JP2001024693A - Electronic mail system utilizing common attribute - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce retrieving operation of a called party by providing the system with a function for recording the attribute information of a user, a function for managing the user, on the basis of the recorded attribute information and a function capable of specifying the user's attribute information as a destination, and at transmission of a mail which specifies a group of each attribute information as a destination. SOLUTION: An address information analysis part 204 checks whether an attribute information destination group is specified as a destination address 202, when recognizing that the group is specified, and checks whether a user is registered in the specified group. When the user is registered, the analysis part 204 extracts the target user belonging to the specified attribute information from an attribute information destination group table, develops the user on a real mail address and registers the mail address as a destination address 202. Thereby the user can suitably and surely transmit an E mail to a party, desired of having the mail transmitted only in a single step for specifying the destination information group as a destination.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an address management method and a destination designation method for a user in an electronic mail system. In particular, a common attribute possessed by a user is registered in an address book as an attribute information destination group. ,
The present invention relates to a system for dynamically managing users in the group, and for easily specifying a user having the common attribute or a plurality of common attributes at the destination at the time of mail transmission.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In general, a client-server type e-mail system, a directory service (a directory service is generally defined as a function of providing attribute information on users, groups, resources, services, etc. in a network system). For example, X.500
There is a standard called ITU-T (Inter) which describes the concept, model and service outline of the directory.
national Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication
sector), and corresponds to "ISO 9594-1" in the ISO standard. Some e-mail systems that provide a common address book for users by performing address book management corresponding to ()) have a function of adding and setting users as a member of a group such as an organization or a department to which the user belongs. . In an e-mail system with such a function, when specifying an e-mail address, instead of directly specifying a user name or user address, a hierarchical organization such as a company is displayed, and a specific group or individual is displayed. It is possible to search and specify.

[0003] Further, depending on the address book of the electronic mail system, it is possible to set personal information on each user, and when specifying a destination, the mail sender determines whether or not the user is an appropriate user as a transmission destination. Some can be confirmed. Further, there is a mail system having a function of searching for a transmission partner based on a keyword considered as user attribute information.

[0004] In the former, it is necessary to confirm the personal information of the user each time a transmission partner is selected, and in the latter, a search operation is performed each time a user having the attribute is selected, and the transmission partner is determined from the search result. , It is necessary to specify the destination.

Further, in order to surely deliver a mail to a user having a specific condition or attribute, it is necessary to separately check whether the specified condition itself exists. In order to reduce this work and improve efficiency, there is an example of creating a group of users satisfying specific conditions (having specific attribute information) as a private address book for each individual. Also, it was not possible to dynamically respond to a new user having a corresponding attribute, and each user had to voluntarily update itself.

In order to solve such a problem,
As a method of specifying an e-mail address, there is a method having a mechanism for efficiently searching for and determining a destination address.

In the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-326733, a network ID indicating a transmission destination and a keyword associated with the ID are registered in a database as an e-mail transmission method, and a transmission document and the keyword are grouped. The transmission of an e-mail is accepted, a registered keyword is extracted, and the e-mail is transmitted to a network ID that matches the keyword.
In this method, an appropriate transmission destination is selected again from the displayed transmission destination candidates that are searched according to the keyword, that is, the attribute designation assigned to the user. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-11374 discloses that a specific keyword is designated as a subject when an e-mail is transmitted without registering a keyword (attribute) for an e-mail user.
A method of automatically extracting a destination candidate has been proposed.
In this method, a character string that matches a keyword is searched for in an e-mail document received in the past, a suitable e-mail is determined, and a destination candidate is extracted from a sender / address of the e-mail. The transmission destination is determined from the candidates.

[0008]

As described above, in the destination search method by specifying a keyword, the existence of a keyword itself for specifying a partner to whom an e-mail is to be transmitted is not clear, or as a preprocessing for specifying a destination, It is very difficult to efficiently extract the destinations to be transmitted without omission, for example, because it is necessary to perform a search process for transmission destination candidates separately.

In view of the above prior art, the present invention automatically registers user attribute information as an attribute information destination group in a mail address book, and automatically assigns a user having a corresponding attribute to the destination group. A method of registering as a member and a method of specifying an AND condition compliant user or an OR condition compliant user according to single or plural designation of a destination group generated from attribute information are used. The e-mail system using the above method can reduce the work of searching for a transmission partner. Further, by automatically registering a group member of a user having a specific attribute, it is possible to always send an e-mail to an appropriate partner.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, means for registering attribute information set for a user of an e-mail address book in an address book as an attribute information destination group, and registering the information in the address book Attribute information designation means having a means for dynamically managing users conforming to the specified attribute information destination group, a means for specifying a narrow destination by specifying AND conditions and OR conditions for a plurality of group destinations generated from the attribute information Provide an e-mail system.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The attribute information destination designation electronic mail system functions as follows.

First, an e-mail system administrator defines attribute information (user attribute information and target actual attribute information of each attribute information) to be set for a user who uses this system. After setting these pieces of attribute information, an address book registration process of the attribute information is executed in the address book.

Next, an actual user is registered in the address book. By setting the real attribute information of the user when registering the user, a user having the same attribute is automatically registered in the corresponding attribute information group.

By using an e-mail system having an address book processed in this way and e-mail client software capable of referring to the address book, the user can simultaneously transmit necessary information to an appropriate party. Becomes

FIG. 1 shows an example in which an e-mail created by an e-mail client is transmitted, and an attribute information destination group specified as a destination address is developed into a real address via an address book management unit via an e-mail server. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an outline at the time of using the system of the present invention, in which the system is transmitted to a target party, that is, stored in a mail box of each target user. FIG. 2 corresponds to the address book management unit 105 in FIG. 1, and is a configuration diagram of attribute information destination processing in the address book management unit according to the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram in which an e-mail system administrator defines attribute information on an e-mail user. FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a process of extracting an attribute information destination group from a destination of a mail created by an electronic mail client and expanding the group to a real address.

Hereinafter, the first embodiment will be described.

The e-mail client 101 shown in FIG. 1 creates e-mail data 102 including an attribute information destination group including a destination to be transmitted, and transmits the e-mail. The e-mail data 102 passed to the e-mail server is passed to the address book management unit 105 using the present invention, and the processing in FIG. 2 is started. An address information analysis unit 204 that performs a real address expansion process of the attribute information destination group in FIG.
Are described in detail in FIG.

In FIG. 2, the header section 201 constituting the sent e-mail is taken into the address information analysis section 204 of the address book management section, and is identified as the destination address 202, the transmission source address 203 and the like. In step 402, the address information analysis unit 204 confirms whether or not an attribute information destination group is specified based on the information on the destination address 202 of the e-mail header 201.
Proceed to. If the attribute information destination group is not specified, the process proceeds to step 406 to execute the processing of distributing the e-mail data to the specified destination address, as in the processing of a general e-mail system, and requests the e-mail server to perform the processing. I do. If the attribute information destination group is specified,
In step 404, a list of the attribute information destination groups and the users included in the groups is acquired from the attribute information destination group information table 205. The attribute information destination group information table includes real attribute information 206 indicating an attribute information destination group and a user ID 207 that is a real address of a user belonging to the group.

The address information analysis unit 204 checks whether the attribute information destination group is specified as the destination address. If it is determined that the attribute information destination group is specified, at step 405, the address information is stored in the specified attribute information destination group. Check if the user is registered. If the user has been registered, in step 406, the target user belonging to the designated attribute information is extracted from the attribute information destination group table, expanded to a real mail address, and registered as a destination address. In step 407, Pass the process to the mail server. Thereafter, as in a general electronic mail system, mail transmission processing is performed to a designated destination. In one step of specifying the attribute information group as the destination, the user can surely send an e-mail to an appropriate and desired destination.

Next, a second embodiment will be described.

The invention of the second embodiment is an invention of an address management method for enabling the attribute information destination group to be directly specified on the mail client of the user in the invention of the first embodiment. The system configuration diagram is as shown in FIG.

The mail user and the address manager who sets the attribute information use the address management instruction unit 301 to set the user information 302 and the attribute information 303. First, the address manager registers the attribute information 303 in the attribute information address book 310 via the address registration update unit 304 of the address book management unit. The items include an attribute identifier 311, real attribute information 313 which is an element of the attribute identifier, and an attribute number 3 for identifying the real attribute information.
12, an update 314 indicating whether information is updated, and a registration 315 for specifying whether or not to register the attribute information as an attribute information destination group. In FIG. 3, 1 of the attribute identifier 311
“Gender” is registered as an item, and “male” and “female” are registered as its elements. Next, the user information 302 is registered in the user address book 305. The setting items of the user address book 305 include a user ID 306 (also referred to as an e-mail user address in the e-mail system) indicating a real address in the e-mail system, a user name 307, and one or more corresponding to the user. There is an actual attribute information 308 and an update 309 indicating whether the information is updated. The address book management unit includes an attribute information destination group user registration unit 319, and manages the actual attribute information and the user ID correspondence table having the actual attribute information as the attribute information destination group information 320. Further, when the registration of the user information and the attribute information is deleted, the address registration updating unit 304 records the deletion result in the address book deletion information 316.

Items in the address book deletion information table include a user ID as deleted user information 317,
There is an attribute identifier or actual attribute information as the deleted attribute information 318. The attribute information destination group user registration unit 319 includes user address book information 305, attribute information address book 310,
The address book deletion information 316 is monitored, and the attribute information destination group information 320 is always maintained as the latest information. This processing will be described in detail with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

First, registration / update / deletion of attribute identifier information
The reference process checks whether the target attribute identifier to be registered / updated / deleted is already registered in the attribute information address book (503). If the target attribute is new registration, the information is set and updated. Set the flag. If the process is for an already registered attribute identifier, the attribute identifier information is extracted (505). If the process is an update process, the necessary update is performed and an update flag is set (509). If it is a deletion process, the deleted attribute identifier is registered in the deletion information address book (508). Registration / update / deletion of real attribute information
The reference process selects the attribute identifier to which the real attribute information to be processed belongs.

It is checked whether or not the attribute identifier has already been registered in the attribute information address book (604). If the attribute identifier has not been registered, the process proceeds to new registration of the attribute identifier or to cancel processing (605). If the target attribute identifier has been registered, the attribute identifier and all the real attribute information belonging to the attribute identifier are extracted (606). Next, it is checked from the extracted information list whether or not the real attribute information to be registered, updated, or deleted has been registered (607). If the process is for the registered real attribute information, the update process (612) ) Or delete processing (610, 611). If it is unregistered information, new registration processing is performed (608).

Regarding registration / update / deletion of user information, if it is a new registration, it is confirmed whether or not the user information to be registered already exists in the user address book (703). If not, a new user registration process is performed (704, 705). On the other hand,
In the case of the deletion process, the target user information is extracted from the user address book (706), and the update or deletion process is performed.

Then, the mail destination address book is maintained and managed in the monitoring process of the attribute information destination group user registration unit 319 (801). When new user registration occurs (8
02) refers to the attribute information for the user and registers it as a member of the corresponding attribute information group in the attribute information address book (803). If the attribute information of the user has been changed (804), the user is deleted from the registered group or registered in a new target group based on the changed attribute information of the user, and a member of the appropriate information destination group is set. (805). When the user information is deleted (80
6) deletes the user ID registered in the address book deletion information from the attribute information destination address book (807). If the actual attribute information is newly registered (808), it is confirmed whether or not to register the information in the address book with the information related item (80).
9) If it is checked to register, it is registered in the attribute information destination address book (810). When the update of the actual attribute information occurs (811), the attribute information of the attribute information address book is updated (812), and the attribute information of the attribute information destination group information is appropriately updated (813). This allows the administrator to register, update, and delete the user information and the attribute information, thereby maintaining the attribute information destination group that can be directly specified by the user as the mail destination in an appropriate state.

Next, a third embodiment will be described.

The invention of the third embodiment is different from the first embodiment in that a plurality of attribute information destination groups are further specified, and users belonging to all groups or users belonging to some groups are directly narrowed down at the time of destination specification. It is an invention of a method.

The destination selection screen (901) is provided with a selection button for switching between group display (902) including attribute information groups and user display (903) for displaying all users, making user selection easier. With the function. An address book (904) for destination selection is prepared, and in the case of group display designation, various set attribute information groups are displayed. For example, there is a blood type (906) as an item registered as an attribute identifier,
Type A (907), type B,
AB type and O type (908) are set, and A type (90
To send a mail to a user belonging to 7), select the attribute group: A type (907) and send the mail.

The add button (910) allows the user to enter the address book (90
Add destination to 5). When canceling the added destination, the cancel button (911) is used. To send a mail to a user who belongs to both the attribute group: A type and the attribute group: AB type by using the condition specifying function, select the attribute group: A type, and change the attribute group: AB type to the AND condition (913). ) To facilitate selection of appropriate users. As a condition, an OR condition (9
The condition of 12) is satisfied, and more appropriate user selection is realized. On the display screen of the address book (904) for selecting a destination, "+" and "-" buttons are prepared for attribute identifiers, thereby improving operability related to destination selection. Also,
Behind the destination group added to the destination book (905), there is provided a function of displaying (AND) or (OR) as a symbol indicating the designated condition.

[0032]

According to the present invention, a procedure in which a user checks the attributes of a user in an address book one by one, searches only with limited attribute information, and selects an appropriate user from the information is omitted. By setting necessary attribute information as needed, a function of directly specifying the attribute information as a destination is provided, and a system for transmitting necessary information accurately to a required partner is realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an example of a system configuration when the present invention is used.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing attribute information destination processing in address book management when using the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram for realizing an address book management method when using the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a process of extracting an attribute information destination group from a destination of a created mail and expanding it to a real address.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating registration, update, and registration of attribute identifier information when using the present invention.
13 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a deletion / reference process.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an example of registration / update / deletion / reference processing of real attribute information when the present invention is used.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an example of user information registration / update / deletion processing.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating an example of management of an attribute information destination group when using the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a destination address selection screen when the present invention is used.

[Explanation of symbols]

201: E-mail data header part, 205: Attribute information destination group information, 301: Address management instruction part, 30
5: user address book, 310: attribute information address book,
316 address book deletion information, 320: attribute information destination group information, 901: destination selection screen, 902: group display selection button, 903: user display selection button, 904
... Address book, 905 ... Address book, 910 ... Add button,
911: Cancel button, 912: OR condition selection button, 913: AND condition selection button.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Atsuhisa Oki 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Inside Software Division of Hitachi, Ltd. (72) Inventor Takehiro Suzuki 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Hitachi, Ltd. Software Division (72) Inventor Masahiko Nakajima 5030 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in Hitachi Software Division, F5 (reference) 5B089 JA31 KA03 KC44 KC47 LA06 LA19 5K030 GA11 GA16 HA06 HD09 KA07 LD01

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A function of recording user attribute information in an address book, which is an address book of an electronic mail system, a function of managing users based on the recorded attribute information,
Provide a function that can specify the attribute information of the user as the destination,
An electronic mail system capable of designating a group for each attribute information as a destination when sending an e-mail. 2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the administrator having the authority to set information in the address book can add, delete, or change the attribute information of the user when necessary. Even if the address book is shared with other users in the network system, the user has at least the authority to set and change his / her own attribute information, and reflects the information in the address book after the change by an operation by the administrator. An e-mail system with an address management system that is processed similarly. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the attribute information of the user in the address book, which is the address book of the electronic mail system, is:
A destination that includes an attribute identifier indicating the meaning of the attribute and real attribute information set for each user, where the attribute identifier can be specified as selection identification information when specifying the destination of the mail, and the real attribute information that is the element can be specified as the destination An e-mail system with a group address management system. 4. A device according to claim 1, wherein when a destination group having specific attribute information (hereinafter referred to as an attribute information destination group) is designated as a destination of the electronic mail, the member is a member of the designated attribute information destination group. An e-mail system having an address management system capable of analyzing address information that takes out the actual e-mail address of each user and replaces it as a destination address that is an actual destination. 5. An address management system for managing an address book, which is an address book of an electronic mail system, has a function of setting attribute information that can be set in common to all users. Address management that enables to define identifiers and real attribute information that can be set by the identifiers, and automatically or manually registers the real attribute information as a destination group in response to the administrator defining the real attribute information Email system with a scheme. 6. When a user designates a destination when sending an e-mail, a specific attribute information destination group is designated, or a plurality of attribute information destination groups are designated, and “all conditions are satisfied (hereinafter, AND An e-mail system having a destination designation function that can be designated as "condition") or "satisfy any condition (hereinafter, referred to as OR condition)".