JP2658836B2 - Group work support system - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a group work support system (so-called groupware, hereinafter referred to as groupware) for supporting a group work in which a plurality of workers cooperate with each other while operating terminals. The present invention relates to a schedule management method in a terminal device having a function of supporting business management and schedule management in a type of groupware that requests business using electronic mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is a type of groupware that supports a group work in which a plurality of workers cooperate with each other while operating a terminal, by using an electronic mail to request a task. In such groupware terminal devices, attempts have been made to link individual tasks requested by a user with management of the schedule of the user.

For example, in the invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-155652, a schedule record is embedded in a specific area in an e-mail, the schedule record is extracted at a terminal of the e-mail recipient, and the schedule management of the recipient is performed. A method of registering a file is disclosed. According to this method, for example, if there is a schedule record corresponding to the meaning of “meeting on March 3” in a specific area of the e-mail, the schedule management file 3
A schedule called “meeting” is registered in the column on the third day of the month.

[0004] In such groupware that rewrites a schedule management file in response to an incoming e-mail, it can be expected that more advanced functions can be provided by combining other techniques related to schedule management. For example, it would be more effective if the technology described below could be applied to groupware.

[0005] In the invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-358263, FIG. 3 shows the schedule priority in 16 stages from the four viewpoints of cancelable, shiftable, adjustable and splittable. The method of determining is shown.

According to the invention described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-171060, a specific classification is based on classifications such as "confirmed meeting attendance", "confirmed attendable promise", "absence", and "vacation". A method of displaying or exchanging schedule information to be performed is shown.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION First, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open
In the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 155652, unless a schedule record is specifically embedded in a specific area of an electronic mail, the electronic mail is not registered in the schedule management file. Therefore, even if a business procedure (which may be called a workflow) is defined in advance and a routine group work such as performing a business in accordance with the procedure is supported, an e-mail for the business request is sent each time. A schedule record must be set, which is complicated. For example, if you receive some kind of e-mail,
Even if the procedure of having to reply within days is predefined, the date three days later had to be entered in a specific area of the e-mail as a schedule record.

[0008] Second, a problem also arises when it is known that another unit operation related to the requested unit operation will occur in the near future. For example, if you receive a document by e-mail and correct it within 3 days, give the document to you once by e-mail, and it will be returned to you two days later by e-mail. Considering the case where the business procedure for inspection is defined in advance, the first unit work of correcting the document occurs when Party A receives the first e-mail, but two days after the correction, Even though it is clear that a second unit transaction will occur later, receiving a second e-mail from Party B and reviewing the document again, the schedule for the second unit operation will be the second e-mail There is a problem that it is not registered in the schedule file until the file is received.

Third, according to the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-155652, since all unit jobs are registered in the schedule management file in the order in which they were requested, schedules can be scheduled in the order of requests regardless of the priority of the jobs. Is determined.

In order to solve such a problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-358263 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-171 is disclosed.
JP-A-62-155, based on a schedule priority criterion according to the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.
A method is conceivable in which the schedule of the acquired unit work is processed by a method as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 652/652.

However, in this case, in order to determine the priority of each piece of schedule data, it is necessary to ask the user whether the schedule can be canceled, whether it can be shifted, or whether it is a fixed promise. The priority must be determined based on information that does not exist. That is, if the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-358263 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-171060 is used, the user is required to receive all of the incoming e-mails if the received e-mail is a business request e-mail. For example, it is necessary to input the nature (whether cancelable or not, etc.) as the schedule of the requested job. Alternatively, the sender of the e-mail must input the nature of the business schedule requested. Whichever input method is used, it is very complicated for the user.

[0012]

A group work support system according to the present invention includes a plurality of terminals having an e-mail receiving function, and a work procedure definition means having a work procedure definition comprising a plurality of unit works. The terminal refers to the business procedure definition means, a business procedure management means for managing the priority of the business procedure, and an e-mail receiving / receiving section for receiving an e-mail and extracting information about the business from the received e-mail.
Analyzing means, receiving a task procedure definition and its priority from the task procedure managing means, receiving information related to the task extracted from the email from the email receiving / analyzing means, and operating the terminal; A unit task generating means for generating unit task information to be performed by a user, a schedule managing means for managing a task schedule of the terminal operator, and receiving and accumulating the unit task information from the unit task generating means, and A unit operation management unit that refers to the terminal operator's schedule managed by the unit, determines the unit operation schedule based on the priority of the unit operation, and registers the unit operation schedule in the schedule management unit; , The unit business information stored in the unit business management unit, and the unit business information managed by the schedule management unit. And having at least a screen management means for converting the schedule information are in the screen viewable format.

Further, in the group work support system according to the present invention, the unit work management means includes a requester-side priority calculation means for calculating a unit work priority according to the will of the work requester;
Requester-side priority calculating means for calculating a unit task priority according to the will of the terminal operator; requester-side priority calculated by the requester-side priority calculating means; and requester-side priority calculation A unit task priority determining unit that receives the requester-side priority calculated by the unit and determines the unit task priority.

Further, the group work support system according to the present invention is characterized in that the unit work management means has a priority determination strategy changing means for changing a priority determination method of the unit work priority determination means.

[0015]

In the groupware according to the present invention, there is provided a work procedure management means for referring to a work procedure, and a schedule constraint in a routine work (for example, for a certain type of e-mail, a reply must be made within three days after receiving the mail). Can be known at the terminal of the e-mail recipient. For this reason, if the e-mail contains the contents indicating the business name and the name of the unit business requested this time during the business, the unit business generation means refers to the business procedure management means to execute the business of the business. By referring to the procedure, it is possible to obtain a schedule constraint on the requested unit work. Therefore, it is possible to solve the first problem that a schedule cannot be extracted from an e-mail that does not include a schedule record even if it is a routine job. In addition, since the business procedure management means can refer to a plurality of business procedure definitions, the schedule management means can uniformly manage schedules for a plurality of businesses.

In the groupware according to the present invention,
The unit task generating means can simultaneously generate not only the unit task directly requested but also unit task information relating to another unit task that will occur in the future in connection with the unit task. because,
This is because the unit task generating means receives information on the task procedure from the task procedure managing means, and can know the future unit task belonging to the same task procedure as the requested unit task. Therefore, the groupware according to the present invention also solves the second problem related to the prior art.

Further, in the groupware according to the present invention, the unit task generation means can know the priority of the task to which each unit task belongs from the task procedure management means.
Information on the priority of the unit operation can be determined based on the priority of the operation procedure and added to the generated unit operation information. Since the priorities can be defined in advance, the third problem that the priorities cannot be determined unless the user is inquired of the priorities each time a job is requested is solved.

In the groupware according to the present invention,
The unit task management means calculates the priority of the requester at the requester's will when determining the schedule priority of the unit task, such as the priority unique to the work procedure or the urgency defined by the requester. Means and a requestee-side priority calculation means for calculating the priority of the requestee (that is, the e-mail recipient) according to the requestee's intention, such as the schedule of the requestee and the preferences of the requestee for each business. And a unit task priority determining means for determining the priority of the unit task from the two priorities. In this case as well, all the parameters necessary for determining the priority can be set in advance, and the priority cannot be determined unless the requestee makes a judgment each time.

In addition, when the priority of the unit work schedule is determined, the system is designed to reflect the intentions of both the requester and the requestee. It also provides a means to solve the problem of inhumanity, which is common in simply constructed groupware, in which it is forcibly submitted to a group.

Further, the groupware of the present invention has a priority determination strategy changing means for changing the determination criterion and algorithm of the unit task priority determining means of the groupware. By using this priority determination strategy changing means to change the priority determination strategy, the groupware of the present invention becomes strong in order to forcefully follow instructions and schedules, Members are less enforced and can set their own schedules without being forced too much. That is, according to the present invention, a groupware system capable of adjusting the forcing force can be configured, and the range of application can be further expanded.

[0021]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the groupware of the present invention. The terminal device 10 of the groupware includes a business procedure management unit 2, an e-mail reception / analysis unit 3, a unit business generation unit 4, a unit business management unit 5,
A schedule management unit 6, a screen management unit 7, and a screen display unit 8 are provided. Hereinafter, each means will be described with reference to the drawings.

The business procedure management means 2 includes a plurality of business procedure definition means 1a, 1b,. . . , 1n. The work procedure definition indicates the execution procedure of a plurality of related unit works together with their schedules. FIG. 2 shows a description example of the business procedure definition. The business procedure definition 20 includes a business name definition 21, a business procedure definition table 22, and a priority definition 23. Each row of the business procedure definition table 22 is a unit business. For example, as an example, the unit work in the second stage of the work procedure definition table 22 in FIG. 2 will be described. In the unit work in the second stage, the worker is “creator boss”, the unit work name is “draft inspection correction”, The deadline / schedule is “within 2 days after drafting”.

The electronic mail receiving / analyzing means 3 of FIG. 1 is connected to the network 9 and receives an electronic mail from the network 9. The e-mail received by the e-mail receiving / analyzing means 3 contains information relating to a business request in a format as shown in FIG. 3, for example.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the structure of an electronic mail. The e-mail 30 includes a business name definition unit 31, a role assignment definition unit 32, a business start date definition unit 33, and a business stage definition unit 3.
4, at least the mail text 35 is included. The e-mail reception analysis means 3 sends information on business from the e-mail 30, that is, the definition part (31, 3
2, 33, 34) and passes the task information to the unit task generating means 4.

Although the role assignment definition unit 32 is included in the electronic mail 30 in the present embodiment, an equivalent definition is separately created by means other than the electronic mail, for example, by a file, and is passed directly to the unit task generating means 4. A method is also conceivable.

The unit job generating means 4 receives an e-mail and
The business information is received from the analysis means 3, and the business name indicated in the business information (in the example of FIG. 3, "draft creation business")
The task procedure definition corresponding to (1) is referred to from the task procedure management means 2 to generate unit task information. For example, if the terminal device 10 belongs to Mr. Taro Yamada, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the drafting correction by the drafter's supervisor in the business stage 2 is a unit business, and the deadline is the drafting. It can be seen that it is within two days, that is, December 10. In this case, the unit work name “Draft inspection correction” and the priority of 10
And a set of the term “December 10” is generated as the unit work information and passed to the unit work management unit 5.

Further, in this case, as is apparent from FIG. 2, the creator's boss, Taro Yamada, again performs "drafting approval" for the same business in business stage 4, and the deadline is within five days after the drafting is made. It can be seen that the date is December 13. Therefore, the unit task generation means 4 sets the unit task name “draft approval”, the priority 10 and the term “1” as another unit task information.
A set of “February 13” is generated and passed to the unit task management means 5.

In the description of this embodiment, business holidays are not considered in order to simplify the description. Therefore, 5 days after December 8 is always considered to be December 13. When a holiday is taken into consideration, the method of calculating the number of days by the unit task generating means 4 may be modified.

The unit work management means 5 receives the unit work information received from the unit work generation means 4 and refers to the schedule management means 6 at the same time. The schedule table built and managed in the schedule management means 6 is, for example, as shown in FIG. The schedule table 40 can be realized as a set of records including a start time, an end time, a unit task name, and a priority. Of these records, the record having no start time (for example, the second record related to the purchase specification creation in FIG. 4) indicates only the deadline for performing the unit work.

When the unit work management means 5 refers to the schedule management means 6 and finds that the schedule for the unit work information received from the unit work generation means 4 does not overlap with the already registered schedule, the unit work management means 6 Register the business schedule. Figures 2 and 3
In the case of the example, since the unit work to be registered is a unit work in which only the deadline is specified, that is, individual work, registration is possible unless a large number of schedules and deadlines are concentrated in the period until the deadline. When the schedule of the unit job to be newly registered overlaps with the already registered schedule, or when many schedules and deadlines are concentrated in the period until the deadline of the unit job to be newly registered In addition, even in the case of unit work already registered in the schedule table, it is possible to adopt a method of deleting work in order from the work having the lowest priority. When the schedule is deleted, it is desirable to transmit the fact that the schedule has been deleted to the user by displaying it or the like, but the transmission means is omitted in FIG.

The screen management means 7 creates a screen for displaying a schedule table managed by the schedule management means 6 and displaying individual unit business information accumulated by the unit business management means 5, and displays the screen. It is displayed on the screen of the terminal device 10 through the means 8. For example, a scheme is conceivable in which a schedule is indicated by a bar graph, and unit task information is indicated in a table format in order of priority.

Next, an embodiment of the groupware unit work management means of the present invention will be described. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the unit task management means 5.

The unit service management unit 50 includes a unit service receiving unit 51, a schedule reference unit 52, a requester-side priority calculating unit 53, a requestee-side priority calculating unit 54, a unit service priority determining unit 55, and a priority. A decision strategy change unit 56, a unit business information storage unit 57, a schedule registration / change unit 58, and a schedule change notification unit 59 are provided.

The unit service receiving unit 51 receives the unit service information from the unit service generating unit 4 and passes it to the requester-side priority calculating unit 53 and the requestee-side priority calculating unit 54. Further, the schedule reference unit 52 refers to the schedule table managed by the schedule management unit 6 and transfers the schedule table to the requestee-side priority calculation unit 54.

The requester's priority calculating means 53 obtains the unit business information from the unit business receiving means 51 and calculates the priority according to the requester's will. Here, the requester refers to a worker other than the requestee who is the user of the terminal device 10 and a manager, such as a person who has sent an e-mail requesting a job, a person who has defined the work procedure, and the like. The following can be considered as parameters for calculating the priority according to the requester's will. -Priority of the work procedure itself as indicated by 23 in Fig. 2-Priority of the unit work described in each work request e-mail. (This parameter is assumed to be newly defined in each definition column shown in FIG. 3 as one definition item in the electronic mail of the format as shown in FIG. 3). The requester priority calculating means 53 calculates the requester priority for these parameters by using a calculating means such as a simple average, a weighted average, or a maximum value selection.

The requestee-side priority calculating means 54 determines the priority of the unit work from the unit work information received from the unit work receiving means 51 and the information of the schedule table received from the schedule reference means 52. Calculate based on your will. Here, the requestee is the user of the terminal device 10 to which the unit work management means 50 belongs. The following can be considered as parameters for calculating the priority according to the requestee's will. -The overlapping status with the registered schedule. As an example of using this parameter to change the priority, for example, a conference with a relatively low priority in a time zone immediately before the deadline of a unit business with a high priority may have a lower priority. Can be -The priority set by the requestee on a personal basis for the work. The task priority defined at 23 in FIG. 2 has the same value for everyone in the work group, but actually each worker has a relatively different priority for each task. ing. For example, in general, the priority of drafting work is 1
Even if it is 0, it is desirable that the manager in charge of planning and planning process drafts with higher priority than other managers. -Client's preference. This is a numerical representation of preferences for individual tasks and favors for individual clients. Based on the parameters as described above, the requestee-side priority calculation means 54 calculates the requestee-side priority using calculation means such as simple average, weighted average, and maximum value selection.

The unit task priority determining means 55 calculates the requester's priority obtained from the requester's priority calculating means 53 and the requester's priority obtained from the requestee's priority calculating means 54 from the requester's priority. Determine the priority value of the new unit business. This calculation method may be a simple average, a weighted average, a requester side priority, a request side priority, a maximum value selection method, or the like.

The priority strategy changing means 56 instructs the unit task priority determining means 55 to change the priority calculation method, change parameters in the case of weighted averaging, and the like. Although not shown in FIG. 5, some signal is required from the outside to the priority determination strategy changing means 56 in order for the priority determination strategy changing means 56 to act on the unit task priority determining means 55. For example, it may be an instruction from a requestee or an instruction from an administrator.

The unit work information storage means 57 stores the unit work information of which the priority is determined by the unit work priority determining means 55. The stored unit business information is referred to by the screen management means 7.

The schedule registration / change means 58 registers a schedule relating to the unit work information of which the priority is determined by the unit work priority determining means 55 in the schedule management means 6. In particular, when the unit business information cannot be registered unless a registered low-priority schedule is excluded, the excluded schedule is deleted, and the fact that the deletion is deleted is notified to the user through the schedule change notification means 59. Is done. In this case, the schedule change notification means 59
Also acts on the unit work information storage means 57, and also deletes the unit work information corresponding to the excluded schedule from the unit work information storage means 57.

Although the embodiment of the groupware of the present invention has been described above, a groupware in which the priority determination strategy changing means 56 in the unit task management means 50 is omitted is also conceivable.

[0042]

The groupware according to the present invention has the following effects.・ When supporting routine work with defined work procedures,
The schedule is registered in the schedule management file of the requestee without adding information about the schedule to the e-mail requesting the unit work. -If a unit task related to the requested unit task occurs further in the future, a future schedule can be obtained based on the task procedure and registered in the schedule management file of the requestee. -When a schedule overlaps, a schedule can be selected based on a difference in priority between tasks. This priority can be calculated without inquiring the user each time. -When deciding the priority of the unit work schedule, it is a method that can reflect the will of both the requester and the requestee, so it is forcibly sent to the e-mail containing the specified work procedure and the instruction of the superior You will not be obedient. -Since the method of adjusting the will of the client and the requestee can be easily changed, the management method of the group work can be changed flexibly.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of a group work support system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a description example of a business procedure definition

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of the structure of an electronic mail.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a schedule table.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an embodiment of a unit operation management unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Business procedure definition means 2 Business procedure management means 3 E-mail reception / analysis means 4 Unit work generation means 5 Unit work management means 6 Schedule management means 7 Screen management means 8 Screen display means 9 Network 10 Terminal device of group work support system 20 Business procedure definition 21 Business name definition 22 Business procedure definition table 23 Priority definition 30 Email 31 Business name definition part 32 Role assignment definition part 33 Business start date definition part 34 Business stage definition part 35 Email body 40 Schedule table 50 Unit business management Means 51 Unit service receiving means 52 Schedule reference means 53 Requester priority calculating means 54 Requested side priority calculating means 55 Unit service priority determining means 56 Priority determining strategy changing means 57 Unit business information storing means 58 Schedule registration・ Change means 59 Schedule change notice Intellectual means

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] An information processing system comprising: a plurality of terminals having an e-mail receiving function; and a business procedure definition unit having a definition of a business procedure including a plurality of unit businesses, wherein the terminal refers to the business procedure definition unit, Business procedure management means for managing the priority of the business procedure; e-mail receiving and analyzing means for receiving e-mail and extracting information on the business from the received e-mail; and business procedure definition from the business procedure management means. A unit task generating means for receiving the priority, receiving information on the task extracted from the email from the email receiving / analyzing means, and generating unit task information to be performed by a terminal operator operating the terminal; Schedule management means for managing a work schedule of the terminal operator; receiving and storing the unit work information from the unit work generation means; Referring to the schedule of the terminal operator managed by the schedule management means, determining the schedule of the unit work based on the priority of the unit work, and registering the schedule of the unit work in the schedule management means A unit work management unit that converts the unit work information stored in the unit work management unit and the schedule information managed by the schedule management unit into a screen displayable format. A group work support system characterized by the following. 2. A requester-side priority calculating means for calculating a unit task priority according to the will of the job requester, and a requested task calculating a unit task priority according to the will of the terminal operator. Receiving the requester's priority calculated by the requester's priority calculation means and the requester's priority calculated by the requester's priority calculation means, and 2. The group work support system according to claim 1, further comprising: a unit task priority determining means for determining a priority. 3. The group work support system according to claim 2, wherein the unit work management unit includes a priority determination strategy change unit that changes a priority determination method of the unit work priority determination unit. .