Managing event-based conditional recurrent schedules

• US 8,166,145 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2008
• Issued: 04/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tran, Anh P., Moore, Lloyd Alfred, Guillory, Christopher Todd, Waliczek, Gary Jason, Hattangady, Poonam Ganesh, Sapek, Adam, Liu, Albert, Prakash, Kishore Kumar, Ly, Jane Van-nha
• Primary Examiner(s): JEAN, FRANTZ B
• Application Number:
  US12/051,849
• Publication Number:
  US 20090182608A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,496 Days
• Field of Search: 709/225, 709/203, 709/223, 718/100, 718/102, 718/103, 725/97
• US Class Current: 709/223
• 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

Abstract

Managing recurrent schedules based on events and conditions. Schedules from a plurality of applications are identified based on an activation time for the schedules and a determination of whether or not conditions defined for the schedules are met. The identified schedules are activated by performing actions associated with each of the identified schedules. In an embodiment, the schedules are grouped based on functionality and prioritized to avoid conflicts within each group.

Claims

1. One or more computer storage media having computer-executable components for managing recurrent schedules on a mobile device, said components comprising:

a memory component that when executed causes a processor of the mobile device to access a plurality of recurrent schedules based on a defined activation time associated therewith, each of said plurality of recurrent schedules further having one or more activation conditions corresponding to a state of the mobile device;

an interface component that when executed causes a processor of the mobile device to receive notification of availability of a resource on the mobile device;

a condition component that when executed causes a processor of the mobile device to identify, based on the notification received by the interface component and the activation conditions associated with the plurality of recurrent schedules, at least two of the plurality of recurrent schedules accessed by the memory component; and

an activation component that when executed causes a processor of the mobile device to execute the at least two of the plurality of recurrent schedules identified by the condition component to use the resource.

2. The computer storage media of claim 1, further comprising a throttle component for limiting a quantity of schedules executed by the activation component as a function of a predefined limit value.

3. The computer storage media of claim 1, wherein the resource comprises a connection to a network, and wherein at least one of the plurality of recurrent schedules has associated therewith a plurality of the activation conditions combined via a Boolean operator.

4. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, an event notification;

accessing a plurality of recurrent schedules, each of said plurality of recurrent schedules having a defined activation time and one or more activation conditions associated therewith, the one or more activation conditions corresponding to a state of the computing device;

identifying at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules as a function of the received event notification, a current time, the defined activation time, and the activation conditions of each of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules; and

activating, by the computing device, the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein activating the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules comprising executing one or more actions associated with the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising grouping the plurality of recurrent schedules based on the actions.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising assigning a priority value to each of the recurrent schedules in each of the groups, wherein the assigned priority value is unique within each of the groups.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein identifying the at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules comprises identifying the at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules as a function of the assigned priority value.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein accessing the plurality of recurrent schedules comprises accessing the plurality of recurrent schedules associated with a plurality of application programs.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein accessing the plurality of recurrent schedules comprises accessing a plurality of groups of recurrent schedules, wherein each of the groups corresponds to one of the application programs.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein receiving the event notification comprises receiving notification that a resource is available, and wherein identifying the at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules comprises identifying at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules that use the available resource.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

suspending the activated at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules when the resource becomes unavailable; and

attempting to re-activate the suspended at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules at linearly increasing intervals until the resource becomes available.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

suspending the activated at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules when the resource becomes unavailable; and

attempting to re-activate the suspended at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules at exponentially increasing intervals until the resource becomes available.

14. The method of claim 4, further comprising defining a throttling limit, and wherein activating the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules comprises activating a quantity of the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules that is less than the defined throttling limit.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the identified at least two of the accessed plurality of recurrent schedules activate on a mobile device, and wherein defining the throttling limit comprises defining the throttling limit as a function of a consumption state of a resource on the mobile device.

16. A system comprising:

a memory area for storing a plurality of groups of recurrent schedules, wherein the recurrent schedules in each of the groups are defined for mutually exclusive execution, each of the recurrent schedules having a defined activation time and one or more activation conditions associated therewith, the one or more activation conditions corresponding to a state of a computing device; and

a processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions for;

receiving notification of an event;

identifying, based on the received notification and the activation conditions associated with the recurrent schedules, one of the recurrent schedules within at least one of the groups of recurrent schedules stored in the memory area; and

executing, on the computing device only the identified one of the recurrent schedules within the at least one of the groups.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein each of the recurrent schedules has a defined interval duration between activation times.

18. The system of claim 17, further comprising means for managing each of the recurrent schedules based on the defined interval duration and activation conditions for each of the recurrent schedules.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the processor is associated with a scheduler service, and wherein the processor is further configured to execute computer-executable instructions for receiving a description of a predefined event from a user or an application program for use by the scheduler service.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising means for batching a plurality of the recurrent schedules, wherein the processor is further configured to execute computer-executable instructions for executing each of the batched plurality of schedules before receiving another notification.