Managing conversations

• US 10,757,057 B2
• Filed: 01/18/2017
• Issued: 08/25/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Friend, Ned Bearer, Baer, Matthias, Smith, Nicholas, Lacey, Trevor Neil, Engrav, Peter Loren, Borysenko, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Tan H
• Application Number:
  US15/409,493
• Publication Number:
  US 20170126608A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,315 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0486 Drag-and-drop
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/216 Handling conversation history, e.g. grouping of messages in sessions or threads
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes

Abstract

Technologies are generally described for providing a system to facilitate efficient management and prioritization of conversations, such as emails, in a communication application. Conversations may be prioritized according to user preferences, and an inbox may be rearranged to display important conversations in a user defined order. Conversations may also be associated together so that they may appear together and flow together in the inbox. Additionally, the system may enable a user to delay display of a conversation until a later time based on various criteria such as location, time, and client device. A user may also move important emails to the top of an inbox for prominent display. The system may perform the actions automatically based on observed user behavior. Furthermore, the system may enable touch interactions for interacting with and managing the conversations, and quick controls may be provided for executing commands to perform actions associated with the conversations.

Claims

1. A method to be executed in a computing device for managing conversations in a communication application, the method comprising:

detecting activation of a renew action associated with a message selected among a plurality of messages displayed in a chronological order on a user interface of the communication application;

enabling display of the selected message as a renewed message at a top most recent position of the chronological order, wherein a read state of the selected message is maintained in the renewed message, and an original header and a body of the selected message is preserved in the renewed message without an insertion of a forward header to the selected message;

in response to receiving a new message in the communication application, determining whether a predefined period of time has expired;

when the predefined period of time has expired, enabling display of the new message in the top most recent position of the chronological order and enabling display of the renewed message in a second most recent position of the chronological order below the top most recent position of the chronological order; and

when the predefined period of time has not expired, maintaining the renewed message at the top most recent position of the chronological order and enabling display of the new message in the second most recent position of the chronological order.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising;

enabling display of a list of selectable actions to be performed on a displayed message, the selectable actions including one or more of;

the renew action, a done action, and a snooze action.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the activation of the renew action associated with the selected message further comprises:

detecting selection of a renew option displayed on a toolbar provided on the user interface of the communication application.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein detecting selection of the renew option displayed on the toolbar further comprises one of:

detecting a touch interaction on the renew option while the message is selected; and

detecting a drag and drop of the selected message over the renew option on the toolbar.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically renewing a message based on an identified pattern of user behavior including one or more of;

detection of a draft reply, detection of reading of the message, detection of an expected reply message not being received.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting selection of one or more messages on a user interface of the communication application;

detecting activation of a done action displayed on one of;

a popup pane and a toolbar; and

one of hiding and minimizing the one or more selected messages on the user interface.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

allowing sorting of the messages based on original timestamps and renewed timestamps.

8. A computing device for managing conversations, the computing device comprising:

a memory;

a display; and

a processor coupled to the memory and the display, the processor configured to provide a user interface associated with a communication application, wherein the communication application is configured to;

detect activation of a renew action associated with a message selected among a plurality of messages displayed in a chronological order on the user interface of the communication application;

enable display of the selected message as a renewed message at a top most recent position of the chronological order, wherein a read state of the selected message is maintained in the renewed message, and an original header and a body of the selected message is preserved in the renewed message without an insertion of a forward header to the selected message; and

in response to receiving a new message in the communication application, determine whether a predefined period of time has expired;

when the predefined period of time has expired, enable display of the new message in the top most recent position of the chronological order and enable display of the renewed message in a second most recent position of the chronological order; and

when the predefined period of time has not expired, maintain the renewed message at the top most recent position of the chronological order and enable display of the new message in the second most recent position of the chronological order.

9. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the communication application is further configured to enable display of a list of selectable actions upon detection of the selection of the message, the selectable actions including one or more of:

the renew action, a done action, and a snooze action.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the communication application is further configured to:

enable display of a list of snooze options upon detection of activation of the snooze action associated with the selected message.

11. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the list of snooze options includes one or more of:

a device based option, time estimation based option, a user behavior based option, and a user based option.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the device based option includes an identification of a particular type of computing device associated with a user for the snooze action to be activated.

13. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the time estimation based option includes an automatic determination of exceeding of a predefined limit on word count in the message for the snooze action to be activated.

14. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the user based option includes an automatic identification of behavior associated with how a user addresses received messages based on a particular subject and a particular length of each message.

15. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the user based option includes an identification of logging in of the recipient of the message.

16. The computing device of claim 8, wherein the communication application is further configured to enable display of a toolbar including one or more quick actions for interacting with the communication application, the one or more quick actions including at least one of:

the renew action, a snooze action, a create new message action, a search action, a scheduler action, an instant messaging initiation action, and a stack action.

17. A method for managing conversations in a communication application, the method comprising:

enabling display of a toolbar of a user interface of the communication application, wherein the toolbar includes one or more quick actions for interacting with the communication application, the one or more quick actions including a renew action, a snooze action, a create new message action, a search action, a scheduler action, and an instant messaging initiation action;

detecting activation of the snooze action associated with a message selected among a plurality of messages displayed on the user interface of the communication application in a chronological order;

enabling display of a list of snooze options associated with the selected message, wherein the list of snooze options includes at least

enabling display of the selected message when the recipient is with a selected user;

hiding the selected message; and

enabling display of the selected message again based on one or more selected snooze options from the list of snooze options,

wherein the list of snooze options further includes enabling display of the selected message based on a determination of a number of times and an interval for the snooze action to be activated, enabling display of the selected message when the recipient of the message is logged in, and enabling display of the selected message during a free timeslot in a calendar of the recipient of the message.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the list of snooze options further includes enabling display of the selected message at a date and a time specified by the recipient.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein hiding the selected message comprises:

one of removing the selected message from the user interface of the communication application and minimizing the message on the user interface of the communication application.