Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M11/00—Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems
  • H04M11/08—Telephonic communication systems specially adapted for combination with other electrical systems specially adapted for optional reception of entertainment or informative matter
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L51/00—User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
  • H04L51/21—Monitoring or handling of messages
  • H04L51/224—Monitoring or handling of messages providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y10—TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC
  • Y10S—TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y10S379/00—Telephonic communications
  • Y10S379/904—Auto-calling

Definitions

• An electronic messaging system such as the IBM brand DISOSS (Distributed Office Support System) ensures the automatic archiving and distribution of messages and documents within a company or an organization.
• a system includes a central computer on which an electronic messaging software runs, a screen controller connected to the computer and several terminals connected to the screen controller.
• the arrival of messages or documents in the central computer is signaled by the appearance of information in a list of messages and documents received (queue).
• the queue is permanently transmitted to the various terminals and on the screen of these, the users can consult the queue and request the reception of a message or consult an identified document.
• An electronic mail system of this kind provides great services in that it makes it possible in particular to improve the efficiency of administrative work, to improve communication between decision-makers and to reduce the space required for archives.
• the invention relates to an automatic electronic system which overcomes the disadvantage mentioned above and ensures that the recipients of messages or documents are automatically notified of the arrival of these messages or documents.
• the characteristic features of the system according to the invention are defined in the appended claims.
• a microprocessor is connected to the electronic messaging system to receive the information which identifies the waiting messages and a random access memory is organized to constitute a file containing codes which identify recipients of predetermined messages and information representing the telephone numbers of these recipients.
• a modem connected to a telephone line is organized to extract the telephone number information from said file and automatically dial the telephone numbers of the recipients in order to transmit call signals to them on the telephone line.
• the microprocessor is organized to read the queue of messages received in the messaging system. electronic gallery, to detect the presence of identification codes residing in the file, to extract from the file the telephone number information corresponding to each detected identification code, and to instruct the modem to automatically dial the corresponding telephone numbers in order to launch a call signal on the telephone line during a predetermined time interval.
• the system according to the invention has the advantages that the recipients of messages or documents received are notified immediately by telephone of the receipt of a message or document intended for them and that the messages and documents can be received more quickly by their recipients. and this without requiring any particular supervision. In addition, recipients can be warned not only locally via an indoor telephone network but also at long distance via an outdoor telephone network. This system according to the invention can also advantageously replace the use of telex in the event of an emergency within a group using an electronic messaging system. Finally, the system according to the invention is of low cost in terms of hardware and software.
• Fig. 1 schematically shows an electronic messaging system which includes an automatic warning system according to the invention.
• Fig. 2 schematically represents the general architecture of the automatic warning system according to the invention.
• Fig. 3 is a flow diagram of the telephone warning process implemented in the system according to the invention.
• FIG. 1 is shown schematically an electronic messaging system such as the DISOSS system.
• a system of this kind comprises a central processor or host processor 1, a screen controller 2 and a set of terminals of which a terminal 4 is shown.
• the host processor manages the reception and distribution of messages and documents.
• the receipt of a message or document is signaled by the insertion of information in a queue or queue (QUEUE).
• QUEUE a queue or queue
• This waiting list can be transmitted on line 3 and displayed on the screen of each terminal 4 at the request of the user.
• An example of a waiting list is shown in Table 1 below.
• each item in the waiting list contains the reference of the list (column 1), the identification code of a recipient (column 2), the type of waiting list (column 3) , the number of messages entered for the recipient (column 4), the number of attempts to receive messages (column 5), the date and the waiting time of the first message entered (columns 6 and 7), the date and time of waiting for the oldest message (columns 8 and 9).
• the corresponding section is updated or deleted depending on whether there is still a message to be received by the recipient in question or whether the last message or document on hold has been received .
• each user must consult the queue and for this manipulate the keyboard of his terminal to know if a message or document is intended for him.
• an automatic warning system 10 intended to automatically notify the recipient of a message or document by telephone as soon as such a message or document is received.
• the automatic warning system according to the invention is connected on the one hand to the screen controller 2 by means of a coaxial cable 5 and it is connected on the other hand to a telephone line 6 which can be connected to a private telephone exchange or a public telephone network represented by block 7.
• the general architecture of the automatic warning system 10 is represented schematically by blocks in FIG. 2.
• the coaxial cable 5 is connected to a connection circuit 11 which acts as an interface with the bus 20 connecting together the various organic units of the system.
• These units are essentially a microprocessor 12, a control screen 13 with its interface 14, a large capacity ROM memory 15 for storing the control programs, a random access memory 16 to constitute a file as will be seen below, and a modem circuit 17 whose function will be described later.
• the microprocessor 12 is a device well known per se, which can be produced in various modes of execution falling within the normal competence of those skilled in the art to execute different connections and functional tasks under the direction of control signals. - of provided in an operating program recorded in the read-only memory 15. This has for example a capacity of at least 10 MB (megabytes or megabytes).
• a specific code is assigned to each recipient for whom an automatic warning is requested and in the random access memory 16 a FIL warning file is formed.
• the recipient codes are called codes u,, u ⁇
• Telephone numbers can be extension numbers in an internal network of a group, telephone numbers from a local telephone area or inter-zone or long-distance telephone numbers.
• the modem 17 is a device known per se, organized to dial auto- matically telephone numbers from digital data and produce signals specific to transmission over the telephone line 6.
• the automatic warning system according to the invention operates under the direction of the microprocessor 12 animated or organized by a control system residing in the memory 15.
• the operation of the system according to the invention is illustrated by the flowchart of Figure 3.
• the first step in operation (step 101) consists in establishing the connection with the host processor 1 of the electronic messaging system via the cable 3.
• the microprocessor 12 controls the sending. to the host processor 1 a request signal REQ requesting the presentation of the identification codes of the messages waiting (step 102).
• the host processor 1 sends the recipient identification codes appearing in the QUEUE waiting list and the microprocessor 12 commands the display on the control screen 14.
• the microprocessor 12 then controls the reading of the content of the file FIL residing in the memory 16 and the comparison of each identification code u ", u ⁇
• the microprocessor 12 controls the production of an address signal ADR to address the memory 16 and extract the information n from the FIL file. representing the call number of the identified recipient and the parametric data t .. previously mentioned. These data are used to fix the terms or conditions of transmission of call signals on the telephone line 6. For example, the duration of the telephone call, the time slot during which the call must be made, the days during which a call can be made, or any other indications.
• the microprocessor 12 controls the display of this information on the control screen 14 opposite each identification code. On the control screen 14, for example, appears a table of the type shown in Table 2 below.
• each section contains the code u. of a recipient, the number N of messages or documents received for this recipient, the date of receipt, the duration t. (minutes and seconds) fixed for each telephone call, telephone number n1. of the recipient.
• Information u1., T1. and ni., 'as said above, are extracted from the FIL file according to the invention.
• the microprocessor 12 controls the transfer of the digital information n,, n ⁇ . n to modem 17 (step 104) and the modem responds by automatically dialing the telephone number and producing the im- specific drives for transmission on the telephone line 6 (step 105), according to a process well known in the art.
• the microprocessor 12 After a period of time corresponding to the parametric information t. extracted from the FIL file, the microprocessor 12 sends the modem 17 an interrupt order in response to which the modem interrupts the transmission of pulses on the telephone line 6. The same process takes place for each of the identification u 1,, u2-, ... one from the FIL file.
• the command process continues (line 107) by repeating the operations from step 102 until an end command is received (step 108).
• the display on the control screen 14 is updated automatically at adjustable regular intervals.
• recipients of messages or documents received in an electronic messaging system are immediately notified by telephone of the receipt of messages and documents intended for them. These messages and documents can thus be received very quickly by their recipients, which advantageously increases and optimizes the efficiency of the electronic messaging system. It should be noted that the recipients of messages and documents can be notified both locally via an internal telephone network and by long-distance telephone communication.
• the electronic warning system 10 is formed from a device available on the market under the name PC, such as an IBM brand PC 3270 device.
• the personal computer In order to be able to communicate, according to the invention, with the screen controller 2 of the electronic messaging system, the personal computer must be equipped with a coaxial connection card, for example the interface card 3270 Adapter of mark IBM.
• the personal computer To be able to convert the digital data extracted from memory 16 into signals suitable for transmission over the telephone line 6, the personal computer must be equipped with a modem card, for example a modem card from the firm Devlonics. NV terminator compatible with Hayes and CCITT V25bis transmission protocols well known to those skilled in the art.
• the random access memory of the personal computer is used to contain the above-mentioned FIL file and the read-only memory of the device is used to memorize the control system intended to direct the automatic telephone warning process described in the foregoing. It is sufficient to copy onto a hard disk, for example, the application control system previously recorded on a floppy disk.
• the warning system enters into operational connection with the equipment of the personal computer through interfacing software, eg the software DOS 3.30 1 interferon cage for managing a file and API software for interfacing to the application software (telephone warning process) in the case of a PC 3270 personal computer.
• interfacing software eg the software DOS 3.30 1 interferon cage for managing a file and API software for interfacing to the application software (telephone warning process) in the case of a PC 3270 personal computer.
• the link between this and the messaging system electronics can be carried out using Workstation Program 1.00 operating software. All these interfacing software, as is clear to a person skilled in the art, are started before the start of the telephone warning process according to the invention.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
• Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)

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• 1988
  • 1988-09-06 WO PCT/EP1988/000814 patent/WO1990003074A1/fr not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 1988-09-06 EP EP88907671A patent/EP0386011A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 1988-09-06 JP JP63507350A patent/JPH03502153A/ja active Pending
  • 1988-09-06 US US07/466,314 patent/US5138653A/en not_active Expired - Fee Related

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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