Human interaction with application from email client

• US 8,694,895 B2
• Filed: 06/29/2007
• Issued: 04/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/05/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sanchez, Lawrence, Staiman, Jeff, Pekic, Zoltan
• Primary Examiner(s): Hur, Ece
• Application Number:
  US11/771,915
• Publication Number:
  US 20080189622A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,475 Days
• Field of Search: 715/751, 715/752, 709/206
• US Class Current: 715/752
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

The embodiments described herein generally relate to systems and methods for providing human interaction with a business application from an email client. To complete a business process, individuals often must provide information to a business application. However, it may be difficult for the individual to interact with the application if the user is not familiar with the application'"'"'s user interface (UI) or if it is necessary to navigate to the application'"'"'s UI. Accordingly, it may be more efficient to interact with the application using a UI within an email client. User input for an automated business process can be submitted from a general-purpose email client. Benefits from such include providing input to a business application while working within the familiar email interface; not needing to switch contexts to complete work for the application; and completing work for the application while being offline or having limited corporate network connectivity.

Claims

1. A method for enabling interactions of a business process application with a general-purpose email client, the method comprising:

receiving, by the email client, an electronic mail (email) message from the business process application, wherein the email message comprises a process ID, and wherein the process ID associates the email message with a workflow in the business process application;

determining whether the email message is an approval message, wherein the approval message requests input for applying to the workflow in the business process application, wherein the determination of whether the email message is an approval message is performed by analyzing a message class of the email message;

upon determining that the email message is an approval message, adding user interface (UI) controls related to a functionality required to respond to the approval message and disabling UI controls that are not required to respond to the approval message, wherein the UI controls are added to a toolbar of a window of the general-purpose email client displaying the approval message upon opening the approval message, and wherein the user interface controls are to indicate the following responses;

Approve, Reject, Cancel, Delegate, Extend, Retire, Complete, Not Complete, Add, Remove, Expire, and Join;

receiving a response to the request in the approval message;

determining an endpoint to send the response by determining a type of the email message and comparing the type of the email message and correlating the determined type of message with a list that identifies one or more endpoints based on the type of the email message; and

sending the response to the determined endpoint for processing the response, wherein the response comprises the process ID to enable the business process application at the determined endpoint to associate the response with the workflow.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the response determines a course of action for the associated workflow.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is performed by an add-in is integrated into the email client.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the email message comprises business data.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the process ID coordinates the approval message and the response with associated business tasks executed by the business process application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the endpoint to which to send the response to the request in the approval message is determined based on the content of the response to the request in the approval message.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the disabled UI controls comprise at least one of Reply and Replay to All.

8. A system for enabling interactions of a business process application with a general-purpose email client, comprising:

at least one processor; and

memory coupled to the at least one processor, the memory comprising computer-program instructions executable by the at least one processor that when executed perform a method comprising;

receiving, by the email client, an email message from the business process application, wherein the email message comprises a process ID, and wherein the process ID associates the email message with a workflow in the business process application;

determining whether the email message is an approval message, wherein the approval message requests input for applying to the workflow in the business process application, wherein the determination of whether the email message is an approval message is performed by analyzing a message class of the email message;

upon determining that the email message is an approval message;

adding user interface (UI) controls related to a functionality required to respond to the approval message, wherein the UI controls are added to a toolbar of a window of the general-purpose email client displaying the approval message upon opening the approval message, and wherein the user interface controls are to indicate the following responses;

Approve, Reject, Cancel, Delegate, Extend, Retire, Complete, Not Complete, Add, Remove, Expire, and Join; and

disabling UI controls that are unrelated to the approval message from the toolbar of the window of the general-purpose email client;

receiving a response to the request in the approval message;

determining an endpoint to send the response by determining a type of the email message and comparing the type of the email message and correlating the determined type of message with a list that identifies one or more endpoints based on the type of the email message; and

sending the response to the determined endpoint for processing response, wherein the response comprises the process ID to enable the business process application at the determined endpoint to associate the response with the workflow.

9. A system as defined in claim 8, further comprising determining a course of action for the workflow based on the response.

10. A system as defined in claim 8, wherein an email client add-in performs one or more from the group consisting of:

determining whether the email message is an approval message, wherein the approval message requests input for applying to a workflow in the business process application;

when the email message is an approval message, adding user interface (UI) controls related to a functionality required to respond to the approval message, wherein the UI controls are added to a toolbar of a window of the general-purpose email client displaying the approval message upon opening the approval message;

receiving a response to the request in the approval message; and

sending the response to the business process application for processing the response.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the email client add-in is integrated into the email client.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the disabled UI controls comprise at least one of Reply and Reply to All.

11. A storage device storing executable instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method of enabling interactions of a business process application with a general-purpose email client, the method comprising:

receiving, by the general-purpose email client, an email message from the business process application;

determining whether the email message is an approval message by analyzing a message class of the email message, wherein the approval message requests input for applying to a workflow in the business process application, and wherein the approval message comprises a process ID that associates the email message with a workflow in the business process application;

upon determining that the email message is an approval message;

adding user interface (UI) controls related to a functionality required to respond to the approval message, wherein the UI controls are added to a toolbar of a window of the general-purpose email client displaying the approval message upon opening the approval message, and wherein the user interface controls are to indicate the following responses;

Approve, Reject, Cancel, Delegate, Extend, Retire, Complete, Not Complete, Add, Remove, Expire, and Join; and

disabling UI controls that are unrelated to the approval message from the toolbar of the window of the general-purpose email client;

receiving a response to the request in the approval message;

determining an endpoint to send the response by determining a type of the email message and comparing the type of the email message and correlating the determined type of message with a list that identifies one or more endpoints based on the type of the email message; and

sending the response to the determined endpoint for processing the response, wherein the response comprises the process ID to enable the business process application at the determined endpoint to associate the response with the workflow.

12. The computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 11, wherein an email client add-in performs one or more from the group consisting of:

determining whether the email message is an approval message, wherein the approval message requests input for applying to a workflow in the business process application;

when the email message is an approval message, adding user interface (UI) controls related to a functionality required to respond to the approval message, wherein the UI controls are added to a toolbar of a window of the approval message upon opening the approval message;

receiving a response to the request in the approval message; and

sending the response to the business process application for processing the response.

15. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the disabled UI controls comprise at least one of Reply and Reply to All.

16. The storage device of claim 11, further comprising determining a course of action for the workflow based on the response.

17. The storage device of claim 11, wherein the response determines a course of action for the associated workflow.