Controls and displays for acquiring preferences, inspecting behavior, and guiding the learning and decision policies of an adaptive communications prioritization and routing system

• US 7,844,666 B2
• Filed: 12/12/2001
• Issued: 11/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Baribault, Gregory P., Horvitz, Eric J.
• Primary Examiner(s): SHAW, PELING ANDREW
• Application Number:
  US10/021,621
• Publication Number:
  US 20030046421A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,275 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/206, 709/207, 709/232, 709217-219, 709/236, 709/238, 715/733, 715/738, 715/744, 715/747, 715/751, 715/752
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology to enable a plurality of information associated with electronic messages to be automatically prioritized by a message urgency system for transmittal to a user or system. The message urgency system can employ classifiers that can be explicitly and/or implicitly trained to prioritize or triage one or more received messages according to a learned importance to the user. An adaptable and configurable graphical user interface is provided in order to manage the prioritized information. The interface facilitates system personalization according to user desires of how messages are received and subsequently processed by the user. Display and input adjustments are provided in a plurality of selectable pages to enable the personalization of the system. Display options include status and summary views of various configuration and adjustment options that alter the characteristics of how messages are presented to the user. Configuration and adjustment options include profile options, routing options, alerting options, chunking options, schedule options, and other context-sensitive control options, one or more rules that act in conjunction with a routing system, learning status and configuration options for guiding and inspecting the state of learning of the message urgency system along with device option configurations for controlling messages output to a selected message reception and display device.

Claims

1. A system providing a user interface to manage electronic messages, the system comprising:

a display device;

a priority component that assigns a respective priority value to one or more messages;

one or more display objects on the display device, the one or more display objects each being associated with delivery of a respective message of the one or more messages, and the one or more display objects each having an appearance selected based at least in part on a priority value of the respective message; and

one or more controls on the display device to receive user inputs that adapt the user interface to one or more preferences of a user, the one or more inputs includes at least one or more user preferences for associating a predetermined priority with a communication channel, wherein the priority component assigns a priority value to a voice message based upon the predetermined priority for the communication channel from which the voice message is received.

2. The system of claim 1, the one or more display objects including one or more profiles that relate to a time and manner of delivery of the one or more messages.

3. The system of claim 2, the one or more profiles relating to an active profile and a default profile configurable by the user.

4. The system of claim 2, the one or more profiles are associated with one or more delivery options for sending the messages to a device.

5. The system of claim 4, the one or more delivery options including at least one of send messages to a mobile device, send messages from a folder associated with the mobile device, enable prioritized delivery.

6. The system of claim 4, the delivery options including chunking options, the chunking options comprise at least one of holding and delivering messages until a predetermined time specified by the user, holding and delivering messages until a predetermined number of messages have accumulated, and holding and delivering messages based upon a predetermined inactivity of a computer.

7. The system of claim 2, the one or more profiles have an associated priority setting such that messages are transmitted based upon a threshold configurable by the user.

8. The system of claim 7, the priority setting associated with a display object having a slider to adjust the threshold, the threshold having a range from high priority messages sent to all messages sent to a mobile device.

9. The system of claim 2, the one or more profiles including at least one of a calendar and time setting associated with the one or more display objects.

10. The system of claim 2, the one or more profiles are associated with at least one of work, home, out of office and do not disturb.

11. The system of claim 1, the one or more display objects including status information associated with an amount of learning that has been achieved by a priorities system.

12. The system of claim 1, the one or more display objects selectable to send a summary of information to a device associated with the one or more messages.

13. The system of claim 6, the one or more display objects including a reset of the amount of messages sent to the device.

14. The system of claim 1, the one or more display objects comprising one or more rules configurable by the user to effect delivery of the messages to a device, the one or more rules including selection options of at least one of sending messages based on importance, sending messages based on the user'"'"'s name and a TO field, sending messages based on the user'"'"'s name and a CC field, and sending messages based on a source of the message.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising providing feedback to the user via the one or more display objects regarding learning associated with a priorities system.

16. The system of claim 15, the feedback includes information relating to learning when messages are deleted by the user.

17. The system of claim 15, the feedback includes information relating to where messages are learned from.

18. The system of claim 15, further comprising at least one of back-up, restore, and reset options regarding the learning.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more device options relating to how messages are displayed on a device.

20. The system of claim 19, the one or more device options further comprising a selectable compression setting to control the amount of information displayed.

21. The system of claim 19, the one or more device options further comprising limiting a number of messages sent, limiting the number of characters in the messages, and automatically resetting the number of messages sent.

22. The system of claim 19, the one or more device options further comprising configuring display information relating to a sender of the messages.

23. A user interface to manage electronic messages, comprising:

means for providing graphical displays associated with one or more messages that have been automatically classified according to a priority of the respective messages; and

means for configuring the graphical displays according to one or more user preferences associated with the priority and delivery of the one or more messages, the one or more user preferences includes one or more deferral policies that are given as bounds such that a message of a particular priority will not wait more than a predetermined amount of time before being displayed to a user.

24. A method for delivering messages to a device, comprising:

with at least one processor;

receiving user input scheduling a period when one or more user profiles are activated;

receiving user input configuring at least one set of parameters for the one or more profiles;

assigning priority values to one or more messages, wherein a message is assigned a priority value based upon a predetermined priority associated with a communication channel from which the message is received; and

delivering the one or more messages based at least in part on the priority values, the profile that is activated in accordance with a scheduled period, and the at least one set of parameters.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising assigning at least one of a color and a sound to indicate the priority of the messages.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising deferring messages until a more convenient time established by the user.

27. The method of claim 24, further comprising providing status information relating to why a message is of a determined priority.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising observing a previous history of activity and providing feedback as to a message delivery volume based upon the history.

29. The method of claim 24, further comprising employing an information agent to consider restrictions from other parties before delivering the one or more messages.

30. The method of claim 24, further comprising activating one or more rules that operate to influence when messages are sent to a user.

31. The method of claim 30, the one or more rules include an if and then construct such that if an event occurs then a message is automatically assigned a predetermined priority.

32. The method of claim 30, the one or more rules include an if and then construct such that if an event occurs then a priority value of a learning process is disclosed.

33. The method of claim 24, the one or more rules include an if and then construct such that if a message is received from a selected communications channel, then a message is automatically assigned a predetermined priority.

34. The method of claim 24, further comprising automatically reviewing messages by an order determined by the priority value.

35. The method of claim 24, further comprising automatically calling the user if the priority value is above a predetermined threshold.

36. The method of claim 24, further comprising converting audio messages into text.

37. The method of claim 36, further comprising determining a priority for the messages based upon at least one of the pitch, rate, content, and inflection of the messages.

38. An adaptive prioritization and routing system providing a user interface, comprising:

a display device;

one or more controls and displays on the display device to at least one of acquire user preferences, inspect behavior, and guide learning and decision policies of the adaptive prioritization and routing system, wherein the user preferences includes a user defined amount of time of user inactivity of a message retrieval device; and

a user interface associated with the one or more controls and displays that facilitates inspection, control and learning associated with alerting and routing prioritized messages, wherein the user interface holds back messages from delivery to the message retrieval device when inactivity exceeding the user defined amount of time is detected.

39. The system of claim 38, further comprising a plurality of parameters that are configured in conjunction with various configuration and adjustment options to facilitate personalization of the user interface.

40. The system of claim 39, the personalization includes at least one of employing explicit and implicit user feedback relating to how messages are classified and subsequently provided to the user.

41. The system of claim 40, the feedback is employed to guide learning and decision policies in the adaptive prioritization and routing system.

42. The system of claim 40, the feedback includes dialog that is provided to users to further refine at least one of learning and decision policies in the adaptive prioritization and routing system.

43. The system of claim 40, the explicit feedback includes such actions as configuring the user interface to consider a selection of messages as being more important than another selection of messages and altering learning about how decisions are made regarding message urgency.

44. The system of claim 40, the implicit feedback includes monitoring various context aspects of the user to determine message importance.

45. The system of claim 44, the implicit feedback includes at least one of monitoring sounds, keyboard activities, presence detectors, pauses when reviewing messages, how quickly messages are opened and deleted, and whether messages are saved, copied and forwarded.

46. The system of claim 40, the feedback includes directing messages to the user regarding learning decisions such as at least one of “

You are about to delete messages that have not yet been employed in the learning process,” and

messages relating to how and why messages were classified a certain priority.

47. The system of claim 38, further comprising one or more configuration and adjustment options that include at least one of profile options, routing options, alerting options, chunking options, schedule options, and context-sensitive control options.

48. The system of claim 47, the chunking options include grouping M messages, M being an integer, the M messages are held as a group before delivery of the messages to the user.

49. The system of claim 38, further comprising one or more rules that act in conjunction with a routing system, learning status and configuration options for guiding and inspecting the state of learning of a message urgency system.

50. The system of claim 49, the one or more rules including conditions that are applied in at least one of a disjunctive and a conjunctive manner.

51. The system of claim 38, further comprising one or more device option configurations for controlling message output to a selected message reception and display device.

52. The system of claim 38, further comprising prioritized messages having acoustical properties including at least one of prosadic features, temporal patterns of rate, pitch, inflections, and an overall energy associated with voice messages.

53. The system of claim 38, further comprising a priority threshold adjustment that facilitates control of how many messages are sent to a users device.

54. The system of claim 53, further comprising an overlay adjustment that limits the number of messages sent to the users device per a given timeframe.

55. The system of claim 38, further comprising a threshold adjustment that is employed as a bound on the total dollars allotted for forwarding messages to a user.

56. The system of claim 55, the user specifies that a system sends the most urgent messages, but at a certain cost per message by a routing company, adjust the threshold so that it would expect to stay within a certain cost per day.

57. The system of claim 38, further comprising one or more deferral policies that are given as bounds such that a message of a particular urgency will not wait more than at least one of a predetermined and dynamically computed upper limit of time.

58. The system of claim 57, the policies are at least in part based on a function of the message urgency.

59. The system of claim 58, a user specifies at least one of that a message of high urgency should be transmitted with an alert to one or more active devices as soon as possible and to be available for review if the user happens to inspect messages that are waiting.

60. The system of claim 59, further comprising a policy that if the user is more than a specified level of non-interruptability and the message has not been observed, then wait a predetermined time before alerting the user.

61. An adaptive prioritization and routing system providing a user interface, the system comprising:

a display device;

one or more controls and displays to acquire message priority settings associated with the adaptive prioritization and routing system; and

a user interface on the display device and associated with the one or more controls and displays that provides at least a user adjustable control of an amount of messages received via the message priority settings and a feedback directed to the user relating to the settings, the feedback includes a quantity indicating the number of messages that would have been transmitted to a user within a specified bound in time based upon the priority settings.

62. The system of claim 61, the feedback includes a quantity of alerts that would have been transmitted to the user within a specified bound in time.

63. The system of claim 61, further comprising monitoring user actions for each of several different routing parameters based upon a threshold on importance required to send a message beyond the parameters that were employed.

64. The system of claim 61, further comprising a user display including at least one of what would have happened had the settings been changed, and a display for a set of thresholds along a continual scale thresholds.

65. The system of claim 64, the feedback further comprising previously tracked numbers of messages that would have been received at different simulated values of the threshold.

66. The system of claim 65, further comprising providing feedback over at least one of a day, week, and month that is displayed at respective settings so as to be reviewed by users as guides to roughly predict future behavior of the adaptive prioritization and routing system for potential settings of the threshold.

67. The system of claim 65, further comprising employing recent history as a predictor of the future.

68. The system of claim 65, further comprising advanced simulations that are employed to perform “

what-if”

analyses for at least one of different settings, parameters and policies, such that new settings can be based on an expected number of alerts per given timeframe at different settings.