, dynamic delivery and recovery algorithms, methods for splitting the work load between controllers and workers and for monitoring progress, all within the context of a calendar architecture for a large enterprise.

Claims

1. An apparatus for optimizing recurring database reminders, comprising:

a controller comprising a processor operatively coupled with a memory, said controller configured for providing a reminders service for storing recurring reminders, wherein said reminders service stores a probability hint along with event data with each recurring reminder, wherein each said probability hint further comprising a hint value that is specific to each recurrence type;

wherein said controller is further configured for queuing and dequeuing recurring reminders based only on said hint value rather than said event data itself;

wherein said hint optimizes, by ignoring said event data, a number of recurring queries that must be accessed to find all reminders to be sent during a time period.

2. A method for optimizing recurring database queries, comprising the steps of:

providing a reminders service for storing recurring queries reminders;

storing a probability hint along with event data with each recurring reminder, wherein each said probability hint further comprising a hint value that is specific to each recurrence type;

queuing and dequeuing recurring reminders based only on said hint value rather than said event data itself, such that said hint optimizes a number of recurring queries that must be accessed to find all reminders to be sent during a time period.