JP2002290464A - Data server and data transfer, program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to confirm the access to an attached file. SOLUTION: When a terminal A transmits a mail with attached file to a terminal B, a mail server 10 separates the attached file from the mail and stores it in a data server 12. Then, the mail server 10 stores the IP addresses of the terminal A and the terminal B and transmits the mail attached with the storage address in the data server 12 instead of the attached file, to the terminal B. When the terminal B has access to the data server 12, the data server 12 notifies the mail server 10 of the access information. The mail server 10 transmits the information of access to the attached file, to the transmission source of the mail, when confirming the access by the terminal B.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to confirmation of access to an attached file or a notice.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, the exchange of electronic mail using the Internet or an intranet has been widely performed. For example, in the Internet environment, a terminal user contracts with a provider and registers a mail address and an IP address. Then, the mail from the terminal is recognized by the mail server of the provider, sent to the Internet, and delivered to the destination terminal via the mail server on the destination side. Also, in an intranet environment,
The administrator manages the mail address and the IP address of the terminal, and the mail from the terminal is recognized by the mail server of the administrator, and is sent to the destination terminal.

[0003] Many mail systems have an open confirmation option. When a mail is opened at a destination, a confirmation message mail is automatically returned to the sender. Therefore, in the case of an e-mail whose contents are to be surely contacted, it is possible to confirm that the destination user has opened the e-mail by performing the setting for this open confirmation.

[0004]

Here, in a normal mail system, various files can be attached and transmitted as attached files. Tables, documents, images, etc. created by specific applications are sent as attachments. It cannot be confirmed that such an attached file has been opened.

[0005] In a company or the like, there are many cases where it is desired to confirm that the file has been viewed at the destination in response to a notification obligation or a message to an employee. But,
When the message was sent in the form of an attached file, the mail was opened but the attachment was not seen, and it was not possible to cope with the situation. In particular, there is a case where the presence of an attached file is overlooked and the access is not made, and there is a request to confirm the access to the attached file.

[0006] Further, as information transmission means, there is also a bulletin board, and in this case, there is also a request to confirm whether or not the bulletin board has been accessed.

[0007] The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide a data server for a mail system or a bulletin board system that can confirm whether or not a user has accessed.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a data server for transferring an e-mail, and when receiving an e-mail with an attached file attached thereto, excluding the attached file and transferring the e-mail to a destination. The attached file is stored, and when there is an access to the stored attached file from the destination, information that the access has been made is notified to the mail transmission source.

As described above, according to the present invention, a notification is sent that the mail sender has accessed the attached file. Therefore, access to the attached file can be confirmed at the transmission source.

[0010] Further, at the time of mail transfer to the destination, the IP address of the destination is stored, and when an attached file is accessed, the address of the access source is compared with the stored address, and It is preferable to detect the access to the attached file.

[0011] Further, when the mail is transferred to the destination, it is preferable to supply information on the storage location of the attached file to the destination.

The present invention is also a data server for monitoring browsing to a bulletin board, which stores an address of a person to be browsed when a bulletin board registrant registers the bulletin board, and performs browsing from a history of access to the bulletin board. It is characterized in that it is checked whether the target person has browsed.

[0013] Thus, the registrant of the bulletin board can confirm the access to the notice about the viewing target person.

The present invention also relates to a program for performing these processes.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of the embodiment, and shows a case where a mail with an attached file is sent from terminal A to terminal B. The terminal A sends a mail with an attached file to the terminal B via the communication line. The terminal B is managed by the mail server 10, and the mail from the terminal A is once received by the mail server 10. The mail server 10 sends the transmission addresses of the terminal A as the transmission source and the terminal B as the destination to the data server 1.
Transfer to 2. The data server 12 returns the attached file storage address to the mail server 10.

The mail server 10 performs a mail conversion process of deleting the attached file and attaching the attached file storage address in the data server 12 to the mail instead, and transmits the converted mail to the terminal B. The attached file storage address may be added to the text or may be added to the header.

When the terminal B opens the mail, the address of the data server 12 in which the attached file originally attached to the mail is stored is displayed. Therefore,
By accessing the corresponding address of the data server 12, the contents of the attached file can be known. In this example, the terminal B is directly connected to the data server 12 via a LAN, and the terminal B directly accesses the corresponding file of the data server 12.

It is also preferable to access using a browser. In this case, the attached file storage address may be described as a URL.

When the data server 12 detects access to the corresponding attached file from the terminal B,
The IP address of terminal B that has accessed the attached file is sent to mail server 10. The mail server 10 detects that the terminal B has accessed the attached file by comparing the IP address stored in advance with the IP address sent from the data server 12, and attaches the file to the terminal A that is the transmission source. Send a report of file access.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the attached file is separately stored in the mail server 10, and the access to the stored attached file is detected.
Report to sender. Thus, it is possible to notify the transmission source that the attached file has been accessed.
Therefore, the transmission source can obtain information as to whether the destination terminal has accessed the attached file. For this reason,
By sending e-mails to terminals that do not access for a certain period of time until confirmation, all terminals can be surely accessed.

According to the present embodiment, it is possible to prevent an important contact on the Internet or an intranet from being missed. In a company or the like, it is effective for notifying users and messages to employees.
Also, by adding an address instead of the data of the attached file itself, the effect of reducing the line load is exhibited.

In particular, for a mail with an attached file to a plurality of terminals, the system of this embodiment
There is an effect that it is not necessary to send the attached file to the destination terminal.

In this example, the terminal A and the mail server 10 are described as being directly connected. However, this communication line may be the Internet or the like. In this case, the terminal A uses another mail in which itself is registered. The server is connected to the mail server 10 via the Internet. Further, the mail server that separates the attached file may be a mail server on the transmission side. Further, although the mail server 10 and the data server 12 are separate servers, both functions may be achieved by one server.

Next, conversion processing in the mail server 10 will be described with reference to FIG. First, it is checked whether or not the mail from the terminal A has an attached file (S1).
1). As a result of this check, if there is no attached file, the mail is transmitted to the terminal B as the destination without any change (S14).
On the other hand, if there is an attached file, it is determined whether the attached file is the storage address of the data server (S1).
2). That is, the mail server recognizes the attached file as data attached to the mail, and determines that the file already converted to the storage address of the attached file has the attached file. Therefore, in the case of YES in S12, the mail is transmitted to terminal B as it is (S12).
14).

If the determination in S12 is NO,
The attached file is stored in the data server 12, the storage address is attached to the mail (S13), and transmitted to the terminal B (S14).

FIG. 3 shows a process of confirming access to an attached file in the mail server 10. As described above, the mail server 10 stores the IP addresses of the terminals A and B when receiving the mail addressed to the terminal B from the terminal A (S21). Then, it is checked whether the data server 12 has been accessed at regular intervals (S2).
2). If there is no access, the process returns to S22. S
If the determination at 23 is YES, it is determined from the IP address whether or not the terminal B has accessed (S24). This determination is made by comparing the IP address of the accessed terminal with the stored IP address of terminal B. If the determination is NO, an access prompt e-mail is transmitted to terminal B (S25), and S22
Return to

On the other hand, if the determination in S25 is YES, an e-mail notifying that the terminal B has been accessed is transmitted to the terminal A (S26), and the IP address of the terminal B is stored in the IP address storage table for confirmation. From (S2
7).

Next, the processing of another embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.
It will be described based on. In an intranet environment,
Information is provided via bulletin boards instead of email.
Information is not transmitted in the bulletin board unless the terminal user voluntarily accesses the terminal. That is, even if the terminal to be browsed is determined, there is no means for confirming which terminal has accessed and which terminal has not accessed.

In the present embodiment, the bulletin board registrant 20
Specifies the IP address of the viewing target when registering the content of the bulletin board on the bulletin board of the intranet server 22. Thus, the intranet server 22 stores the IP addresses of the terminals A, B, and C to be browsed, in addition to the IP addresses of the bulletin board registrants 20.

On the other hand, the IP address of the terminal is recorded as a log when accessing the intranet server 22, so that the intranet server 22 can detect which terminal has accessed. When it is confirmed that the terminal C has not been accessed among the terminals to be browsed, the mail server 24 sends an e-mail for confirmation to the terminal C, and the bulletin board registrant 20
Is notified that the terminal C is not accessed.
In addition, when the terminal A and the terminal B browse, the notice is also notified to the bulletin board registrant 20. With this, the bulletin board registrant 2
0 can confirm whether the notice was seen by the subject. In addition, a reminder to a terminal that has not been browsed can be performed.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a process of confirming a bulletin board viewer in the intranet server 22. First, when the bulletin board registrant 20 registers the bulletin board, the intranet server 22 checks the information of the terminal A, the terminal B, and the terminal C.
The P address is stored (S31). Then, an access log to the bulletin is detected at regular intervals (S32), and it is determined whether the bulletin has been accessed (S33). If the determination is NO, a reminder email is sent to the registered terminal to be browsed (S34), and the process returns to S32. If the determination in S33 is YES, it is determined whether the IP address of the accessed terminal is the IP address of the terminal to be browsed (S35). If the determination is NO, S
The process returns to S32 via. On the other hand, YES in the determination of S35
If so, a mail is sent to inform the bulletin board registrant 20 that the terminal has accessed the bulletin board (S36), and the IP address of the terminal is deleted from the table (S3).
7). Then, it is determined whether or not there is an unviewed browsing target terminal (S38). If there is, the process returns to S32, and if not, the process ends.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the registrant of the bulletin board can confirm whether or not the target person has viewed the bulletin board. In addition, a reminder email can be sent to an unviewed person.

It is preferable that the intranet server 22 transmit an e-mail about the notice to the viewing target when the notice of the notice is received from the bulletin board registrant 20. It is also preferable that the registration of the bulletin board of the bulletin board registrant 20 be accepted in the form of an e-mail and an attached file, and the attached file be made a bulletin by the same processing as in the above-described embodiment.

In the above embodiment, the sender (including the registrant of the bulletin board) is notified of the access. For this reason, in e-mails (or postings) of product advertisements,
It is also preferable to issue a discount coupon or the like to those who browse the attached file (or bulletin) within a predetermined period (for example, on the day).

[0035]

As described above, according to the present invention,
You will be notified that the email sender has accessed the attached file. Therefore, access to the attached file can be confirmed at the transmission source.

Further, according to the present invention, the bulletin board registrant can confirm the access to the bulletin for the browsing target by checking whether or not the browsing target has browsed from the history of the access to the bulletin.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration of a mail system according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a mail conversion process.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of an access confirmation process.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a configuration of a browsing system.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a viewer confirmation operation.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10 mail servers, 12 data servers.

Claims (8)

[Claims] Claims: 1. A data server for transferring an e-mail, comprising: receiving an e-mail with an attached file attached, excluding the attached file, forwarding the e-mail to a destination, storing the excluded attached file, A data server that notifies an e-mail sender of information that an access has been made to an attached file stored when the file is accessed. 2. The data server according to claim 1, wherein an IP address of the destination is stored when the mail is transferred to the destination, and when the attached file is accessed, the address of the access source is stored. A data server that detects access to an attached file of a destination as compared with the stored address. 3. The data server according to claim 1, wherein information about the storage location of the attached file is supplied to the destination when the mail is transferred to the destination. 4. A data transfer program for transferring an e-mail, comprising: when a computer receives an e-mail with an attached file attached, excluding the attached file and forwarding the e-mail to a destination; A data transfer program that stores the information and informs the sender of the information when the attached file is accessed from the destination. 5. The data transfer program according to claim 4, wherein when the mail is transferred to the destination, the IP address of the destination is stored, and when an attached file is accessed,
A data transfer program for comparing an access source address with the stored address to detect access to a destination attached file. 6. A data transfer program according to claim 4, wherein when the mail is transferred to the destination, information about the storage location of the attached file is supplied to the destination. 7. A data server for monitoring browsing to a bulletin board, wherein when a bulletin board registrant registers a bulletin, the address of the browsing subject is stored, and the browsing subject is browsed from a history of access to the bulletin board. Data server to check if you have done. 8. A program for monitoring browsing to a bulletin board, wherein when a bulletin board registered by a bulletin board is registered, the address of the browsing subject is stored, and the browsing subject is read from a history of access to the bulletin board. Is a program that checks whether a user has browsed.