Out-of-office notification mechanism for email clients

• US 9,536,229 B2
• Filed: 04/02/2015
• Issued: 01/03/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2014
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bhide, Manish A., Shenoy, Nithinkrishna
• Primary Examiner(s): Serrao, Ranodhi
• Assistant Examiner(s): FIORILLO, JAMES N
• Application Number:
  US14/677,440
• Publication Number:
  US 20160055456A1
• Time in Patent Office: 642 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/047 Pattern matching networks; Rete networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]

Abstract

A method for an out-of-office message notification system to notify at least one sender who has sent an email in a pre-defined time span prior to a start time associated with an out-of-office notification being set by a user is provided. The method may include identifying an unresponded email within a plurality of unresponded emails in an inbox received within the pre-defined time span prior to the start time associated with the out-of-office notification being set by a user. The method may also include sending an out-of-office message notification to the sender associated with the unresponded email.

Claims

1. A method for an online out-of-office message notification system to notify at least one sender who has sent an email in a pre-defined time span prior to a start time associated with an online out-of-office notification being set by a user and to notify at least one other sender who has sent an email in a predefined time span following the start time associated with the online out-of-office notification being set by the user, the method comprising:

in response to the online out-of-office notification being set by the user, monitoring a plurality of emails associated with the user;

detecting a plurality of emails being received within the monitored plurality of emails;

analyzing the detected received plurality of emails;

identifying a first plurality of un-responded emails within the analyzed received plurality of un-responded emails, wherein the identified first plurality of un-responded emails is in an inbox and was received within the pre-defined time span prior to the start time associated with the out-of-office notification being set by the user and wherein the identified first plurality of un-responded emails was determined to require a first response;

identifying a second plurality of un-responded emails within the analyzed received plurality of emails, wherein the identified second plurality of un-responded emails is in the inbox and was received within the pre-defined time span following the start time associated with the out-of-office notification being set by the user, and wherein the identified second plurality of un-responded emails was determined to require a second response;

sending a first out-of-office message notification to the at least one sender associated with at least one un-responded email within the identified first plurality of un-responded emails; and

sending a second out-of-office message notification to the at least one other sender associated with at least one un-responded email within the identified second plurality of un-responded emails.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

filtering a plurality of generic emails from the monitored plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox; and

creating a list of a plurality of senders associated with a plurality of emails which require a response from the monitored plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox comprises monitoring if an email within the plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox has been responded to by the user.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox comprises removing a name associated with a recipient of the email in the inbox that has been responded to by the user.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the filtering the plurality of generic emails from the analyzed plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox comprises using a set of pre-defined rules created by the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the pre-defined time span comprises determining a current time;

setting a start time associated with the out-of-office notification;

setting an end time associated with the out-of-office notification; and

determining a pre-determined time window wherein the pre-determined time window begins at time that is less than the start time.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the pre-determined time window comprises a time duration that is configurable by the user.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the monitoring and the analyzing of the plurality of un-responded emails occurs for a duration from the set start time minus the pre-determined time window until the set start time and comprises adding the plurality of un-responded emails in the inbox to a shortlist.