Methods and interfaces for probing and understanding behaviors of alerting and filtering systems based on models and simulation from logs

• US 7,664,249 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2004
• Issued: 02/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Horvitz, Eric J., Apacible, Johnson T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gauthier; Gerald
• Application Number:
  US10/882,019
• Publication Number:
  US 20060002532A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,057 Days
• Field of Search: 379/88.09, 379/221.05, 379/221.15, 379/112.01, 379/142.02, 379/197, 379/219, 379/266.01, 709/207, 709/219, 709/206, 709/224, 455/412.2, 455/466, 455/414.3, 370/254
• US Class Current: 379/221.05
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5022 by giving priorities, e.g. assigning classes of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5093 wherein the managed service relates to messaging or chat services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42365 Presence services providing information on the willingness to communicate or the ability to communicate in terms of media capability or network connectivity

Abstract

The present invention relates to systems and methods that predict behaviors of alerting and filtering systems based on simulation from messaging logs. By logging contextual information, such as the presence, activity, and availability of users, as well as incoming messages and their properties, forecasting services can be created that serve to provide users with an interactive “what if” capability, informing them what they might expect in terms of future behaviors of an automated message alerting and/or filtering system, based on recent messaging histories. A log of the history of incoming messages and contextual data is examined by modeling and simulation tools. The tools reveal the influence of alternate settings on the system'"'"'s behavior, in response to an expected stream of incoming messages, providing users with insights about how control settings affect alerting, filtering, or routing behaviors.

Claims

1. A system that provides predictions relating to future communications performance, comprising:

computer storage medium comprising a data store that logs past communications traffic directed to a user;

a model that predicts a future amount of communications traffic in each of a plurality of categories based upon the past communications activities and user context information; and

computer storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, provide a user interface through which a user may supply at least one threshold setting, modifiable by the user, that influences the model in regard to the prediction of the future number of communications in one or more of the plurality of categories, wherein the user interface displays the predicted future number of communications in each of a plurality of categories as a function of modifications to the at least one threshold setting.

2. The system of claim 1, the model is associated with at least one of an urgency model, a context model, a notification model, and or a presence model.

3. The system of claim 1, the model is employed with a simulator to determine future numbers of e-mails in each of the plurality of categories.

4. The system of claim 1, the model is employed with a forecasting service that serves predictions to local or remote applications.

5. The system of claim 1, the user interface is associated with a desktop or a mobile device.

6. The system of claim 1, the data store logs data from previous prioritized alerts having varying priorities, information relating to a user'"'"'s presence, absence or availability, or information relating to the user'"'"'s context including their present state of busyness or focus of attention.

7. The system of claim 1, the at least one threshold setting is associated with at least one of a low, medium, or high priority category.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one of a priorities system, a notification system, and or a coordinate system to facilitate communications.

9. The system of claim 1, the model is trained over time based upon past communications traffic logged in the data store.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the model predicts the future amount of communications traffic further based on user location information.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the user location information comprises presence or absence relative to a computer device.

12. A method to facilitate tuning of an automated communications system, comprising:

automatically logging past communications activities of a system;

operating at least one processor to perform a method comprising;

predicting the future communications performance of the system, the predicting being based on the logged past communications activities;

receiving adjustments through a user interface by specifying a threshold associated with communications in a category;

automatically providing feedback associated with the future communications performance in response to the adjustments, the feedback indicating a number of expected communications to be received in the category based on the specified threshold.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the logging includes message amounts, priorities associated with the messages, frequencies of messages, time stamps for messages, presence or availability data for the user, or user context data.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the predicting is determined using an influence model or a rule-based model.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the automatically logging comprises logging settings over time as communications are received.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising providing audio or visual feedback relating to future communications activity that is predicted based on models of past activities.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising automatically re-computing predictions based upon changes to the adjustments.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the user interface is a graphical user interface comprising:

a display object associated with configuring parameters relating to an automated communications system;

at least one input to configure the parameters; and

a component to predict changes with respect to the parameters, the changes relating to expected performance of the automated communications system;

wherein the display object displays feedback associated with the changes relating to expected performance of the automated communications system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the automated communications system is at least one of a message prioritization system, a notification system, or a presence forecasting system.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the input is associated with at least one of a desktop communications application, a mobile communications application, and or a web browser.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein the graphical user interface further comprises a component to display a number of predicted desktop alerts as a function of the number of messages received per message priorities.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein the message priorities are associated with a low, medium, and high parameter.

23. The method of claim 18, wherein the input is associated with a configurable threshold setting relating to message priority.

24. The method of claim 18, wherein the graphical user interface further comprises at least one of a sound enabler, a text herald display with message, a selection for priorities messages having focus on a desktop application, a setting enabling an information herald to follow a user'"'"'s focus of attention, a selection for deferring alerts if a priorities system detects a busyness state, a selection for deferring alerts if conversation is detected, or a time specification for an amount of delay applied to a message deferral.

25. The method of claim 18, wherein the graphical user interface comprises a component that supplies a prediction that is assigned for notifications having a priority above a given value and a user'"'"'s presence has been determined to be away for a selectable time period.

26. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the predieting comprises predicting using a model; and

the method further comprises building the model using Bayesian learning.

27. A system to facilitate communications system adjustment comprising:

a computer comprising a processor and computer storage media implementing;

means for logging communications activities of a system or user;

means for determining expected communications performance of the system;

means for determining user context information;

means for predicting a future amount of communications traffic in each of a plurality of categories based upon the logged communications activities and the user context information;

means for user configuration of the system by adjusting the allocation of communications traffic into categories of the plurality of categories;

means for displaying the expected communications performance in response to configuring the system; and

means for notifying a user of a received communication in accordance with a category into which the communication is allocated based on the configuration.

28. A system that provides predictions relating to future communications performance, comprising:

computer storage medium comprising a data store that logs past communications traffic directed to a user;

computer storage medium comprising computer executable instructions that, when executed, implement;

a model that predicts a future number of communications in each of a plurality of categories based upon the past communications activities, user presence data and user modifications to preference settings that configure the system to assign a received communications to a category of a plurality of categories; and

a simulator that influences the model in regard to the predicted number of future communications in each of the plurality of categories and the modifications to preference settings and generates simulations associated with the influenced model.

29. The system of claim 28, the simulator is associated with an interface that includes user adjustable settings that influence the model.

30. The system of claim 29, the simulator generates an output to the interface regarding future communications patterns, the output includes at least one of textual, audio, visual, and or numeric data.

31. The system of claim 30, the simulator determines future message alerting or routing performance that includes at least one of SPAM, e-mail, junk mail, Instant Messages, voice mail, and or telephone calls.

32. The system of claim 30, the simulator assumes stationary conditions, reruns a simulation trace with new settings, and employs the output as predictive feedback regarding statistics about future events.

33. The system of claim 30, further comprising a component to encode properties of messages.

34. The system of claim 28, communications activities are associated with a mobile or a desktop device.

35. The system of claim 28, the simulator analyzes threshold information to determine future communications activities.

36. The system of claim 28, the threshold information is associated with urgency settings or filter settings.

37. The system of claim 36, further comprising a visualization relating to headers of messages that would have been kept in a regular inbox versus filtered into a junk email folder or deleted.