JP2012058935A - Fax electronic document distribution system, information processing equipment, method, and program - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a new FAX electronic document distribution system capable of maximizing overall throughput of operations in FAX ordering and order receiving jobs.SOLUTION: A client pc of an administrator constantly monitors an addition of a newly received FAX electronic document to a FAX reception folder of a file server, and inquires who should be the most appropriate person to handle the added document to a person in charge determination server with an addition of a new file as the trigger. The person in charge determination server, which manages a backlog by person, replies the person with the smallest backlog as the most appropriate person to the inquiry from the client PC. The client PC moves the newly arrived FAX electronic document saved at the FAX reception folder of the file server once to the most appropriate person's folder by person responding to the reply. Meanwhile, the client PC continuously informs the processing state of subjects related with FAX electronic documents to the person in charge determination server, and the person in charge determination server updates the number of unprocessed documents based on the informed processing states.

Description

  The present invention relates to a FAX electronic document distribution system, and more particularly to a FAX electronic document distribution system that supports the efficiency of FAX ordering work.

  Conventionally, FAX ordering work has been performed based on paper-based output. However, in recent years, with the spread of digital MFPs equipped with a facsimile engine and an image forming engine, the received FAX is not output on paper. An increasing number of companies conduct ordering and ordering operations using paperless FAX for electronic documentation.

  With respect to this point, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-129005 (Patent Document 1) discloses that a purchase order received by a facsimile apparatus is converted into an electronic document, and the electronically converted purchase order is placed in a folder for each person in charge based on the FAX number of the sender. Disclose a distribution ordering system.

  However, the ordering / ordering system disclosed in Patent Document 1 has a problem that the throughput of the entire business is reduced as a result of the concentration of cases to a specific person in charge and an increase in backlog.

  The present invention has been made in view of the above-described problems in the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a new FAX electronic document distribution system that maximizes the throughput of the entire business in FAX ordering / ordering operations. To do.

  As a result of intensive studies on a new FAX electronic document distribution system that maximizes the throughput of the entire business in FAX ordering and ordering work, the present inventor has found a configuration that suitably equalizes the backlog of each person in charge. It came to.

  That is, according to the present invention, there is provided a FAX electronic document distribution system including a file server, a plurality of client terminals, and a person-in-charge determination server connected via a network, wherein the file server is transferred from an external FAX apparatus. A FAX reception folder for storing the FAX electronic document and a plurality of person-by-person folders prepared for each person in charge, and the client terminal uses the person-in-charge determination server triggered by the addition of a file to the FAX reception folder. An optimum person inquiry section for inquiring about the person in charge of the optimum person, a file distribution part for moving the FAX electronic document from the FAX reception folder to the folder for each person in charge of the person in charge of the optimum person, and the person in charge of the processing state of the FAX electronic document. Based on the contents of the FAX electronic document A priority information generation unit that generates priority information to be displayed on the GUI, and the person-in-charge determination server is configured to manage the number of unprocessed cases for each person in charge, based on the processing state An unprocessed number update unit that updates the number of unprocessed cases, and an optimal person determination unit that responds to an inquiry from the optimum person inquiry unit as a person in charge with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as an optimum person A FAX electronic document distribution system is provided.

1 is a network diagram of a FAX electronic document distribution system according to an embodiment. The functional block diagram of this embodiment. FIG. 6 is a sequence diagram of processing executed by the FAX electronic document distribution system according to the embodiment. The figure which shows the unprocessed number management table in this embodiment. The figure which shows the GUI screen displayed on the client PC in this embodiment. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a FAX electronic document in the present embodiment.

  Hereinafter, although this invention is demonstrated with embodiment, this invention is not limited to embodiment mentioned later. In the drawings referred to below, the same reference numerals are used for common elements, and the description thereof is omitted as appropriate.

  FIG. 1 shows a network diagram of a FAX electronic document distribution system 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The FAX electronic document distribution system 10 includes a personal computer 100 as a plurality of client terminals, a person-in-charge determination server 200, a file server 300, and an MFP 12, all of which are a local area, It is connected to a network 14 referred to as a network infrastructure such as a network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or the Internet.

  The MFP 12 is referred to as an external FAX apparatus including a facsimile engine and an image forming engine. After the contents of a facsimile received from the outside through a FAX line are digitized, the MFP 12 refers to the electronic file (hereinafter referred to as a FAX electronic document). ) Is automatically transferred to the file server 300.

  The file server 300 is a server device for realizing file sharing among a plurality of users in accordance with a file transfer protocol (FTP). Preferably, the file server 300 can be constructed inexpensively and easily, and is operated and managed. Can be configured with NAS (Network Attached Storage).

  The plurality of personal computers 100 include, for example, a personal computer 100a (hereinafter referred to as an administrator client PC 100a) used by an in-house system administrator, and a personal computer used by a person in charge of FAX ordering / ordering work. The computer 100b (hereinafter referred to as a person-in-charge client PC 100b). Each personal computer 100 has an FTP client function for executing transmission / reception of a file to / from the file server 300. The FTP client executes transmission / reception of a file and displays a file list and the like. Provides a GUI.

  The person-in-charge determination server 200 according to the present embodiment is a server device that determines an optimum person in charge of a new arrival fax received by the MFP 12 from the viewpoint of bag log leveling, and can be configured by a workstation or the like.

  FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the client PC 100, the file server 300, and the person-in-charge determination server 200 in the present embodiment. Hereinafter, with reference to FIG. 2, functional means included in each device will be described.

  The file server 300 includes an FTB server unit 310 and a file system 320. The file system 320 manages the “FAX reception folder” and the “folder by person in charge” prepared for each person in charge. The FAX electronic document automatically transferred from the MFP 12 is first temporarily set to the “FAX reception folder”. Is stored.

  The client PC 100 includes a FAX distribution control unit 110, an FTP client unit 120, a priority order information generation unit 130, and a processing state notification unit 140. The FAX distribution control unit 110 further includes a new arrival FAX monitoring unit 112, an optimum person inquiry unit 114, and a file distribution unit 116.

  The new fax monitoring unit 112 sets “FAX reception folder” managed by the file system 320 of the file server 300 as a monitoring folder, and constantly monitors whether or not a file is added to the “FAX reception folder”. When the newly received FAX monitoring unit 112 detects the addition of a file, the optimal person in charge inquiry unit 114 makes an inquiry to the person in charge determination server 200 to obtain an optimum person in charge of the new FAX as an answer. In response to this, the file distribution unit 116 requests the FTP client unit 120 to specify a folder for each person in charge to distribute a newly arrived FAX electronic document, and receives an instruction from the FTP client unit 120. The unit 310 moves the newly received FAX electronic document stored in the “FAX reception folder” to the designated folder for each person in charge.

  The priority order information generation unit 130 includes an OCR processing unit 132 and a keyword counting unit 134. Based on the contents of a newly arrived FAX electronic document, information that is used as a judgment material when determining the processing priority order. Generate. The GUI generation unit 122 of the FTP client unit 120 generates a GUI screen that displays the generated priority information. The processing state notification unit 140 notifies the person-in-charge determination server 200 of the processing state of the FAX in response to reception of a FAX electronic document or input from a user (person in charge).

  The person-in-charge determination server 200 includes an optimum person-in-charge determination unit 210, an unprocessed number update unit 220, and an unprocessed number management database 230. The unprocessed number update unit 220 manages the number of unprocessed cases (bag log number) of FAX items held by each person in charge based on the processing state notified from the processing state notification unit 140 of the client PC 100. 230 is updated at any time. In response to the inquiry from the optimum person inquiry unit 114 of the client PC 100, the optimum person determination unit 210 searches the unprocessed number management database 230, and selects the person with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as the optimum person in charge of the new FAX. And the person in charge is returned as an answer to the optimum person-in-charge inquiry unit 114. Note that the person-in-charge determination server 200 described above does not have to be specialized for the process of determining a person in charge, and may be configured as a document management server partially including the above-described functional units.

  The functional units included in each device constituting the FAX electronic document distribution system 10 according to the present embodiment have been described above. Next, processing executed by the FAX electronic document distribution system 10 according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. This will be described in more detail.

  FIG. 3 shows a sequence diagram of processing executed by the FAX electronic document distribution system 10. In the following description, FIG. 2 will be referred to as appropriate. In the FAX distribution control unit 110 of the administrator client PC 100a, first, the new arrival FAX monitoring unit 112 monitors the input of a new arrival FAX (new file) to the “FAX reception folder” of the file server 300. The monitoring loops until an input of a new arrival FAX is detected.

  When the new arrival FAX monitoring unit 112 detects an input of a new arrival FAX, the optimum person in charge inquiry unit 114 is the person in charge most suitable as a distribution destination of the new arrival FAX with respect to the optimum person determination unit 210 of the person in charge determination server 200 (hereinafter referred to as a new arrival FAX). , Refer as the best person in charge).

  Upon receiving the inquiry from the administrator client PC 100a, the optimum person-in-charge determination unit 210 receives the minimum number of “FAX unprocessed cases” based on the unprocessed number management table 500 shown in FIG. 4 stored in the unprocessed number management database 230. And the user corresponding to the minimum value is determined as the optimum person in charge.

  In the case of the example shown in FIG. 4, since the minimum value of “the number of unprocessed faxes” is “1”, the optimum person determination unit 210 sets “USER-005” corresponding to the minimum value “1” as the optimum person. Judge as a person. If there are a plurality of persons in charge corresponding to the minimum value, one of them is selected at random. Note that the value of “number of unprocessed faxes” in the unprocessed number management table 500 is updated as needed based on the processing state information transmitted from the person-in-charge client PC 100b, and this point will be described later.

  The optimum person in charge determination unit 210 of the person-in-charge determination server 200 returns the user ID “USER-005” of the optimum person in charge determined by the above-described procedure to the optimum person inquiry unit 114 of the administrator client PC 100a. The file distribution unit 116 of the administrator client PC 100 a requests the FTP client unit 120 to distribute the file to the folder by person in charge with the received user ID “USER-005” as the folder name. The FTB server unit 310 of the file server 300 that has received the instruction from the file server moves the newly arrived FAX electronic document stored in the “FAX reception folder” to the folder for each person in charge with the folder name “USER-005”.

  Note that the processing related to the distribution request described above is necessary and sufficient if executed by one client PC 100. Therefore, the function of the distribution control unit 110 described above can be used only in the administrator client PC 100a, and the other person-in-charge client PC 100b. In this case, it is preferable that the function is masked and disabled.

  Next, the description will be continued focusing on the person-in-charge client PC 100b. FIG. 5 illustrates a GUI screen 600 generated by the GUI generation unit 122 of the FTP client unit 120 of the person-in-charge client PC 100b. The GUI screen 600 illustrated in FIG. 5 includes a “file list” field for displaying a file list of a received FAX electronic document and a “file image” field for displaying an image image of the FAX electronic document. In the “file list” field, five fields such as “file name”, “reception date / time”, “transmission source”, “priority”, and “processing state” are prepared to display file attribute information. . Among these, information to be displayed in “file name”, “reception date / time”, and “transmission source” is generated based on attribute information of a file transmitted from the file server 300. Information to be displayed in the “priority” field and the “processing state” field will be described later.

  The GUI screen 600 further includes a “work menu” field that displays icons for executing various processes at the right end. In the “work menu” field, a “receive new FAX” icon is displayed. When the person in charge clicks the “receive new FAX” icon, the FTP client unit 120 of the person in charge client PC 100 b sends to the file server 300. Send a file request. As a result, the file of the FAX electronic document stored in the folder for each person in charge whose folder name is the user ID of the person in charge is downloaded from the file server 300. In the present embodiment, the folder by person in charge of the file server 300 may be constantly monitored, and the file of the FAX electronic document may be automatically downloaded simultaneously with the input of the newly arrived FAX.

  When the FAX electronic document is received, the GUI generation unit 122 displays the attribute information in the “file name”, “reception date / time”, and “sender” of the file list in response to this, and the “processing status” field indicates “not yet processed”. “Process” is displayed. At the same time, the processing state notification unit 140 transmits information indicating the processing state of the FAX (hereinafter referred to as processing state information) to the unprocessed number update unit 220 of the person-in-charge determination server 200. The processing status information transmitted here includes the user ID of the person-in-charge client PC 100b in addition to the processing status “unprocessed” (hereinafter, refer to the processing status information as always including the user ID). . Based on the user ID and the processing state “unprocessed” included in the received processing state information, the unprocessed number updating unit 220 stores the unprocessed number management table 500 of the unprocessed number management database 230 described with reference to FIG. Update. That is, the value of the “unprocessed number” field corresponding to the corresponding user ID is incremented.

  In the example shown in FIG. 5, for example, when the person in charge clicks the file name “0626_005.tif ... Tokyo Kogyo Co., Ltd.” displayed in the file list, the TIFF image of “Order Form” of “Tokyo Kogyo Co., Ltd.” Is displayed in the “File Image” field. The person in charge browses and prints the displayed image as appropriate, confirms the contents of the document, and starts the ordering / ordering operation.

  At this time, the person in charge selects “processing” from the pull-down menu displayed as “update processing status” below the “work menu” field and clicks “OK”. In response to this, the GUI generation unit 122 switches “unprocessed” displayed in the “processing state” field to “processing”. At this time, the processing state notification unit 140 does not exchange with the unprocessed number update unit 220. Alternatively, for a FAX case that has special circumstances such as being unable to touch immediately, the person in charge selects “Pending” from the pull-down menu and clicks “OK”. In this case, the GUI generation unit 122 switches “unprocessed” displayed in the “processing state” field to “pending”. At this time, similarly, the processing state notification unit 140 does not exchange with the unprocessed number update unit 220.

  On the other hand, the person in charge who has completed the predetermined processing for the FAX item selects “Processed” from the pull-down menu and clicks “OK”. In response to this, the GUI generation unit 122 deletes all the attribute information related to the file from the “processing state” field, and the processing state notification unit 140 transmits the processing state information “processed” to the unprocessed number update unit 220. To do. The unprocessed number update unit 220 updates the unprocessed number management table 500 based on the received processing state information “processed”. That is, the value of the “unprocessed number” field corresponding to the corresponding user ID is decremented.

  As described above, the unprocessed number management table 500 of the person-in-charge determination server 200 in this embodiment is based on the processing state information (“unprocessed” or “processed”) transmitted from each person-in-charge client PC 100b. Updated from time to time. The optimum person-in-charge determination unit 210 grasps the bag log of each person in charge by referring to the unprocessed number management table 500, and reports the person in charge with the smallest backlog to the administrator client PC 100a as the optimum person in charge. In response to this, the administrator client PC 100a distributes the new arrival FAX to the optimum person in charge. As a result, the backlog of each person in charge is automatically leveled, and the throughput of the entire business is maximized.

  Next, the function of the priority information generation unit 130 of the client PC 100 will be described. As described above, the priority order information generation unit 130 is configured to include the OCR processing unit 132 and the keyword counting unit 134. Based on the contents of the FAX electronic document, the priority order information generation unit 130 is used for determining the processing priority order. Information (hereinafter referred to as priority information) is generated. Specifically, upon receiving a notification that the FAX electronic document has been downloaded from the FTP client unit 120, the OCR processing unit 132 performs OCR processing on the FAX electronic document, and the keyword counting unit 134 sets in advance from the acquired text. The extracted keywords are extracted and the number thereof is counted. Here, various words can be assumed as the “keyword” to be counted, for example, words such as “urgent”, “emergency”, “urgent” can be set as keywords representing urgency, and As a keyword representing importance, a word related to money (for example, “unit price”, “amount”, “consumption tax”, etc.) or a company name of an important customer may be set.

  The priority information generation unit 130 uses the counted number of keywords and generates information that intuitively represents the importance and urgency of the document according to a predefined rule. For example, the words “Urgent”, “Emergency”, and “Easy” are set as keywords, and “★” is generated when the number of keywords = 0 as priority information, and when the number of keywords = 1 When “★★” is generated and the number of keywords = 2 or more, a rule for generating “★★★” can be defined. Here, the FAX electronic document 700 shown in FIG. 6 will be described as an example. Since the FAX electronic document 700 has one keyword “urgent”, the priority information generation unit 130 sets “★★” as priority information. The GUI generation unit 122 displays the priority information “★★” in the “priority” field. In the same rule, for example, when the words “unit price”, “amount”, and “consumption tax” related to money are used as keywords, the FAX electronic document 700 has three keywords. “★★★” is generated as the ranking information, and the GUI generating unit 122 displays the priority information “★★★” in the “priority” field.

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, each person in charge does not need to check each image for each FAX electronic document, but only looks at the “priority” field of the file list on the GUI screen 600. , You can identify deals that must be processed quickly. At the same time, coupled with the fact that the backlog of each person in charge is leveled, optimization of the FAX ordering / ordering work is realized.

  The functions of the above-described embodiments are as follows: assembly language, C, Visual C, C ++, Visual C ++, Java (registered trademark), Java (registered trademark) Beans, Java (registered trademark) Applet, Java (registered trademark) Script, Perl , Ruby, and the like, which can be realized by a device-executable program written in a legacy programming language, an object-oriented programming language, or the like, and can be stored and distributed in a device-readable recording medium.

  As described above, the present invention has been described with the embodiment. However, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and as long as the operations and effects of the present invention are exhibited within the scope of embodiments that can be considered by those skilled in the art. It is included in the scope of the present invention.

10 ... FAX electronic document distribution system 12 ... MFP
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 14 ... Network 100 ... Personal computer 110 ... FAX distribution control part 112 ... New arrival FAX monitoring part 114 ... Optimal person inquiry part 116 ... File distribution part 120 ... FTP client part 122 ... GUI generation part 130 ... Priority order information generation part 132 ... OCR processing part 134 ... Keyword counting part 140 ... Processing state notification part 200 ... Person in charge determination server 210 ... Optimum person in charge determination part 220 ... Unprocessed number update part 230 ... Unprocessed number management database 300 ... File server 310 ... FTB server Section 320 ... File system 500 ... Unprocessed number management table 600 ... GUI screen 700 ... FAX electronic document

JP 2005-129005 A

Claims (7)

A FAX electronic document distribution system including a file server, a plurality of client terminals, and a person-in-charge determination server connected via a network,
The file server is
A FAX reception folder for storing FAX electronic documents transferred from an external FAX apparatus, and a plurality of folders for each person in charge prepared for each person in charge;
The client terminal is
An optimum person inquiry unit that inquires the person-in-charge determination server about an optimum person in response to the addition of a file to the FAX reception folder;
A file distribution unit for moving the FAX electronic document from the FAX reception folder to the folder for each person in charge of the optimum person in charge;
A processing state notification unit for notifying the person-in-charge determination server of the processing state of the FAX electronic document;
A priority information generation unit that generates priority information to be displayed on the GUI based on the content of the FAX electronic document;
The person-in-charge determination server is
An unprocessed number management unit that manages the number of unprocessed cases for each person in charge,
An unprocessed number update unit that updates the unprocessed number based on the processing state;
In response to an inquiry from the optimal person in charge inquiry unit, an optimum person determination unit that answers the person in charge with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as an optimum person in charge,
FAX electronic document distribution system. To a file server having a FAX reception folder for storing a FAX electronic document transferred from an external FAX apparatus, a plurality of folders for each person in charge prepared for each person in charge, and a person in charge determination server for managing the number of unprocessed cases for each person in charge An information processing apparatus as a client terminal connected via a network,
Triggered by the addition of a file to the FAX reception folder, an optimum person inquiry unit that inquires an optimum person in charge to a person in charge determination server that answers the person in charge with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as an optimum person,
A file distribution unit for moving the FAX electronic document from the FAX reception folder to the folder for each person in charge of the optimum person in charge;
A processing state notification unit for notifying the person-in-charge determination server of the processing state of the FAX electronic document in order to update the number of unprocessed cases;
An information processing apparatus including: a priority information generation unit that generates priority information to be displayed on the GUI based on the content of the FAX electronic document. To a file server having a FAX reception folder for storing a FAX electronic document transferred from an external FAX apparatus, a plurality of folders for each person in charge prepared for each person in charge, and a person in charge determination server for managing the number of unprocessed cases for each person in charge A computer-executable method for causing an information processing apparatus as a client terminal connected via a network to uniformly acquire the FAX electronic document,
For the information processing apparatus,
A function means for inquiring the optimum person in charge to the person-in-charge determination server that answers the person in charge with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as the optimum person in response to the addition of the file to the FAX reception folder;
Functional means for moving the FAX electronic document from the FAX reception folder to a folder for each person in charge of the optimum person in charge;
Functional means for notifying the person-in-charge determination server of the processing state of the FAX electronic document in order to update the number of unprocessed cases;
And a function unit for generating priority information to be displayed on the GUI based on the contents of the FAX electronic document.   The method according to claim 3, wherein the priority information is generated based on the number of keywords included in the FAX electronic document.   The method according to claim 4, wherein the keyword is a word indicating importance or urgency.   A computer-executable program for causing a computer to realize the functional means according to any one of claims 3 to 5. Manages a FAX reception folder for storing FAX electronic documents transferred from an external FAX apparatus, a file server having a plurality of person-in-charge folders prepared for each person in charge, a plurality of client terminals, and the number of unprocessed cases for each person in charge In a FAX electronic document distribution system connected to a person-in-charge determination server via a network, the FAX electronic document is equally distributed to the plurality of client terminals,
The client terminal inquires the person-in-charge determination server for an optimum person in charge of adding a file to the FAX reception folder;
In response to the inquiry from the client terminal, the person-in-charge determination server answers the person in charge with the smallest number of unprocessed cases as the optimum person,
The client terminal moving the FAX electronic document from the FAX reception folder to the folder for each person in charge of the optimum person in charge;
The client terminal further notifies the person-in-charge determination server of the processing state of the FAX electronic document, and further updates the unprocessed number based on the processing state notified by the person-in-charge determination server.
Method.