JP2011129037A - Apparatus and method for estimating electronic mail reply time, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic mail reply time estimation apparatus that allows users to know when a reply to electronic mail is made. <P>SOLUTION: The electronic mail reply time estimation apparatus includes: a receiving part for receiving user action data composed of schedule data and e-mail transmission time stored in a first mobile terminal; a storage part for storing the user action data received by the receiving part; an extraction part for reading the user action data in the first mobile terminal upon receiving a request to transmit electronic mail to the first mobile terminal from a second mobile terminal, and extracting the e-mail transmission time other than a time zone including a schedule indicated by the schedule data from among the time zones after the e-mail transmission request time, based on the read user action data; and an output part for outputting the e-mail transmission time extracted by the extraction part, as an estimated reply time. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an e-mail reply time prediction apparatus, an e-mail reply time prediction method, and a program process.

As for e-mails, users who have received e-mails sent from senders have read more and more ways to use them. Therefore, the sender of the e-mail waits until the e-mail is replied when completing the business by exchanging the e-mail.
When waiting for such a reply, the sender of the e-mail has a desire to know when there is a reply. Such a method for grasping the reply timing is described in Patent Document 1 below. In Patent Document 1, when a user makes an inquiry to the call center by e-mail at a call center, when the user can reply to the user by e-mail, the expected response time is obtained. It is disclosed.

JP 2002-140274 A

  However, since the system shown in Patent Document 1 is assumed to be used in a call center, the call center obtains an expected response time in consideration of the time corresponding to one inquiry. Does not provide a reply timing. That is, there is a demand for knowing the e-mail reply time even among general users such as friends and persons belonging to the same workplace.

  The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide an e-mail reply time prediction device, an e-mail reply time prediction method, and a program capable of grasping an e-mail reply time between users. It is in.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention provides a receiving unit that receives user behavior data, which is information on schedule data stored in a first portable terminal and transmission time of an e-mail, from the portable terminal; A storage unit that stores user behavior data received by the receiving unit, and a user behavior data of the first portable terminal is read when an e-mail transmission request is received from the second portable terminal to the first portable terminal An extraction unit that extracts, based on the read user behavior data, a transmission time of the email that is other than a time zone in which a schedule indicated by the schedule data exists among time zones after the email transmission request time; And an output unit that outputs the transmission time of the e-mail extracted by the extraction unit as a predicted reply time.

  As described above, according to the present invention, even between users, based on user behavior data, a reply time of a user destined for sending an email is obtained and notified to the user who sent the email. It becomes possible. Thereby, the user of the transmission source can grasp when there is a possibility of a reply at the time of transmitting the e-mail between the users.

It is a schematic block diagram which shows the structure of the email reply time prediction system by one Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining operation | movement of an email transmission time prediction system. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of information displayed on a display device of the mobile terminal 100. FIG. It is a sequence diagram showing operation | movement of the email reply time prediction system 1. FIG.

Hereinafter, an e-mail reply time predicting apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram showing the configuration of an e-mail reply time prediction system having an e-mail reply time prediction apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.
In the e-mail reply time prediction system 1, the portable terminal 100 and the e-mail reply time prediction apparatus 200 are connected via a communication network. Here, a plurality of portable terminals 100 are connected to the e-mail reply time predicting apparatus 200.

The mobile terminal 100 includes a mailer 110 and a scheduler 120. The mailer 110 has a newly created user interface (hereinafter referred to as a newly created UI) 111, stores transmission / reception data 112 in a storage area, and newly creates and transmits an e-mail according to a user instruction; It has a function of receiving various data from the e-mail reply time prediction device 200. The newly created UI 111 creates an e-mail in response to a user instruction input from various input devices such as a numeric keypad, a touch panel, and a keyboard. The transmission / reception data 112 is data of an electronic mail transmitted and received by the terminal device 100 itself, and is stored in a memory device in the portable terminal 100.
The scheduler 120 is activated in accordance with a user instruction, generates various schedules as schedule data 121 according to an input from the user, and stores them in a predetermined area of the memory area.
The schedule data 121 is data in which what a user using the mobile terminal 100 does is associated with an action and a date and time zone when the action is performed.
In addition to these functions, the mobile terminal 100 includes an input device and a display device.

In the e-mail reply time prediction apparatus 200,
The data backup function unit 201 receives, from the mobile terminal 100, user behavior data that is information on schedule data stored in each mobile terminal 100 and transmission / reception data including information on the transmission time of an e-mail. This reception may be performed at regular intervals or when the mobile terminal 100 transmits / receives an e-mail, and these information are synchronized at this timing.
The data storage unit 202 stores user behavior data received from the mobile terminal 100 by the data backup function unit 201.
The community user information storage unit 203 stores the identification information of the mobile terminals of users belonging to the same group in association with the group identification information for identifying each group. That is, identification information is given to each of the mobile terminals 100, whereby individual users can be identified. Then, by classifying the users into groups and registering them in the community user information storage unit 203 in advance, the users are identified for each group. Examples of this group are hobbies and occupations, workplace departments, schools, etc. It is also possible to register so that one user belongs to a plurality of groups.

The convenient time analysis unit 204 receives the e-mail transmission request from the first portable terminal 100 to the second portable terminal 100 from the first portable terminal 100 of the portable terminals 100, and is the transmission destination of the e-mail. The user behavior data of the second portable terminal 100 is read from the data storage unit 202, and based on the read user behavior data, the time indicated by the schedule data in the time zone after the e-mail transmission request time exists. Extract the e-mail transmission time that is not a band.
The display information transmission unit 205 transmits the e-mail transmission time extracted by the convenient time analysis unit 204 to the first portable terminal 100 that has made the e-mail transmission request using the predicted response time.

Further, the display information transmission unit 205 identifies the mobile terminals belonging to the same group based on the identification information of the mobile terminal 100, and is the transmission destination with the first mobile terminal 100 that has requested transmission of an e-mail. When the identification information of the portable terminal with respect to the second portable terminal 100 is associated with the identification information of the same group, the reply predicted time is transmitted to the portable terminal that made the transmission request for the e-mail. In other words, when the source and destination mobile terminals belong to the same group, the predicted reply time is notified, and when the groups are different, the predicted reply time is not notified, and only normal email transmission is performed. .
In addition, the display information transmission unit 205 predicts the response time so that the first mobile terminal 100 that has requested the transmission of the e-mail has a pop-up display immediately after making the e-mail transmission request. To be notified.

  The e-mail reply time prediction device 200 not only notifies the e-mail reply expected time, but also sends the e-mail requested to be transmitted from the first portable terminal 100 to the second portable terminal 100 that is the destination. It also has a function.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the e-mail transmission time prediction system in the configuration described above.
Here, the user 252 and the user 262 belong to the same company group, and the identification information of the mobile terminals 100 owned by the users 252 and 262 is stored in the community user information storage unit 203 in the e-mail transmission time prediction device 200. The identification information of the same group is registered in association with each other. Here, the mobile terminal 100 used by the user 2522 is described as the mobile terminal 251, and the mobile terminal 100 used by the user 262 is described as the mobile terminal 261.
The user 252 is in charge of the group's drinking party, and at 9:00 on October 16 (Friday), create and send an inquiry email to the user 262 regarding whether or not to participate in the drinking party. It is said. Further, the schedule data 121 and schedule data 112 (here, especially transmitted data) registered in the portable terminal 261 of the user 262 are synchronized with the data storage / storage unit 202 by the data backup function unit 201 of the e-mail transmission time prediction device 200. Saved.

At the stage where the user 252 creates an e-mail with the portable terminal 251 (before transmission), the convenient time analysis unit 204 determines the community user information storage unit 203 from the identification information of the portable terminal 100 set as destination information of the transmission destination. The data storage unit 202 of the user 262 registered in is referred to and analyzed. From schedule data 121, Friday, 18: 00 to 19:30, during the meeting, extracted from the transmission time history information of the transmitted data 112 that the expected reply time 206 is 20:00 on Friday, October 16 To do.
When the convenient time analysis unit 204 notifies the display information transmission unit 205 of the expected reply time information 206, the display information transmission unit 205 sends an expected reply time 20 of the mail that is about to be transmitted to the mobile terminal 251 of the user 252 from now. 0:00 to notify that it is displayed in a pop-up format.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of information displayed on the display device of the first mobile terminal 100. When the user 252 finishes inputting the address and the text and the mail creation screen (FIG. 3A) is completed, the mobile terminal 100 returns the expected reply as shown in the mail creation screen (FIG. 3B). A pop-up (symbol (A)) indicating the time is displayed in accordance with an instruction from the e-mail reply time predicting apparatus 200. Here, after confirming the expected reply time displayed in the pop-up, the user can click the send button to send an e-mail.

FIG. 4 is a sequence diagram showing the operation of the e-mail reply time prediction system 1.
When the mobile terminal 251 is operated by the user 252 to create a new e-mail (step S101), and a destination is designated and input (step S102), the e-mail reply time prediction device 200 uses the information on the destination. Obtained from the portable terminal 251, refers to the community user information storage unit 203, and notifies the convenient time analysis unit 204 of user information of the destination of the e-mail (identification information of the portable terminal possessed by the user 262) (step S 103).
The convenient time analysis unit 204 refers to the data storage unit 202 based on the mobile terminal identification information of the notified user 262, and reads the user behavior data corresponding to the notified mobile terminal identification information (step) S104). Then, the convenient time analysis unit 204 analyzes the expected reply time based on the read user behavior data (step S105), and notifies the display information transmission unit 205 of the expected reply time (step S106). The display information transmission unit 205 temporarily stores the notified expected reply time (step S107).

  On the other hand, after the destination is input in the portable terminal 251, the body of the e-mail is continuously input, and when the body creation end button indicating completion of the body creation is clicked by the user, the portable terminal 251 The mail reply time prediction apparatus 200 is notified of the end of text creation (step S108). When the notification of the completion of text creation is received, the convenient time analysis unit 204 of the e-mail reply time prediction device 200 notifies the display information transmission unit 205 of an event notification of completion of text creation (step S109). Upon receiving this event notification, the display information transmission unit 205 transmits the temporarily stored expected reply time to the portable terminal 251 (step S110). When the mobile terminal 251 receives the expected reply time, it displays it in a pop-up (step S111), and then when the user clicks the send button, the body of the e-mail with the destination set is sent to the mail reply time predicting device 200. Send. Thereby, the mail reply time prediction apparatus 200 transmits the text of the electronic mail to the portable terminal 261 corresponding to the destination.

Here, the process of analyzing the predicted response time performed by the convenient time analysis unit 204 will be further described.
The convenient time analysis unit 204 obtains the current time by referring to the clock provided in itself for the time when the e-mail transmission request is made (for example, when the destination is set). Next, the user action data of the user as the destination is read out, the time zone that is already scheduled as a schedule after the current time is excluded, and the past electronic data of the user as the destination after the current time The mail transmission time is extracted, and the extracted electronic mail transmission time is obtained as a predicted reply time.
For example, when user behavior data as described in FIG. 2 is stored, the convenient time analysis unit 204 indicates that the current time is 9:00 when the user 252 creates an e-mail with the mobile terminal 251. And the schedule of the user behavior data of the user 262 that is the destination reads the schedule on October 16 (Friday), which is the day when the email transmission request is made, and the schedule for this day is 14: 00-00 Since it is detected that 15:00 is a regular meeting and 18:00 to 19:30 is a report meeting, out of the time zone after 9:00 on that day, 14:00 to 15:00 and 18:00 ~ 19: 30 are excluded, and 9:00 to 13:59, 15:01 to 17:59, and 19:31 to 24:00 are obtained as candidates for the predicted reply time. Next, the convenient time analysis unit 204 reads the mail reply time of the user 262 within a certain period in the past (for example, one week) with reference to the reply time stored in association with the transmitted data in the transmitted / received data, Among the read reply times, the one corresponding to the candidate reply expected time is extracted. Here, 20:00 on October 15 (Thu), 20:05 on October 14 (Wed), 15:10 on October 14 (Wed), 20:10 on October 13 (Tue) October 2 (Friday) 20:00 is obtained. Here, out of the obtained times, the time zone in which the number of times in the same time zone is the largest among the transmitted times is extracted as the expected reply time. For example, in this example, the number of replies for 20:00 units is 4 and the number of replies for 15:00 units is 1, so 20:00 units are extracted as the predicted response time, Among them, 20:00 having the earliest reply time is extracted as a predicted reply time, and this is transmitted by the display information transmission unit 205.

  In consideration of the case where the schedule does not end according to the schedule time and the schedule is delayed a little, or when the schedule ends and the reply cannot be made immediately, the convenient time analysis unit 204 performs a certain period of time from the time zone in which the schedule is entered. (For example, 5 minutes) may also be excluded, and a candidate corresponding to a predicted reply time may be extracted. For example, when 5 minutes after the scheduled end is also excluded, 20:05 on October 14 (Wednesday) is excluded from the candidates for the predicted response time.

Further, the convenient time analysis unit 204 may obtain the latest time as the predicted response time among those obtained as candidates for the expected response time.
The convenient time analysis unit 204 may acquire the current time at the time when the notification of completion of creation of the e-mail body is received, and analyze the predicted reply time at this time.

  In the embodiment described above, the e-mail may be an e-mail function installed in the mobile terminal 100, or in the WEB format that is an e-mail transmission / reception function provided on the WEB site. Also good.

  According to the embodiment described above, transmission / reception mail and schedule data stored in the mobile terminals owned by each user belonging to the community are stored in synchronization on the server which is the e-mail reply time prediction device 200, and The convenience information of each user is analyzed from the information, and the server side recognizes the time zone in which each user can reply to mail. Then, at a stage where a certain user is trying to send mail to another user belonging to the same community, the mail reply predicted time is sent to the terminal and displayed. Thereby, the user can grasp | ascertain when a reply may come at the time of transmitting an email.

  In this way, the mobile terminal stores user behavior information such as the time and schedule of sending and receiving e-mails, and a data backup service is also realized by each carrier. If the approximate reply time can be grasped from the partner when sending the message, the user can plan the subsequent action in consideration of the expected reply time for the user.

  In the above-described embodiment, the schedule data and the transmitted data are the data to be used when the convenient time analysis unit 204 analyzes, but in addition to these, the call history, the position information, and the like are used. It may be.

  1 is recorded on a computer-readable recording medium, and the program recorded on the recording medium is read into a computer system and executed. The reply time may be predicted by. Here, the “computer system” includes an OS and hardware such as peripheral devices.

Further, the “computer system” includes a homepage providing environment (or display environment) if a WWW system is used.
The “computer-readable recording medium” refers to a storage device such as a flexible medium, a magneto-optical disk, a portable medium such as a ROM and a CD-ROM, and a hard disk incorporated in a computer system. Furthermore, the “computer-readable recording medium” dynamically holds a program for a short time like a communication line when transmitting a program via a network such as the Internet or a communication line such as a telephone line. In this case, a volatile memory in a computer system serving as a server or a client in that case, and a program that holds a program for a certain period of time are also included. The program may be a program for realizing a part of the functions described above, and may be a program capable of realizing the functions described above in combination with a program already recorded in a computer system.

  The embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the specific configuration is not limited to this embodiment, and includes designs and the like that do not depart from the gist of the present invention.

1 E-mail reply time prediction system 100, 251, 261 Portable terminal 110 Mailer 111 New creation UI
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 112 Transmission / reception data 120 Scheduler 121 Schedule data 200 E-mail reply time prediction apparatus 201 Data backup function part 202 Data preservation | save storage part 203 Community user information storage part 204 Convenience time analysis part 205 Display information transmission part

Claims (5)

A receiver for receiving user behavior data, which is information on schedule data stored in the first portable terminal and the transmission time of the e-mail, from the portable terminal;
A storage unit for storing user behavior data received by the reception unit;
Upon receiving an e-mail transmission request from the second portable terminal to the first portable terminal, the user behavior data of the first portable terminal is read, and the e-mail is transmitted based on the read user behavior data. An extraction unit that extracts a transmission time of the e-mail that is other than a time zone in which a schedule indicated by the schedule data exists among time zones after the request time;
An output unit that outputs the e-mail transmission time extracted by the extraction unit as a predicted response time;
An e-mail reply time prediction apparatus characterized by comprising: A group information storage unit that stores identification information of mobile terminals of users belonging to the same group for each group,
The output unit identifies mobile terminals belonging to the same group based on the identification information of the mobile terminal, and when the mobile terminal that has made an e-mail transmission request and the mobile terminal that is the destination are the same group The e-mail reply time prediction device according to claim 1, wherein the predicted e-mail reply time is transmitted to a portable terminal that has made a transmission request for the e-mail. 3. The pop-up display immediately after the output unit makes an e-mail transmission request to the portable terminal that has made the e-mail transmission request, according to claim 1 or 2. E-mail reply time prediction device. Receiving user behavior data, which is information on schedule data stored in the first portable terminal and the transmission time of the e-mail, from the portable terminal;
Storing the received user behavior data in a storage unit;
Upon receiving an e-mail transmission request from the second portable terminal to the first portable terminal, the user behavior data of the first portable terminal is read from the storage unit, and based on the read user behavior data, Among the time zones after the e-mail transmission request time, extract the e-mail transmission time other than the time zone where the schedule indicated by the schedule data exists,
The e-mail reply time prediction method, wherein the extracted e-mail transmission time is output as a predicted reply time. Computer
Means for receiving, from the portable terminal, user behavior data which is information on schedule data stored in the first portable terminal and an e-mail transmission time;
Means for storing the received user behavior data in a storage unit;
Upon receiving an e-mail transmission request from the second portable terminal to the first portable terminal, the user behavior data of the first portable terminal is read from the storage unit, and based on the read user behavior data, Means for extracting the e-mail transmission time that is other than the time period in which the schedule indicated by the schedule data exists among the time period after the e-mail transmission request time;
Means for outputting the extracted e-mail transmission time as a predicted reply time;
Program to function as.

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