JP2002051070A - Electronic document circulation system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic document circulation system that can smoothly realize circulation of an electronic document. SOLUTION: The electronic document circulation system is provided with a circulation advance notice function that distributes contents (original) sent by a sender or an outline entered by the sender to all circulating people prior to the circulation of an electronic document, in the case of circulating the electronic document, and is provided with a validity warning function that automatically gives warning to a person stopping the circulation, a next person of the circulation and the sender on the occurrence of circulation stop.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for circulating digitized documents, and more particularly, to a digitized document in which a digitized document is sequentially circulated among a plurality of persons and the processing is completed by joint work by the persons in charge. It relates to a document circulation system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of personal computers and word processors, many office workers have created documents and tables as digitized documents. In order to improve the productivity of office work, electronic documents are automatically circulated along a circulation route by an e-mail system via a network, and a plurality of persons sequentially work in cooperation with the electronic documents to work together. Some work forms have been completed to complete one work.

In such a cooperative operation, each person in charge simply processes his / her work (the processing of the circulated digitized documents) only in consideration of his / her own convenience. First, it may hinder cooperative work. Each person refers to not only his / her own work but also the history of work performed by the related parties, that is, the circulation history of electronic documents, and grasps the background of the given work (work can be circulated through any circulation route). Follow-up on completed work (how work has progressed since then)
It is one of the important points of productivity improvement to perform the work in consideration of the whole picture of the work such as.

Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-184142 discloses a method in which a receiver transmits an e-mail for confirming receipt to an e-mail when the e-mail is received. A retransmission method is described. According to the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-184142, the recipient can obtain the history of the e-mail, and the sender can confirm the arrival of the e-mail. Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
Japanese Patent No. 3728 discloses a method in which a sender of an electronic mail inquires a receiver of the processing status of an electronic mail in the receiver, and a method in which the receiver responds to the inquiry. In the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-63728, the receiver can obtain the history of the e-mail, and the sender can also obtain the processing status of the e-mail on the receiving side.

[0005]

When a digital document is circulated and processed, various procedures and inquiries that the next department creates a response in response to the response from the previous department (it is not completed by only one department) Processing) exists. In the conventional electronic document circulation system, it is possible to know the current status of distribution and management of circulation documents at the request of the sender, but in the case of stagnation detection, follow-up actions such as contacting the stagnation source directly As for the circulation of important information or the like with a time limit, the sender needs to monitor the situation at any time. In addition, even if a warning is issued by e-mail or the like that prompts early processing at the stagnation source of the circulation, the effect does not increase when the person is too busy and does not have time to read the e-mail. An object of the present invention is to provide a digitized document circulation system that can smoothly circulate digitized documents in view of the problems of the related art.

[0006]

According to the present invention, in addition to the conventional functions for checking the status of document / mail distribution, circulation / management,
The object is achieved by providing the following functions. (1) Circulation notice function This circulates digitized documents, and distributes the contents (original) transmitted by the circulation source or the outline entered by the transmission source to all circulators in advance of the document being circulated. Function.
By notifying that information of such contents will be circulated soon, the circulation target person can start in advance when an investigation or the like is necessary. As a method of notifying the circulation to all circulators, the method of sending the full text of the document to be circulated in advance, or the item unit (reception number, name, age, occupation, question content, etc.) on the input screen of the circulation sender terminal
In such a method, only necessary items are automatically or manually selected by inputting the information, and the information is pre-sent as a summary.

(2) Expiration date warning function This is because the circulation sender of an electronic document sets a suspension expiration date for the entire circulation, so that when a stagnation occurs, the stagnation person, the next circulation person, and the sender can be automatically sent. This is a function to warn you. If a circulation stagnation occurs, even if the circulation stagnant is warned that the deadline has expired, it does not always respond. In such a case, this function allows the next person to be circulated to notify the person who should be circulated next, so that the next circulator can urge you to follow the message even if the person who has stagnated ignores the warning. It becomes possible. The warning can be executed by sending a warning e-mail or by displaying a message on the terminal screen.

That is, the digitized document circulation system according to one aspect of the present invention stores a digitized document in which the circulation order is designated, and transmits the digitized document to a corresponding terminal in accordance with the designated circulation order. When the circulation operation for the next circulator is performed on the terminal, the digitized document stored in the storage unit is overwritten with the digitized document received from the terminal, and the overwritten digitized document is transferred to the next terminal. In a digitized document circulation system comprising processing means for performing a transmission process, prior to the start of circulation, a circulation notice notification means for transmitting a message for notifying the circulation to all terminals scheduled to circulate the digitized document. It is characterized by having. The message for announcing the circulation preferably includes the headline, the text, and the circulation information of the digitized document received from the circulation sender.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic document circulation system for storing an electronic document whose circulation order is specified, and transmitting the electronic document to a corresponding terminal in accordance with the specified circulation order. Then, when the circulation operation for the next circulator is performed on the terminal, the digitized document stored in the storage unit is overwritten with the digitized document received from the terminal, and the overwritten digitized document is transferred to the next terminal. In a computerized document circulation system comprising a processing means for performing a process of transmitting to a computer, a circulation deadline specified for each circulation person is monitored,
When the circulation operation to the next circulation person is not performed after the time limit of the circulation, a means for notifying the next circulation person and / or the circulation transmission person of the stagnation of circulation is provided.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of an electronic document circulation system according to the present invention. The digitized document circulation system 10 includes a server 11 for managing and circulating digitized documents, user terminals 12 to 17 for processing digitized documents circulated by users, and a server 11 and user terminals 12 to 17 is provided with a network device 18 for connection to the network device 17. The user terminals 12 to 17 are respectively assigned to users A to F who are users of the present system. However, the number of terminals is not limited to six, and one user can use a plurality of user terminals or one user terminal can be shared by a plurality of users. The user receives the digitized document using the user terminals 12 to 17, edits the document, and circulates it to the next circulation destination. The server 11 performs the circulation processing of the digitized document by delivering the digitized document for which the user has circulated to the next circulation destination to the next circulation destination.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a device configuration of the server 11. The server 11 includes a network connection device 21, a central processing unit 22, and a storage device 23. Storage device 23
Is a processing program block 24 in which a digitized document circulation processing procedure is described, a circulation control data block 25 composed of a plurality of control data necessary for user management and digitized document circulation processing, and a plurality of digitized circulations. A circulation object block 26 composed of documents is stored. The circulation control data block 25 includes a circulation management table (see FIG. 6) for managing the status of circulation. The circulation object block 26 includes a plurality of circulation objects circulated to the user. The circulation object is a digitized still image, moving image, sound, text, or a combination thereof. The central processing unit 22 includes a processing program block 24
The processing program is read and the circulation processing of the digitized document is executed. The network connection device 21 is connected to the user terminals 12 to 17 and the server 11 via the network device 18.
Is connected, and data is transmitted and received between the server 11 and the user terminals 12 to 17.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a device configuration of a general user terminal 12. As shown in FIG. The storage device 33 refers to the terminal processing program 35 in which the processing procedure of the digitized document circulated by the user at the terminal is described, and refers to the circulated object circulated as the digitized document and sends it from the server 11 for editing. Referring to the circulation object work area 36, which is an area for copying the digitized document that has been obtained, and the circulation object,
Application program block 3 for editing
7 is stored. The arithmetic unit 32 reads the terminal processing program 35 from the storage device 33 and executes the terminal processing. The terminal network connection device 31 connects the user terminal 12 and the server 11 via the network device 18, and performs data transmission and reception between the server 11 and the user terminal 12. The user interface device 34 is a keyboard 38
Alternatively, the information of the user input from the mouse 39 is detected and transmitted to the arithmetic unit 32. The display device 40 displays a processing result of the processing executed by the arithmetic device 32.

Next, taking the information disclosure business in a local government as an example, a circulation notice function and a time limit warning function in the event of a stagnation in circulation in the digitized document circulation system of the present invention will be described. Fig. 4 shows the order of circulation of digitized documents created in the municipality and the contents of processing added to the digitized documents in response to a request from a citizen to the municipality for information disclosure on the substance of the development project last year. FIG. On the left side of the figure, the department where the digitized document is circulated is indicated by a black arrow, and on the right side of the figure, the content of processing performed on the digitized document in each department in charge is shown.

[0014] It is assumed that a citizen has made a request to the local government for information disclosure on the actual status of the land development project last year (S1).
1). It is assumed that the response deadline is yy mm mm dd. The AA in charge of the public relations section, which has received the information disclosure request, uses the user terminal 12 to create a format of a survey report required for a response. In this case, it is necessary to conduct a survey on the road development project and the residential land development project as a land development project, so the format of the survey request for the civil engineering section that oversees the road maintenance project and the housing section that oversees the land development project is create. Then, set the circulation route as in "Public relations section → Civil engineering section → Housing section → Public relations section → Governor → Public relations section", and set the answer (forward) deadline for each circulation section (person in charge) and digitize documents (E-mail) (S12). The person in charge may set the circulation route sequentially for each case, but there are cases where the circulation route is determined depending on the type of case. In such a case, the circulation route may be registered in the user terminal in advance, and the registered circulation route may be called and set.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a circulation destination designation screen for designating a circulation destination and an answer period (circulation period) for each destination. As shown in the figure, the circulation destinations are sequentially set on the circulation information creation screen, and the response time limit (forwarding time limit) is set for each of the destinations.

The digitized document transmitted from the user terminal of the public relations section with the destination and the forwarding deadline set is received by the server 11. The digitized document is stored in the circulation object block 26 of the server 11, and the information of the circulation route and the circulation deadline is stored in the circulation control block 25 of the server 11 as a circulation management table shown in FIG. In the circulation management table, information such as the destination and the circulation deadline are arranged in the order specified on the circulation destination designation screen, and the person designated by the destination performs circulation (circulation) operation to the next circulation destination person. Is recorded. In other words, it can be determined that the circulation is currently arriving at the uppermost destination of the line in which the forwarding date and time are not recorded.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a circulation editing screen of the user terminal of the public relations section staff AA editing a digitized document to be circulated. After writing the subject (headline), circulation information, and the text, and preparing the attached file if necessary, prepare for sending the preliminary circulation notice mail. In this example, when the circulation is transmitted, the pressed items among the buttons 51 to 54 representing the subject, the circulation information, the text, the attached file, and the like are automatically edited, and the circulation notice mail is sent from the server 11 to all the prospective circulation persons. They are sent simultaneously.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a screen showing a state in which a circulation notice mail has arrived at a circulation candidate. FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a screen in a state where the circulation notice mail is opened. The circulation notice mail is, as described with reference to FIG. 7, the item selected by the circulation sender on the circulation edit screen (button pressed). In this example, the subject, circulation information, and the contents of the text are the body of the mail. Is automatically edited to all circulated persons, in this case, the person in charge of the civil engineering department BB,
It will be distributed to the CC and Governor of the Housing Section at the same time. The circulation target person knows that the information of such contents will be circulated soon by the circulation notice mail, and can start in advance when an investigation or the like is necessary.

A server 1 that has received an electronic document transmitted from a user terminal of the public relations section with a destination and a forwarding deadline set.
1 distributes as a circulation document to the user terminal of the civil engineering section BB which is the first destination according to the circulation management table.

Returning to FIG. 4, the person in charge of civil engineering, BB, receiving the digitized document, investigates the road maintenance situation last year.
A transmission operation to the next circulation destination is performed by writing in the circulated digitized document body and attaching a file of the detailed explanation material (S13). The server 11 overwrites and saves the digitized document stored in the circulation object block 26 of the storage device 23 with the digitized document transmitted from the person in charge of the civil engineering section BB. Further, the date and time when the circulation document was received from the civil engineer BB is recorded in the column of the date and time of forwarding of the civil engineer BB in the circulation management table.

Next, the server 11 converts the digitized document (the digitized document transmitted from the person in charge of the civil engineering department BB) stored in the circular object block 26 of the storage device 23 into the circular registered in the circular management table. In accordance with the description of the route, the information is transmitted to the user terminal of the person in charge of the house section CC who is the next destination. The housing section manager CC writes the report of the last year's residential land maintenance status in the received circular document, attaches the file of the detailed explanation material, and performs a transmission operation to the next circular destination (S1).
4).

The server 11 performs the same processing as described below, and repeats the process of transmitting a circulation document in which each department in charge is circulated and information is sequentially added to the circulation destination described in the circulation management table. In the illustrated example, the circulation document is returned to the public relations section staff AA after the housing section staff CC, and the public relations section staff A
A prepares (edits) the final report. Thereafter, the document is distributed to the governor as a circular document. After the governor's decision, the document is distributed again to the person in charge of the public relations section AA. Public Relations Section AA
Prepares an answer based on the circulation document received by the governor, and presents it to the citizen who made the information disclosure request.

Next, a description will be given of a term warning function of the present system, which detects and warns when a stagnation occurs during circulation. FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an example of the expiration warning mail issuance process by the server 11.

First, the circulation (circulation) management table of the target circulation is read line by line in the circulation order (S21). Next, it is determined whether there is a line to be read in the circulation management table (S22). If the end of the table has not been reached and there is no line to be read, the process is terminated. Otherwise, the process proceeds to the next step and the line is read. It is determined whether or not "forwarding date and time" has been input (S23). If the "forwarding date and time" has been input in the determination of step 23, the process returns to step 21 to determine whether the "forwarding date and time" has been input in the next line.

If "forwarding date and time" is not input in the read line, it is understood that the circulation is currently arriving at the destination of the line. In the example of FIG. 6, it is determined that the circulation document is currently stopped at the person in charge CC of the housing section. Next, the forwarding deadline set for the person in charge CC of the housing section is compared with the current date and time (S24). If there is a time until the forwarding deadline, there is no problem and the process ends.

On the other hand, if it is determined in step 24 that the answer time limit for which the current date and time has been set has passed, it is determined that stagnation has occurred, and the flow advances to the next step to generate a circulation stagnation warning mail. (S25). Then, as the mail destination, the circulation sender (in this example, the person in charge of the public relations section AA), the stagnant person (the person in charge of the housing section CC), and the next person to be circulated (the person in charge of the public relations section AA) Specify (S2
6), a circulation stoppage warning mail is transmitted to these persons (S27).

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of the contents of a circulation stoppage warning mail. As shown in the figure, in the circulation stoppage e-mail, for example, a message indicating which department (person in charge) is delayed for how many days is automatically edited.
Circular information is also attached. The calculation of the number of delay days is shown in FIG.
Is calculated based on the forwarding deadline set in. The illustrated example is an example in which a delay of 10 days has occurred in the civil engineering section.

The feature of the deadline warning function is that a circulation sender or a next circulation candidate is designated as the destination of the circulation warning mail. In a method of issuing a warning to a stagnating person, the warning may not make sense. Even in such a case, according to the method of the present invention, by alerting the circulation sender or the next circulation person, the occurrence of stagnation can be notified to the related parties, and the effect of urging the stagnant from the related parties can be expected. Follow-up is possible even if one person who stagnates ignores the warning.

The period warning operation may be performed automatically or manually. The timing for automatically performing the expiration warning operation can be performed when the system is started every day, when the system is started or when the system is terminated. Alternatively, the processing shown in FIG. 10 may be performed at a set time every day. As a manual method, an operator (system administrator) can input a command at an appropriate timing or the like. Here, an example in which the notification of the stagnation is performed by distributing the warning mail has been described, but the occurrence of the stagnation may be notified by a method of sending a message to a predetermined position on the screen instead of the mail distribution.

[0030]

According to the present invention, it is possible to smoothly circulate electronic documents.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of an electronic document circulation system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a device configuration of a server.

FIG. 3 is a device configuration diagram of a general user terminal.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing an example of processing performed by a local government in response to an information disclosure request.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a screen for designating a circulation destination and an answer deadline for each destination.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing an example of a circulation management table.

FIG. 7 is a view showing an example of a circulation editing screen for digitized documents.

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a screen showing a state in which a circulation notice mail has arrived at a circulation candidate.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing an example of a screen when a circulation notice mail is opened.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating an example of a term warning mail issuance process by a server.

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a circulation stoppage warning mail.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 digitized document circulation system, 11 server, 12-
17 user terminal, 18 network device, 21 network connection device, 22 central processing device, 23 storage device, 24 processing program block, 25 circulation control data block, 26 circulation object block, 3
1 ... terminal network connection device, 32 ... arithmetic device, 33
... Storage device, 34 ... User interface device, 35 ...
Terminal processing program, 36: circulation object work area, 37: application program block, 38
... keyboard, 39 ... mouse, 40 ... display device, 51-
54… Button

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04L 12/18

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A storage means for storing a digitized document having a designated circulation order, and transmitting the digitized document to a corresponding terminal in accordance with the designated circulation order. And a processing unit for performing a process of overwriting the digitized document stored in the storage unit with the digitized document received from the terminal when the process is performed, and transmitting the overwritten digitized document to the next terminal. In the system for circulating digitized documents, prior to the start of the circulation, a circulation notifying means for transmitting a message for notifying the circulation to all terminals scheduled to circulate the digitized documents is provided. system. 2. The electronic document circulation system according to claim 1, wherein the message for announcing the circulation includes a heading, a text, and circulation information of the electronic document received from the circulation sender. Electronic document circulation system. 3. A storage means for storing a digitized document having a designated circulation order, and transmitting the digitized document to a corresponding terminal in accordance with the designated circulation order. And a processing unit for performing a process of overwriting the digitized document stored in the storage unit with the digitized document received from the terminal when the process is performed, and transmitting the overwritten digitized document to the next terminal. In the circulated document circulation system, the circulating deadline specified for each circulator is monitored, and if the circulating deadline is exceeded and the circulation operation to the next circulator is not performed, the next circulator and / or circulation is transmitted. A means for notifying a user of the stagnation of circulation, which is an electronic document circulation system.