JP2000183946A - Method for confirming mail state and its device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method and device for confirming a mail state for confirming the referred state of the mail of the other user in a group who receives a mail. SOLUTION: A request processing part 15 obtains the state of mail stored in a mail spool 1 based on a request for the confirmation of the mail state from a client, and communicates it to the client. Therefore, the receiver of a mail transmitted to the destinations of a group can confirm the state of the mail of the other receiver in the group. Thus, the receiver can easily confirm whether or not a mail is referred to when a significant communication has been operated through a mail, and separately operate communication when the mail has not been referred to. Thus, the certainty of communication through a mail can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail status checking method and apparatus, and more particularly, to a mail status checking method and apparatus for checking the status of mail of another recipient user in a mail addressed to a group.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, in an office environment or the like, an opportunity to use an e-mail system for purposes such as notification of notices and delivery of documents has been increasing. Unlike a telephone, an e-mail system can notify the recipient regardless of the presence or absence of the recipient user, and by setting a predetermined group to the recipient, the user belonging to that group can be notified. A broadcast notification can also be issued.

[0005] However, on the other hand, in the electronic mail system, if the receiving user does not refer to the received mail, the message is not notified, and it cannot be said that it is a reliable notification means. As a method of preventing such non-reference on the receiving side, the transmitting side of the e-mail confirms whether or not the receiving user has referred to the mail. this is,
This is because if the sending side finds that the receiving user has not referred to the e-mail, it can separately notify the message.

[0004] As a technique for confirming the reference state of the mail of the recipient user on the transmission side, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 8-12951 is disclosed.
No. 5, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No.
No. 56236 discloses an “e-mail system”.

[0005] An "e-mail reference confirmation device" described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-129515 is a device which allows a sender to confirm whether or not a recipient has referred to a transmitted e-mail. The "e-mail system" described in Japanese Patent Application No. 56236 is a system capable of confirming whether or not each recipient has referred to mail transmitted to a plurality of destinations.

[0006]

By the way, when a sender sends an e-mail to a group using an e-mail system and all the members belonging to the group receive the e-mail, the receiver sends the e-mail to the group. There is also a demand that not only the sender but also a user belonging to the group wants to check whether or not another user has referred to the mail. Such a request cannot be met by the above-described conventional technology, and the reference state of the mail of another user in the group cannot be confirmed.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a mail status confirmation method and apparatus which can confirm the reference status of mail of other users in a group that has received the mail, as well as the sender of the mail. And

[0008]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mail status confirmation method for confirming a reference status of a mail transmitted to a group. Is expanded to the user names of the users constituting the group, and the reference state of the received mail corresponding to each of the expanded user names is acquired and displayed.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the invention, the reference state is information indicating whether the received mail is opened, unopened, or deleted. And

[0010] According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, each user constituting the group can set, as an attribute, whether or not another user can obtain a reference state with respect to the received mail. And

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the sender of the mail has, as an attribute, whether or not a user other than the recipient of the mail can obtain a reference state for the mail to be sent. It can be set.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the fourth aspect of the present invention, the sender of the mail can set whether the attribute of the mail to be transmitted can be changed by a user who has received the mail. And

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, in a mail status confirmation device for confirming a reference status of a mail transmitted to a group, a transmission means for transmitting a mail, and a mail transmitted by the transmission means is received. Receiving means;
Address expansion means for expanding the destination group name of the mail received by the receiving means into the user names of the users constituting the group, and a reference state of the received mail corresponding to each of the user names expanded by the address expansion means. And a reference state acquiring means for acquiring.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the sixth aspect of the invention, the reference state is information indicating whether the received mail is open, unopened, or deleted. And

[0015] In the invention according to claim 8, in the invention according to claim 6, the receiving means transmits the received mail.
An attribute setting means for setting whether or not a reference state of another user can be obtained by the reference state obtaining means as an attribute is provided.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, in the sixth aspect of the present invention, the transmitting means transmits the mail to
An attribute setting unit is provided for setting whether or not a reference state acquisition unit of a user other than the mail recipient can acquire a reference state as an attribute.

According to a tenth aspect of the present invention, in the ninth aspect of the present invention, the transmitting means includes a change permission / inhibition setting means for setting whether or not to change the attribute set by the attribute setting means in the mail to be transmitted. It is further characterized by comprising:

[0018]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a mail state checking method and apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a server (mail server) employing the mail status confirmation method and apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a configuration of a mail system including the server shown in FIG. FIG.
As shown in FIG. 1, the server 1 includes a mail spool 11, a transmission processing unit 12, an address expansion unit 13, a group expansion table 14, and a request processing unit 15.

The server 1 (1-1, 1-2, 1-
3) is connected to the clients 2 (2-1 to 2-4) via a network as shown in FIG. Although FIG. 2 shows an example in which three servers 1 and four clients 2 are connected, the server 1 and the clients 2
There is no limit on the number.

When sending mail using the server 1, the outbox 21 (21-1 to 2-1) of the client 2 is used.
From 1-4), the transmission processing unit 12 via the request processing unit 15 of the server 1 stores it in a predetermined area in the mail spool 11, for example, if the mail is a mail addressed to the user a, in the area 11a. The mail stored in the area 11a of the mail spool 11 is transferred to the inbox 22 (22-1 to 22-4) of the client 2 by the user a and referenced.

The server 1 is capable of processing mail addressed to a group composed of a plurality of users. When a mail addressed to a certain group is transferred to the server 1, an address expansion unit is provided. Reference numeral 13 refers to a group expansion table 14 in which members of each group are registered, and expands the group name to each user constituting the group, and the transmission processing unit 12 sends the mail to the mail spool 11.
In the area corresponding to the user in the.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the group expansion table 14. In FIG. 3, a group A includes users b, c, d, e, and f, and a group B includes users a, g, and h.

Here, the operation of the server 1 at the time of mail transmission will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of the operation of the server 1 at the time of sending a mail. The server 1 starts operating (step 101), and when the request processing unit 15 receives a mail transmission request from the client 2 (YES in step 102), a mail ID for identification is assigned to the mail (step 10).
3).

Next, if the address of the mail is a group (YES in step 104), the address expansion unit 13 expands the address (group) to the user by referring to the group expansion table 14, and sets the mail attribute. (Step 10
5). If the address development is completed or the address is not a group (NO in step 104), the transmission processing unit 1
2 transmits (stores) the mail to the corresponding area of the mail spool (step 106), and ends the mail transmission operation (step 107).

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a mail transmission window displayed on the display (not shown) of the client 2 at the time of mail transmission. When the user sends an e-mail to the group, the address entry field 3 of the transmission window 30
1 is filled with a group name, for example, A. Also, the title of the e-mail to be transmitted is entered in the subject entry column 32, and the contents to be notified are entered in the comment entry column 33. The mail created in this way is sent to the server 1 and is assigned a mail ID as described above, and the address A
Are members of group A, b, c, d, e, f
And 11a, 11 in the mail spool 11.
b, 11c, 11d, 11e, and 11f, respectively.

By the way, regarding the mail sent to the group using the server 1, the user who has received the mail can check the state of the mail of another user in the group. Check the status of other users' emails in Inbox 2
This is performed by operating the inbox window showing the state of No. 2.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an inbox window displayed on the display of the client 2. In the state where the mail with the mail ID “server1.1” and the mail with “server1.2” are stored in the inbox 22, as shown in FIG. 41 and 42 are displayed. The attributes of the mail displayed here are “mail ID”, “sender”, “send date”, “subject”, “receiver”, and “status check”.

In order to confirm the status of the mail of another user, a desired mail is selected by operating a keyboard or a mouse (not shown), and a predetermined operation is performed to display a pop-up menu 43 (FIG. 6). , The pop-up menu 43 is displayed by selecting the mail of the attribute 42). The pop-up menu 43 includes a received mail display menu 43-1 for displaying the contents of the selected mail, a delete menu 43-2 for deleting the selected mail, and a reply menu for replying to the selected mail. 43-3 and a property menu 43-4 for checking the mail status of another user.

Here, when the property menu 43-4 is selected from the pop-up menu 43 to check the mail status of another user, a mail property window 50 as shown in FIG. 7 is displayed on the display. In the mail property window 50, a subject 51 and a mail state 52 of the mail are displayed.

In the mail status 52, the status of the mail of another user is displayed. In the case of FIG. 7, the users b, c, and d have been opened, the user e has not been opened, and the user f has been deleted. Is shown.

Next, the operation of the client 2 when checking the mail status will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the flow of the operation of the client 2 at the time of checking the mail status. Client 2 has inbox window 40
Is displayed (step 201), and when the property menu 43-4 is selected by a user operation and the property command is executed (YES in step 202), first,
Obtain post-expansion address from mail attribute (step 20)
3).

Next, the server 1 is inquired of the mail status for each of the expanded addresses (N in step 204).
O, Step 205) When the inquiry for all the addresses is completed (YES in Step 204), the mail property window 50 is opened to display the addresses and the status of the mail corresponding to the addresses (Step 206), and the mail status confirmation is performed. The process ends (step 207).

The user who has received the mail can make settings so that the state of his / her mail cannot be confirmed by other users. To make the received mail invisible to other users, select the attribute 63 from the attributes 61 to 63 while the inbox window 60 shown in FIG. 9 is open (displayed). To display the pop-up menu 64, and select and execute the impossible menu 64-2 from the possible menu 64-1 and the impossible menu 64-2 so that the mail of the attribute 63 cannot be checked by another user. (Change).

As described above, when a certain user, for example, user d sets the state of the mail to the state where the mail cannot be checked, another user (other than the user d) checks the state of the mail. As in the property window 70, the subject 71 and the mail status 72 are displayed, and the portion corresponding to the user d in the mail status 72 is “****”.
Is displayed as a state that cannot be confirmed.

Here, the processing of each unit when making the setting for disabling the mail status confirmation will be described with reference to FIG. FIG.
9 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when the mail status check is disabled. When the user opens the inbox window 60 (step 301), selects an e-mail for which disabling is to be set, and selects the disabling menu 64-2 (step 302), the inbox 22 (client 2) Then, a request for the status confirmation disable setting is transmitted together with the mail ID of the specified mail (step 30).
3).

Next, the server 1 receiving the request sets the status of the mail with the specified mail ID to be unconfirmable (step 304), and notifies the inbox 22 of the completion of the setting (step 305).

Subsequently, the inbox 22 receiving the setting completion notification
Changes the status confirmation field in the mail attribute to unacceptable (step 306), and ends the process of setting the mail status unacceptable (step 307).

Next, a description will be given of a second embodiment of the mail status checking method and apparatus according to the present invention. This second
In the embodiment, the sender of the mail addressed to the group can set whether or not to check the mail status for each user in the group, and can set whether or not to permit the change of the setting.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing a display example of the transmission window in the second embodiment. As shown in the figure,
In the transmission window 80, in addition to an address entry field 81, a subject entry field 82, a comment entry field 83, a status confirmation setting field 84
Is displayed. The status display setting column 84 includes an address entry column 8
The user name corresponding to the address (A in the figure) entered in 1 is displayed. When the address is entered in the address entry field 81, the outbox 21 (client 2) accesses the server 1 and acquires the user name that has expanded the group name.

The status display setting column 84 displays the names of the users in the group, and sets a mail non-confirmation non-confirmation setting column for each user. Changeable setting fields are displayed, and the attributes of the mail to be sent can be set by setting these setting fields (in the figure, the user e is set to be unable to check the mail state, and the user f is set to the mail checking state Setting change is prohibited).

Here, the operation of the server 1 at the time of mail transmission in the second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG.
FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the flow of the operation of the server 1 at the time of sending a mail in the second embodiment. The server 1 starts operating (step 401), and the request processing unit 15
Receives a mail transmission request from the client 2 (YES in step 402), assigns a mail ID for identification to the mail (step 403).

Next, if the address of the mail is a group (YES in step 404), the address expansion unit 13 expands the address (group) to the user with reference to the group expansion table 14, and sets the mail attribute. (Step 40
5). If the address development is completed or if the address is not a group (NO in step 404), the transmission process for all addresses is completed (N in step 406).
O), the address expanding unit 13 sets the status confirmation impossible for the mail for which the status confirmation is specified (step 407).
(YES in step 408), and if there is no designation (NO in step 407), the transmission processing unit 12 transmits the mail to the corresponding area of the mail spool (step 409). When the processing of steps 407 to 409 is performed for all the addresses (YE in step 406)
S), the mail transmission operation ends (step 410).

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the receiver of the mail transmitted to the group can confirm the state of the mail of the other receivers in the group, it is important. If you contact us by email,
It is possible to easily confirm whether or not the receiver has made a reference. If the receiver has not made a reference, a separate contact is made, so that the reliability of the contact by e-mail is improved.

Also, the receiver can set whether or not to confirm the status of the mail from another person, and use this to confirm attendance at a conference or the like (for example, the setting of “not possible” is absent).
It is also possible to operate for purposes other than e-mail status confirmation.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a server (mail server) that employs a mail status confirmation method and device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a mail system including the server shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a group expansion table 14;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the flow of the operation of the server 1 when sending a mail.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a mail transmission window.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an inbox window.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a mail property window.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the flow of the operation of the client 2 at the time of checking the mail status.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an inbox window.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing a mail property window.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart showing the flow of processing when a mail status check is disabled.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a transmission window according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 13 is a flowchart illustrating a flow of an operation of the server 1 at the time of mail transmission in the second embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

1, 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 server 2, 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4 client 11 mail spool 11a, 11b, 11c, 11d, 11e, 11f
Area 12 Transmission processing unit 13 Address development unit 14 Group development table 15 Request processing unit 21, 21-1, 21-2, 21-3, 21-4 Outbox 22, 22-1, 22-2, 22-3, 22-4 Inbox 30 Send window 31 Address entry field 32 Subject entry field 33 Comment entry field 40 Inbox window 41, 42 Mail attribute 43 Pop-up menu 43-1 Received mail display menu 43-2 Delete menu 43-3 Reply menu 43 -4 Property menu 50 Mail property window 51 Subject 52 Mail status 60 Inbox window 61, 62, 63 Attributes 64 Pop-up menu 64-1 Possible menu 64-2 Disabled menu 70 Property window 71 Subject 72 Mail status 80 Sending window 81 Entry column 82 subject entry column 83 comment entry column 84 state confirmation setting column

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page F term (reference) 5B089 GA11 GA21 JA31 KA05 KA13 KC14 KH03 LA12 LB14 5K030 GA16 HA06 HB08 HD09 KA04 KA07 LD06 LD13 9A001 JJ14

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A mail status confirmation method for confirming a reference status of a mail transmitted to a group, comprising: expanding a destination group name of the received mail to a user name of a user constituting the group; A mail state confirmation method, wherein a reference state of a received mail corresponding to each name is acquired and displayed. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the reference state is information indicating whether the received mail is opened, unopened, or deleted.
E-mail status confirmation method described. 3. The mail status confirming method according to claim 1, wherein each user constituting the group can set, as an attribute, whether or not another user can obtain a reference status for the received mail. 4. The mail status check according to claim 1, wherein a sender of the mail can set, as an attribute, whether or not a reference status can be acquired by a user other than a recipient of the mail with respect to the mail to be transmitted. Method. 5. The method according to claim 4, wherein a sender of the mail can set whether or not the user who has received the mail can change the attribute of the mail to be transmitted. 6. A mail status confirmation device for confirming a reference status of a mail transmitted to a group, a transmission unit for transmitting the mail, a reception unit for receiving the mail transmitted by the transmission unit, and the reception unit. Address expansion means for expanding the destination group name of the received mail into the user names of the users constituting the group, and a reference for acquiring the reference state of the received mail corresponding to each of the user names expanded by the address expansion means. A mail status confirmation device, comprising: status acquisition means. 7. The reference state according to claim 6, wherein the reference state is information indicating whether the received mail is opened, unopened, or deleted.
The mail status confirmation device described. 8. The apparatus according to claim 6, wherein said receiving means includes attribute setting means for setting whether or not a reference state of another user can be acquired by said reference state acquiring means as an attribute. The mail status confirmation device described. 9. The transmitting means includes an attribute setting means for setting, as an attribute, whether or not a user other than a recipient of the mail can obtain a reference state by the reference state obtaining means for the mail to be transmitted. 7. The mail status confirmation device according to claim 6, wherein: 10. The mail according to claim 9, wherein said transmission means further comprises a change permission / inhibition setting means for setting whether or not to change the attribute set by said attribute setting means for the mail to be transmitted. Status checking device.