Message data management

• US 8,161,125 B2
• Filed: 04/05/2011
• Issued: 04/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pearson, Malcolm Erik, Warman, Leon R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Moise, Emmanuel L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ashraf, Waseem
• Application Number:
  US13/080,418
• Publication Number:
  US 20110185027A1
• Time in Patent Office: 378 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/207, 709223-224
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

A workflow manager application transfers message data received from an originating device via a communication network to a target application for processing. A graphical user interface displays the received message data and allows the user to view and designate one or more target applications for processing the message data. The workflow manger application is responsive to user input to transfer message data to the designated one or more target applications for processing the message data. Alternatively, the workflow manager application analyzes received message data to identify one or more target applications, and transfers the message data to the identified one or more target applications for processing.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media having computer executable components executed by a computing device for transferring received message data to an application for processing, wherein said message data is included in an electronic message received from a messaging device, said computer-readable storage media comprising:

an intent determining component for determining an intent of the received message data;

a decision component for defining a target application as a function of the determined intent;

a tracking component for identifying a message thread based on the received message data, said identified message thread including at least two electronic messages each having message data, wherein the tracking component is responsive to the identified message thread for identifying a thread number for each of the at least two electronic messages in the identified message thread, said thread number corresponding to a chronological sequence in which each of the at least two electronic messages were received from the messaging device; and

a transfer component for transferring the received message data to the defined target application for processing.

2. The computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the intent determining component determines the intent by calculating a transfer probability that the received message data is intended to be transferred to a particular application, and wherein the computer-readable media further comprises a storage component for storing a list of applications and a corresponding threshold value for each application in of the list of applications, and wherein the intent determining component calculates the transfer probability for each application in the list of applications, and wherein the decision component compares the calculated transfer probability for each application to the corresponding threshold value for each application to define one or more target applications.

3. The computer-readable storage media of claim 2, wherein the decision component defines a particular application in the list of applications as a target application when the calculated transfer probability for that particular application is greater than the corresponding threshold value for that particular application, and wherein the transfer component transfer the received message data to that particular target application for processing.

4. The computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the intent determining component includes:

an analyzer for categorizing the received message data;

a parser for separating the categorized message data into logical structures;

an extractor for extracting features from the categorized and separated data; and

a classifier for comparing extracted features to training set data to determine the intent of the extracted features.

5. The computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the tracking component is further responsive to the identified message thread to create or update a thread tracking log, said tracking log:

storing the defined target application for processing message data included in each of the at least two electronic messages included in the identified message thread; and

storing the identified thread number for each of the at least two electronic messages.

6. The computer-readable storage media of claim 1, wherein the tracking component identifies the thread number for each of the at least two electronic messages as a function of the message data.

7. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the tracking component compares message data included in a most recent electronic message in the chronological sequence to the message data included in a next most recent electronic message in the chronological sequence to determine if updated message data is associated with the most recent electronic message.

8. The computer-readable storage media of claim 7, wherein the transfer component is responsive to the updated message data to transfer the updated message data to the defined target application for processing.

9. A system for transferring received message data to an application for processing, wherein said message data is included in an electronic message received from a messaging device, said system comprising:

a computer processor; and

a computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computer processor-executable instructions, said instructions executable by the computer processor for;

determining an intent of the received message data;

defining a target application as a function of the determined intent;

identifying a message thread based on the received message data, said message thread including at least two electronic messages each having message data;

identifying a thread number for each of the at least two electronic messages in the identified message thread as a function of the message data, said thread number corresponding to a chronological sequence in which each of the at least two electronic messages were received at the destination device;

transferring the received message data to the defined target application for processing;

comparing message data included in a most recent electronic message in the chronological sequence to the message data included in a next most recent electronic message in the chronological sequence to determine if updated message data is associated with the most recent electronic message; and

transferring the updated message data to the defined target application for processing.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer processor-executable instructions further include instructions for storing a list of applications and a corresponding threshold value for each application in of the list of applications in a memory.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein said determining an intent includes calculating a transfer probability for each application in the list of applications.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer processor-executable instructions further instructions for:

comparing the calculated transfer probability for each application to the corresponding threshold value for each application to determine whether to transfer the message data to one or more a target applications; and

defining a particular application in the list of applications as the target application when the calculated transfer probability for that particular application is greater than the corresponding threshold value for that particular application.

13. A computerized method for transferring received message data to an application for processing, wherein said message data is included in an electronic message received from a messaging device, said method comprising:

storing a list of applications and a corresponding threshold value for each application in of the list of applications in a memory;

determining an intent of the received message data;

defining a target application as a function of the determined intent;

identifying a message thread based on the received message data, said message thread including at least two electronic messages each having message data;

identifying a thread number for each of the at least two electronic messages in the identified message thread as a function of the message data, said thread number corresponding to a chronological sequence in which each of the at least two electronic messages were received at the destination device;

transferring the received message data to the defined target application for processing;

comparing message data included in a most recent electronic message in a chronological sequence to the message data included in a next most recent electronic message in the chronological sequence to determine if updated message data is associated with the most recent electronic message; and

transferring the updated message data to the defined target application for processing.

14. The method of claim 13, said determining an intent including calculating a transfer probability for each application in the list of applications.

15. The method of claim 14, said method further comprising:

comparing the calculated transfer probability for each application to the corresponding threshold value for each application to determine whether to transfer the message data to one or more a target applications; and

defining a particular application in the list of applications as the target application when the calculated transfer probability for that particular application is greater than the corresponding threshold value for that particular application.