JPH06164635A - Electronic mail system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically send a reply to the transmitter of a mail about the reason at the time of being in an unreceivable state of the mail in an electronic mail system. CONSTITUTION:A person who is unable to receive the mails registers a document describing to that effect in a reply document file 8 as a reply document through a reply document registering part 4. When a receiving part 3 of a system 2 receives a mail from another system, the contents of the received mail are stored in a received mail file 7. A reception monitoring part 5 always monitors a mail receiving state. If the received mail is addressed to the person who registered the reply document, a transmitter name of the received mail is replaced with the mail addressed person name. Thus a reply mail is produced by adding the reply document registered in the file 8. Then the reply mail is registered in a transmitting mail file 9 and then automatically sent to the mail transmitter through a transmitting part 6.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an electronic mail system for sending and receiving documents using a computer. The term "e-mail" includes not only so-called e-mail but also an information collecting and delivering system using means for electronically transmitting images and documents such as facsimile and telex.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art First, a procedure for sending an electronic mail will be described. The sender sends the recipient's ID and message to the system. The system receives the recipient ID and the message and stores the message content in the memory area assigned to the recipient ID. And the recipient I
By some means, notify the recipient having D that the mail is being sent. If the recipient notices it and enters his password, he can read the messages stored in the system for him.

As described above, the content of the electronic mail cannot be read by the person who originally sent it. However, when the e-mail cannot be read because the user has been out for a long time, or when he / she is busy and cannot immediately reply to the e-mail, it is common to have another person receive the mail on his behalf. For example, in a mail system (OSI's MOTIS) created by ISO as a contract, it is possible to set a substitute recipient on the electronic mail receiving side. In this case, if the setting is made, the received mail is automatically transferred to the substitute recipient during the designated period. Further, the electronic mail sending side can set whether or not to allow proxy reception for each mail. Therefore, if you do not want to be read by anyone other than a specific person, you can set the proxy reception to "non-permitted" so that other people will not worry about reading it.

[0004]

However, it is a very complicated work for the sender to set whether or not to allow the alternate reception each time. In addition to this, if you want to allow a specific person to receive the proxy on behalf of the person other than the original recipient, you have to send a separate email to each person, which makes it even more complicated. In addition, when the proxy reception is not permitted, it is often impossible to know when the reply from the other party will be received and the time is often wasted.

Therefore, according to the present invention, in order to eliminate such a problem, when the other party to whom the electronic mail is sent cannot immediately respond to the mail, a reply mail notifying that fact is sent by the sender. The purpose is to be automatically sent to.

[0006]

According to the present invention, in an electronic mail system, a receiving means for receiving an electronic mail, a storage means for storing the electronic mail received by the receiving means, and an individual A reply document registration means for pre-registering a reply document to the sender of the addressed e-mail and the received e-mail are monitored, and an e-mail addressed to the individual who registered the reply document in advance was received. In this case, the received document monitoring means for detecting this and the sender of the received electronic mail in response to the detection signal from the received document monitoring means are registered in advance by the recipient of the received electronic mail. There is provided an electronic mail system comprising: a sending unit for sending a reply document.

[0007]

If a person who is not in a situation where he / she can receive an e-mail addressed to himself / herself and responds to the e-mail, he / she can previously register a document describing that fact and the ID of the substitute recipient in the system as a reply document. When the system receives an email, it saves the content and monitors who the email is addressed to. If the received mail is a mail addressed to the person who registered the reply document in advance, the reply document is sent to the sender of the received mail. In this case, it is desirable to return the contents of the received mail together with the reply document. As a result, the sender of the received mail can know that the recipient of the received mail is not ready to reply, or that the received mail may be received on behalf of another specific person.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of an electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 1 denotes another system, and an electronic mail can be transmitted and received between this and another system 2.
The own system 2 according to the present invention has the following four parts realized by a programmed computer. First, the receiving unit 3 receives electronic mail sent from another system 1 and stores the electronic mail in the received mail file 7. Next is the reply document registration unit 4,
This is a section for a person who cannot receive an e-mail to previously register a document stating that fact or a document stating the ID number of the substitute recipient as a reply document. This reply document is registered in the reply document file 8.
Next is the reception monitoring unit 5, which monitors whether or not the recipient of the received e-mail is the person who has registered the document in the reply document file 8 in advance (referred to as reply document registrant). When an e-mail addressed to the reply document registrant is received, a reply mail is created in this reception monitoring unit 5 and registered in the reply mail file 9. Finally, there is a sending unit 6, which sends the reply mail registered in the send mail file 9 to another system 1 which is the sender of the received mail.

Under this structure, another system 1
The operation when an electronic mail is sent from will be described.
First, a person who does not have time to read an e-mail because he / she is out of the office or busy with work registers the reply document in the reply document file 8 by the reply document registration unit 4 in his / her system 2 in advance. In this reply document, a message that the sender of the mail wants to know is written, for example, the reason why he / she does not have time to read the electronic mail. Further, if it is desired to receive the mail as a proxy, the ID of the proxy recipient can be registered in the reply document at the same time. Here, it is assumed that an electronic mail is sent from the other system 1. The receiving unit 3 receives this mail and registers the contents in the received mail file 7. Then, when the received e-mail is addressed to the reply document registrant, the reception monitoring unit 5 performs the following process. First, the received e-mail is read from the file, and the sender name is replaced with the destination, and the recipient name is replaced with the sender name. Then, the reply document registrant reads the reply document registered in the reply document file 8 and combines the reply document and the received mail in which the above-mentioned destination is replaced to create a reply mail. The created reply mail is registered in the send mail file 9.
Then, the sending unit 6 sends this reply mail to the sender of the system 1 who sent the electronic mail. The sender of the original electronic mail that has received this reply mail can grasp the current status of the recipient and can perform processing such as resending the mail to the substitute receiver if the substitute reception is acceptable.

Next, the above-mentioned operation will be described again with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 2 shows an operation flow when a person who does not have time to read an e-mail registers a reply document to that effect, and an operation flow from receiving an e-mail to sending a reply e-mail. There is. First, a person who does not have time to read the received e-mail because of going out or busy with work creates a reply document to that effect in his / her system 2 (step S1). Then, the created document is registered in the reply document file (step S2). Further, when the proxy reception is desired, the destination ID of the proxy receiver is also registered in the reply document file (step S3). Thus, the registration of the reply document for the sender is completed.

The system 2 constantly monitors whether or not an electronic mail from another system 1 has been received (step S
4) If received, the mail is saved in the received mail file (step S5). Then, it is checked whether the recipient of this received mail is the reply document registrant,
If so (step S6), the sender name of the received mail is replaced with the recipient name, and the recipient name is replaced with the sender name (step S7). Then, the reply document registrant reads the reply document registered in the reply document file, adds this to the received mail after replacing the sender name and the recipient name, creates a reply mail, and sends it. Register in the mail file (step S8). Finally, the registered reply mail is transmitted to the sender of the received mail (step S9).

FIG. 3 shows a specific example of creating a reply mail from a document registered by a reply document registrant and a received mail. First, it is assumed that a person named "Sakai" does not have time to process an email addressed to himself. In that case, "Sakai" is the ID of the substitute recipient.
Reply document 1 stating that you cannot receive mail with
Create 1. The reply document 11 is registered in the reply document file 8 together with the reply documents registered by other people. In this state, assume that a mail addressed to Sakai is received.
The received mail 13 is registered in the received mail file 7. In this received mail 13, the recipient's name "Saka
i ”, sender name“ sender 1 ”, and mail content“ original document ”are described. At this time, since Sakai is in a state where he cannot receive the mail, the system reads the received mail 13 and sends it to the recipient "Sakai".
The "i" is replaced with the sender, and the sender "sender 1" is replaced with the recipient. Further, in the mail 14 in which the destination is replaced, the S read from the reply document file
A reply mail 12 registered by akai is added to create a reply mail 15. Then, the system automatically sends this reply mail 15 to the sender of the received mail 11.

The present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, but can be applied to other systems. For example, in a facsimile collection and distribution system,
By recognizing the caller's telephone number and using this as the reply destination, and by making it possible to create and register a facsimile reply image in advance, the same effect as the above-described embodiment can be obtained. it can.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, a person who is in a state of being unable to receive an e-mail only needs to register a document stating that fact, and the document is automatically sent to the sender of the e-mail. Will be returned to you. Therefore, the sender of the mail does not needlessly wait a long time for the reply from the recipient, and can immediately start the next process.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a flow of operations of an embodiment of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a specific example of creating a reply document in one embodiment of the electronic mail system according to the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Own system 3 Receiving unit 7 Receiving mail file 4 Reply document registering unit 8 Reply document file 5 Receiving monitoring unit 9 Sending mail file 6 Sending unit

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In an electronic mail system, receiving means for receiving electronic mail, storage means for storing the electronic mail received by the receiving means, and an individual to a sender of an electronic mail addressed to the individual. A reply document registration means for registering reply documents in advance, and a received document that monitors the received e-mail and detects, when an e-mail addressed to an individual who registered the reply document in advance is received Monitoring means and a received signal from the received document monitoring means to the sender of the received e-mail,
An electronic mail system, comprising: a sending unit that sends the reply document registered in advance by a recipient of the received electronic mail.