JP6676344B2 - Server device, communication status grasping method, and communication status grasping system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a server device, a communication status grasping method, and a communication status grasping system.

  It is rare that a communication path between a company and a company is connected by only one route. A plurality of routes, that is, a route A or a company A connecting a maintenance department of a company A and a business department X of a company B are connected. Of the business department Y of the company B and the business department Y of the company B are often simultaneously communicating (communicating) with each other. Here, the situation of the exchange on the route A may affect the exchange on the route B. For example, when a trouble occurs in the exchange on the route A and the department of the company B using the route A feels dissatisfied, and the sales department of the company A uses the route B to sell the company B Sales activities may not be successful due to dissatisfaction on route A. For this reason, it is desired to grasp the state of the exchange on a route other than the route known by the user.

  Exchanges between companies are often performed by e-mail, and there is, for example, Patent Document 1 as a technique for reading the emotions of the other party from such character information.

  Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique in which emotion vectors of words included in an electronic document are integrated for the entire document, and emotions included in the electronic document are automatically determined.

JP-A-2002-230011

  However, exchanges between companies, especially those with evidence such as e-mails, often have business-like texts, and emotions are not always expressed in texts. Therefore, in this case, even if the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 is used, it is not possible to estimate the situation of the exchange between the companies. For this reason, it is necessary to estimate the emotion from the non-verbalized part.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and provides a technique that enables a situation to be estimated from a non-verbalized part in communication between two parties.

  In order to solve the above problems, the present invention relates to a server device that grasps a communication status between terminal devices, the server device includes a storage device that stores communication history information and user management information, and a terminal device. A communication device that receives, as user information, information of a communication source user and information of a communication destination user, which are user information to be used, from a terminal device, and executes a process of estimating a communication state between the terminal devices using the user information. A processor. Then, the processor searches the user management information based on the user information, obtains information of an organization to which the communication source user and the communication destination user belong, and estimates a situation of a combination of users who communicated between the organizations. And a situation estimation process of estimating a situation for each route identified by the situation estimation route identification process.

  Further features related to the present invention will become apparent from the description of the present specification and the accompanying drawings. Further, aspects of the present invention are attained and attained by the elements and combinations of various elements described in the following detailed description and the appended claims.

  It is to be understood that the description in the present specification is merely exemplary, and is not intended to limit the scope or application of the present invention in any way.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to estimate a situation from a part that is not verbalized, and furthermore, it is possible to grasp the situation of a route other than the route that the user has grasped.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration and a functional configuration of a communication status grasping system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a data configuration example of a user management information DB. It is a figure showing the example of data composition of a communication history DB. It is a figure showing the example of data composition of related department information DB. It is a figure showing an example of a display of an estimation result of a course situation. It is a flow chart for explaining the whole communication situation grasp processing. It is a flow chart for explaining details of communication situation presumption processing (Step 605). It is a flowchart for demonstrating the detail of an estimation result report process (step 606) in a communication status grasp process.

  The present invention relates to a technique for grasping the state of exchange based on the contents of a response when exchanging a text a plurality of times by e-mail or the like.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the accompanying drawings, functionally the same elements may be represented by the same numbers. Although the attached drawings show specific embodiments and implementation examples in accordance with the principle of the present invention, these are for understanding of the present invention, and in order to limit the present invention in a limited manner. Not used.

  Although the present embodiment has been described in sufficient detail for those skilled in the art to practice the present invention, other implementations and forms are possible without departing from the scope and spirit of the technical idea of the present invention. It is necessary to understand that the configuration / structure can be changed and various elements can be replaced. Therefore, the following description should not be construed as being limited thereto.

  Further, as described later, the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by software running on a general-purpose computer, or may be implemented by dedicated hardware or a combination of software and hardware.

  In the following description, each information of the present invention will be described in a “table” format. However, such information does not necessarily have to be represented by a data structure using a table. May be represented by Therefore, "table", "list", "DB", "queue" and the like may be simply referred to as "information" in order to show that they do not depend on the data structure.

  In describing the content of each information, the expressions “identification information”, “identifier”, “name”, “name”, and “ID” can be used, and these can be replaced with each other. It is.

  In the following, each processing in the embodiment of the present invention will be described with the respective processing units (for example, a history recording unit, a situation estimation processing unit, and the like) that are “programs” as subjects (operators), but the programs are executed by a processor. Therefore, the processing may be performed using a memory and a communication port (communication control device). Further, the process disclosed with the program as the subject may be a process performed by a computer such as a management server or an information processing device. Part or all of the program may be realized by dedicated hardware, or may be modularized. Various programs may be installed in each computer by a program distribution server or a storage medium.

<Configuration of communication status monitoring system>
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a hardware configuration and a functional configuration of a communication status grasping system 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  The communication status grasping system 1 includes at least one server device 110 and a plurality of terminal devices 101, which are connected via a network 160. The terminal device 101 can communicate with other terminal devices 101 and the server device 110 via a network 160 (for example, the Internet or a LAN).

  The server device 110 includes a CPU (processor) 112 for executing various programs, a memory 113 for storing various data and information, a communication unit (communication device) 114 for executing communication with an external device, and a storage for storing various programs. The apparatus includes a device 120 and a storage device 130 for storing various databases (DBs), and these are connected via a bus 150.

  The terminal device 101 displays, on a screen, a CPU (processor) 102 that executes various programs, a memory 103 that stores various data and information, and information (for example, a processing result by the server device 110 (a status of an acquired route)). A display unit (display device) 104 for displaying, a storage device 105 for storing various programs, and a communication unit (communication device) 108 are provided, and these are connected via a bus 109.

  In the server device 110, the storage device 120 includes an operating system (OS) 121, a history recording unit 122 as a program, a situation estimation route specifying processing unit 123, a situation estimation processing unit 124, and an estimation result report determination processing unit. 125. Further, the storage device 130 stores a communication history database (DB) 131, a user management information DB 132, and a related department information DB 133. In FIG. 1, the storage device 120 and the storage device 130 are provided separately, but may be configured as one storage device.

  The history recording unit 122 communicates information of communication through the communication unit 107 between the terminal devices as communication history information indicating "when," "who," and "to whom" communication has been performed for each communication unit. Recorded in the history DB 131.

  The situation estimation route specification processing unit 123 searches the user information management DB 132 based on the user information, extracts the name of the organization to which the communication source user and the communication destination user belong, and determines the combination of the users who have communicated between the organizations. Specify as a route for estimating the situation.

  The situation estimation processing unit 124 estimates a communication situation from the communication history information and the user management information. For example, the communication status of the route between the company and the business unit X of the business partner is estimated based on the feature found from the communication history information of the corresponding route. Details will be described later.

  The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 determines whether to report on the result estimated by the situation estimation processing unit 124.

  The user management information DB 132 holds information of users who are communicating, that is, user management information that is information of users who use the terminal device 101. For example, in the case of corporate activities, the organization hierarchy and personal information of the company and the organization hierarchy and personal information of the business partner are held, and the user information can be easily acquired for each route.

  The related department information DB 133 holds information indicating the relationship between departments within the same company.

  As described above, the communication history DB 131 holds a communication history for each communication unit.

  On the other hand, in the terminal device 101, the storage device 105 holds an operating system (OS) 106 and a communication unit 107 as a program.

  Communication can be performed between the terminal devices 101 through the communication unit 107. Further, at the start of communication, the communication unit 107 makes an inquiry to the status estimation processing unit 124 of the server device 110, and obtains the status of a route other than the route for performing communication.

<Configuration example of user management information DB>
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of the user management information DB 132 used by the communication status grasping system 1. The user management information DB 132 stores information as to which organization the user belongs to.

  The user management information DB 132 has, as configuration information, a user name 201, an organization name 202 indicating a company to which the user belongs, a department name 203 indicating a department to which the user belongs, and a post 204 of the user. ing. The user management information DB 132 may be created in advance using, for example, a customer information management system (CRM) not shown in FIG. 1, or may extract information of a communication destination and a communication source from the contents of communication. May be created. Further, the user management information DB 132 may be created in advance, and the missing information may be supplemented from the content of the communication.

  As a method of automatically acquiring the user name 201, the organization name 202, the department name 203, and the position 204, when inferring from the content of communication (for example, the body of an e-mail), for example, a certain rule existing in communication in business (Method) may be used. For example, in the case of e-mail, if the person who is not the first to meet or is not deeply related, the destination (communication destination) including the company name, department name, and title is exactly like "XXXX Trading Co., Ltd. There are many cases to write. As for the communication source, for example, in the case of mail, signature (signature) information may be extracted. Although it is expected that the destination will be simplified after several exchanges, it is highly likely that the destination is written for the first time. For this reason, by monitoring the communication content (text) and performing pattern matching using the matching dictionary, the user name 201, organization name 202, department name 203, and post 204 can be automatically acquired.

  The acquired information of the user name 201, the organization name 202, the department name 203, and the position 204 is recorded in the user information management DB 132, and is used for a process of specifying a route for which a situation should be estimated.

<Example of the configuration of the communication history DB>
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of the communication history DB 131 used by the communication status grasping system 1.

  The communication history DB 131 includes a COMID 301 that is information for specifying and identifying a group of communications, a communication source 302 indicating information of a communication source in a specific communication, and a communication destination 303 indicating information of a communication destination in a specific communication. And a time 304 indicating the time at which the communication was performed, as configuration information.

  The COMID 301 is an ID for identifying a unit of communication. For example, as a method of organizing communication in e-mails, reply and transfer of a certain e-mail are grouped as one communication, or e-mails with the same character string in the title per unit time are grouped as one communication You may. Also, for example, if the mail is limited to mail, mails with the same message ID may be combined into one communication. The form of communication is not limited to mail, but includes, for example, SNS messages.

  The communication source 302 is a source of communication contents on the route. The communication destination 303 is a receiving destination. For example, in the case of an email, the communication source 302 is the sender of the email, and the communication destination 303 is the recipient of the email. Time 304 is the time when the communication occurred.

  Using the COMID 301, the communication source 302, the communication destination 303, and the time 304, which are information in the communication history DB 131, a situation for each of the specified routes is estimated. The process of estimating the status of the route will be described later.

<Configuration example of related department information DB>
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of the related department information DB 133 used by the communication status grasping system 1.

  The related department information DB 133 has, as configuration information, a department 1_401, a department 2_402, a company size 403, a department similarity 404, a department 1 characteristic 405, a department 2 characteristic 406, and a degree of association 407. . The related department information DB 133 is created and provided in advance, for example.

  The department 1_401 and the department 2_402 are pieces of information indicating departments in the same company, and the related department information DB 133 particularly indicates how these two departments are related to each other.

  The company size 403 is information indicating whether the company is large, medium, or small. For example, if there are three hierarchies, such as "business division-headquarters-division", "large-scale" is used. If there are two hierarchies, such as "headquarters-division", "medium-scale" is used. Is recorded.

  The department similarity 404 is information indicating whether the department 1_401 and the department 2_402 have the same or similarity as a department.

  The department 1 characteristic 405 is information indicating the characteristic of the department 1_401, and the department 2 characteristic 406 is information indicating the characteristic of the department 2_402. For example, “sales” and “maintenance”, which are the departments that will be in contact with customers, are recorded as “company-wide”, and other departments are recorded as “single”.

  The degree of association 407 is information indicating how closely the department 1_401 and the department 2_402 are related, and the higher the value, the higher the relevance. The department relevance 407 is determined based on the department similarity 404, the company size 403, and the department characteristics 405 and 406. For example, when the company size 403 is large, the divisions are hierarchized as “business division”, “headquarters”, and “department”, and the organization “department” is quite large. The number of exchanges between “parts” and “parts” is small, and the value of the degree of association 407 is small. On the other hand, when the company size 403 is small, the organizational hierarchy is shallow, so the organization called “department” is smaller than the “department” when the company size 403 is large, and there is more interaction between “department” and “department”. Prone. Therefore, the value of the degree of association 407 becomes high. Further, even if the company size 403 and the department similarity 404 are the same, a department whose department characteristics 405 and 406 are “across the company” has a higher degree of association 407 than a department whose department characteristics 405 and 406 are “single”. The value increases. For example, the first line and the second line in FIG. 4 have the same company size 403 and department similarity 404, but different department 2 characteristics 406. Therefore, the value of the degree of association 407 is larger in the second row.

  Using the degree of association 407 of the related department information DB 133, it is determined whether to report the estimation result of the estimated situation. Details will be described later.

<Example of route status estimation result display>
FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a display example of a route state estimation result. The communication status is displayed for each route. The route has a direction, and this example indicates that the route from “Company B” to “Company A-Business Unit X” is in a situation of “Problem”. Also, in this example, there are two values of “with problem” and “without problem”, but the route from “Company A-Business Unit Z” to “Company B” is “Interested”, “Not interested”, or “Satisfied”. , And "dissatisfied". What kind of situation is displayed depends on the method of realizing the situation grasp processing.

<Operation of communication status monitoring system (overall process)>
FIG. 6 is a flowchart for explaining the entire situation grasping process executed in the communication situation grasping system 1 according to the embodiment of the present invention.

(I) Step 601
A communication destination (for example, information on a destination of an e-mail) to which a user who performs communication (a communication source: for example, a user who belongs to a certain department of a certain company who intends to create an e-mail) communicates using the terminal device 101 ) Is input, the communication unit 107 of the communication-source terminal device 101 acquires the information of the communication destination.

(Ii) Step 602
When the communication source user inputs the situation estimation granularity, the communication unit 107 of the communication source terminal device 101 receives the information of the situation estimation granularity. As a method of inputting the situation estimation granularity by the user, for example, the interface of the communication unit 107 is used, and the organization hierarchy of the communication source and the organization hierarchy of the communication destination are designated as the situation estimation granularity. Alternatively, for example, when it is desired to know the relationship with a department of a specific company, the route of the status estimation target may be directly designated (designated by the department name of the communication destination company) as the situation estimation granularity. In this case, an inquiry may be made to the user management information DB 132 of the server device 110 to display the user information on the interface. Note that this processing can be skipped by setting the situation estimation granularity in the terminal device 101 in advance.

(Iii) Step 603
The communication unit 107 of the communication-source terminal device 101 transmits, to the server device 110, information of a user who performs communication (information that can uniquely identify a communication source and a communication destination) as a route. For example, in the case of FIG. 2, the user name and the situation estimation granularity are transmitted to the situation estimation route specification processing unit 123 of the server apparatus 110 as user information that can uniquely identify the user.

(Iv) Step 604
The situation estimation route identification processing unit 123 of the server device 110 identifies the route for which the situation is to be estimated using the received user information, the situation estimation granularity, and the user management information DB 132. For example, consider a case where the communication source is “III” and the communication destination is “JJJJ” as the received user information, and the communication source hierarchy is 1 and the communication destination hierarchy is 2 as the received situation estimation granularity. . From the ninth and tenth lines in FIG. 2, it can be seen that the communication source is “company B” and the communication destination is “company A−business unit Y”. Therefore, as a route other than this route, two “company B” and “company A—business unit X” and “company B” and “company A—business unit Z” are acquired. In this example, there is only one communication source because the communication source hierarchy is “Company B” of 1. However, if the communication source hierarchy is 2, if “Communication B-Maintenance L” or “Company Department” Since there may be a communication source of “design M”, “company B-maintenance L” and “company A-business unit X”, “company B-maintenance L” and “company A-business unit Z”, “company B-maintenance L” The routes of “design M” and “company A-business unit X” and “company B-design M” and “company A-business unit Z” are also acquired.

(V) Step 605
The situation estimation processing unit 124 of the server device 110 estimates the situation for each route specified in step 604. Details of the situation estimation processing (step 605) will be described later.

(Vi) Step 606
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 of the server device 110 determines whether to display the estimation result obtained in step 605 on the display unit 104 of the terminal device 101. Details of the estimation result report determination processing (step 606) will be described later.

(Vii) Step 607
Finally, when the estimation result report determination processing unit 125 determines that the report is “necessary”, the estimation result obtained in step 605 is transmitted to the terminal device 101, and the communication unit 107 communicates with the display unit 104. Displays the estimation result report that makes a recommendation on whether to do so.

<Operation of communication status grasping system (situation estimation process)>
FIG. 7 is a flowchart for explaining details of the situation estimation processing by the situation estimation processing unit 124 in step 605 (FIG. 6).

(I) Step 701
The situation estimation processing unit 124 determines whether there is a route that has not been estimated. If there is a route that has not been estimated, the process proceeds to step 702. If the estimation process has been performed for all routes, the situation estimation process ends. Explaining using the above example, since the communication target (communication destination, for example, mail transmission) is “Company A-Business Division Y”, other than “Company B” and “Company A-Business Division Y” The route is subjected to the situation estimation processing. In this case, as described above, there are two routes, “Company B”, “Company A-Business Department X”, “Company B”, and “Company A-Business Department Z”. Will do.

(Ii) Step 702
The situation estimation processing unit 124 acquires detailed information of the communication source. For example, when the communication source is “company B”, the situation estimation processing unit 124 acquires the information on the third to ninth lines from the user management information DB 132 in FIG.

(Iii) Step 703
The situation estimation processing unit 124 acquires detailed information of the communication destination. For example, when the communication destination is “company A−business unit X”, the situation estimation processing unit 124 acquires the information on the first and second lines from the user management information DB 132 in FIG.

(Iv) Step 704
The situation estimation processing unit 124 searches the communication history DB 131. Here, the situation estimation processing unit 124 searches the communication history DB 131 that includes the detailed information of the communication source and the communication destination obtained at Steps 702 and 703 at the start of communication.

  Step 704 will be specifically described with reference to FIGS. The information of the third to ninth lines, the first line, and the second line of FIG. 2 acquired in Steps 702 and 703 is the first history of the time series of each COMID 301 (start of communication). The search is performed to determine whether the communication source 302 and the communication destination 303 exist at the same time. For example, in the case of COM00001, the user name 201 on the first line in FIG. 2 exists in the communication source 302 on the first line in FIG. 3, and the user name 201 on the fourth line in FIG. It exists at the destination 303. Accordingly, the situation estimation processing unit 124 acquires the communication history information (the first to eleventh lines in FIG. 3) of the corresponding COMID COM00001. In the example of FIG. 2, only COM00001 exists, but all the communication history information of COMID 301 corresponding to the condition is acquired.

(V) Step 705
The situation estimation processing unit 124 checks the communication frequency from the communication history information acquired in step 704. For example, when the corresponding communication history information is only COM00001 (the same applies to the following processing), the frequency is 29 times. As an embodiment, when the frequency exceeds a set threshold value (for example, 20), it is determined that “applicable (there is a possibility that the relationship has a problem)”.

(Vi) Step 706
The situation estimation processing unit 124 checks the communication time based on the communication history information acquired in step 704. Here, it is checked whether there is a history of communication at a time assumed to be abnormal. For example, if the time assumed to be abnormal is set to AM 0:00 to AM 6:00, it is determined that “corresponding (there is a possibility of a problem in the relationship)” if communication is performed during this time zone.

(Vii) Step 707
The situation estimation processing unit 124 checks the number of departments (departments) involved in communication, that is, the number of departments of the communication source 302 and the communication destination 303 in the communication history information, from the communication history information acquired in step 704. In the above example, the number of departments is 3 from the corresponding communication history information. For example, if the number of departments exceeds a set threshold value (for example, 2), it is determined that “applicable (there is a possibility that the relationship has a problem)”.

(Viii) Step 708
The situation estimation processing unit 124 checks the number of positions of the communication source 302 and the communication destination 303 from the communication history information acquired in step 704. In the above example, the number of positions is three (posts for each company are distinguished). For example, when the number of positions exceeds a set threshold value (for example, 2), it is determined that “there is a match (there is a possibility that there is a problem with the relationship)”.

(Ix) Step 709
Finally, the situation estimation processing section 124 performs a situation determination process. Although various definitions are possible for the discrimination process, if it is “applicable” in the process (post) of step 708 as the minimum determination item, it is determined that the route status is “report recommended”. Then, the situation estimation processing unit 124 accumulates the result (situation estimation result) determined as “report recommendation” in the storage device 130. With respect to the accumulated situation estimation results, when the user executes the search process from the terminal device 101, the situation estimation results matching the search condition input by the user are transmitted from the server device 110 to the target terminal device 101. , May be displayed on the display unit 104.

<Modified example for faster processing>
In the process of step 605 in FIG. 6, in the communication between the large companies, the organization hierarchy becomes deeper and the number of users increases, so that there is a possibility that a large number of routes are subject to situation estimation. In such a case, several means for speeding up the processing can be considered.

(I) Modification 1
A first variation is to set a shallow organizational hierarchy for route calculation. For example, in the case of FIG. 2, only two stages (example: company A-business unit X) are represented. Therefore, as compared with the case of expressing three stages, four stages,..., It is possible to reduce the number of routes that can be a situation estimation target, and to speed up the processing. Since the situation of a route (another route) from an organization other than the organization to which the user belongs is estimated, if the organizational hierarchy is shallow, the number of alternative routes is reduced and the estimation target can be narrowed down. Because it becomes.

(Ii) Modification 2
As a second variation, old communication history information may be excluded from status estimation targets. Since the status of the route changes over time, the communication history information to be estimated for the status should be set for a certain period from the time when the status is estimated. For example, if the latest communication time is earlier than a predetermined time, it may be excluded from the target. Thereby, the processing can be speeded up.

(Iii) Modification 3
A third variation is a method of caching the situation estimation result. As shown in FIG. 1, since the situation estimation processing unit 124 operates in the server apparatus 110, there is a case where another terminal apparatus 101 requests the same route situation as that calculated by a certain terminal apparatus 101. is there. In this case, the processing can be speeded up by caching the situation estimation result.

(Iv) Modification 4
As a fourth variation, an index in which the status of each route is pre-calculated as shown in FIG. 7 is periodically created (for example, an index is created during batch processing). This is a method of referring to the index. If this method is adopted, the result of the situation estimation can be obtained, so that the process of step 605 can be skipped for the route in which the result is obtained by referring to the index. Update the index regularly. Although the capacity of the index and the cost of creating the index are high, the situation estimation processing is very fast. However, since the index is referred to, the result may be different from the situation estimation result obtained by the latest communication history DB 131.

(V) Modification 5
The fifth variation is a process in which the communication source explicitly specifies a route from which the situation estimation is excluded. For example, when there is no need to estimate the situation or when there is no need to consider it during the situation estimation processing, the user can specify this. Specifically, in the process of step 602, the communication source user specifies.

(Vi) Others These five methods are not contradictory mechanisms, and therefore, the effects can be further enhanced by implementing them in combination.

  In addition, in the process of step 702 in FIG. 7, before the user of the communication source has finished inputting the content of the communication (for example, completing the creation of an e-mail to be sent), the process is performed at high speed to complete the situation estimation process. Need to be In order to further speed up the above five methods, the communication unit 107 of the terminal device 101 of the communication source inputs the information before the user of the communication source inputs the information of the communication destination (prior to step 701). A method of estimating a communication destination, performing a situation estimation process, and caching the situation estimation result in the terminal may be considered. Specifically, for example, the communication unit 107 refers to the communication history of the server device 110 periodically (for example, every day at 9 am), and predicts the communication partner on that day from the communication history, thereby estimating the situation. Speed up processing.

<Operation of communication status grasping system (estimation result reporting process)>
FIG. 8 is a flowchart for explaining the details of the estimation result report processing by the estimation result report determination processing unit 125 in step 606 (FIG. 6).

(I) Step 801
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 checks whether or not the estimation result by the situation estimation processing unit 124 is determined to be “report recommendation (applicable)”. If it is determined that the report is recommended, the process proceeds to step 802. If it is not determined that the report is recommended, the process ends.

(Ii) Step 802
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 includes information on the communication destination with which the user is to communicate (communication destination input by the user in step 601: corresponding to the department 1_401) and the communication destination on the estimated route determined to be recommended for reporting (in the department 2_402). Based on the information of (applicable), information on the degree of association 407 between these departments is acquired from the relevant department information DB 133.

(Iii) Step 803
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 determines whether the degree of association 407 acquired in step 802 is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold (for example, 3). If the acquired degree of association 407 is equal to or smaller than the threshold, the process proceeds to step 804. If the degree of association 407 is larger than the threshold, the process proceeds to step 805.

(Iv) Step 804
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 notifies via the communication unit 114 that there is a high possibility that there is no problem to be reported to the terminal device 101 used by the target user. In response to this, the terminal device 101 displays nothing on the display unit 104 or displays no problem. Note that # 2 in FIG. 5 shows an example of positively displaying that there is no problem.

  As described above, when the degree of association 407 is equal to or smaller than the threshold value, the situation estimation result is excluded from the targets for displaying the estimation result report even when the situation estimation result is estimated to be “report recommendation” in step 605. This is because even if it is estimated as “report recommendation” as the situation estimation result, there is no problem with normal communication because the relevance with the communication destination is weak, and it is necessary to report information unnecessary for the user. This is for avoiding annoyance.

(V) Step 805
The estimation result report determination processing unit 125 notifies the terminal device 101 used by the target user via the communication unit 114 of the result estimated by the situation estimation process (there is a possibility of a problem). In response to this, the terminal device 101 displays on the display unit 104 that there is a possibility that there is a problem.

<Summary>
(I) In this embodiment, the server device communicates with the information of the communication source, which is the information of the user who uses the terminal device (for example, a user who intends to create a mail and send it to a specific user of a specific company). The communication destination information is received from the terminal device. Then, the server device acquires the name of the organization to which the communication source and the communication destination belong, based on the received information on the communication source and the communication destination, and estimates the situation of the combination of users who have communicated between the organizations. Specified as a route. More specifically, a route other than the route between the communication source and the communication destination to be communicated (however, a route between the same companies (A company and B company)) is specified as a communication status estimation target. Is done. The server device estimates a situation for each of the specified routes. The estimation result may be stored in a storage device, or may be positively notified to the user. By doing so, it is possible to know whether or not there is a possibility that a problem has occurred in another route other than the route used by the user himself. Therefore, it can be used as a material for judging whether communication to be performed should be performed carefully.

  The server device does not need to notify the user of all estimation results. This is because, even if there is a possibility of a problem in a communication path other than another organization of the same company closely related to the organization to which the user belongs, there is often no particular effect. For this reason, the server device estimates by the situation estimation process based on the department relevance information indicating the closeness between the communication destination designated by the user using the terminal device and the communication destination on the route estimated by the situation estimation process. It is determined whether or not the result is notified to the user terminal device. As a result, waste of processing and communication can be avoided, and the confirmation work by the user need not be imposed.

  When estimating the communication status, the server device uses any one of the information of the communication frequency, time, department, and post. More specifically, when the frequency of the communication included in the communication history information exceeds the first threshold value, when the time included in the communication history information includes a predetermined time zone, the information is acquired from the user management information and the communication history information. If the number of departments exceeds the second threshold, or if the number of job titles acquired from the user management information and the communication history information exceeds the third threshold, it is estimated that there may be a problem in the target route. If any one of these conditions is met, the possibility of occurrence of a problem may be detected, or the possibility of a problem may be detected by an arbitrary combination. By doing so, even if it is not possible to detect whether there is a problem from the content (keyword) of the communication (eg, e-mail), it is possible to efficiently detect the possibility that a problem has occurred. Will be able to

(Ii) The present invention can also be realized by software program codes for realizing the functions of the embodiments. In this case, a storage medium storing the program code is provided to a system or an apparatus, and a computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or the apparatus reads the program code stored in the storage medium. In this case, the program code itself read from the storage medium realizes the function of the above-described embodiment, and the program code itself and the storage medium storing the program code constitute the present invention. As a storage medium for supplying such a program code, for example, a flexible disk, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, hard disk, optical disk, magneto-optical disk, CD-R, magnetic tape, nonvolatile memory card, ROM Are used.

  Also, based on the instructions of the program code, an OS (Operating System) running on the computer performs part or all of the actual processing, and the functions of the above-described embodiments are realized by the processing. You may. Furthermore, after the program code read from the storage medium is written into the memory on the computer, the CPU or the like of the computer performs part or all of the actual processing based on the instructions of the program code, and executes the processing. The functions of the above-described embodiment may be realized by the above.

  Furthermore, by distributing, via a network, software program codes for realizing the functions of the embodiments, the program codes are stored in a storage unit such as a hard disk or a memory of a system or an apparatus or a storage medium such as a CD-RW or a CD-R. And the computer (or CPU or MPU) of the system or apparatus may read out and execute the program code stored in the storage means or the storage medium at the time of use.

  Finally, it should be understood that the processes and techniques described herein are not inherently related to any particular device and may be implemented by any suitable combination of components. In addition, various types of general purpose devices can be used in accordance with the teachings described herein. It may prove useful to construct a dedicated apparatus to perform the steps of the method described herein. In addition, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of constituent elements disclosed in the embodiments. For example, some components may be deleted from all the components shown in the embodiment. Further, components of different embodiments may be appropriately combined. Although the present invention has been described in connection with specific examples, these are for purposes of explanation and not of limitation in all respects. Those skilled in the art will recognize that there are numerous combinations of hardware, software, and firmware suitable for implementing the present invention. For example, the described software can be implemented in a wide variety of programs or scripting languages such as assembler, C / C ++, perl, Shell, PHP, Java (registered trademark), and the like.

  Furthermore, in the above-described embodiment, the control lines and the information lines are considered to be necessary for the explanation, and do not necessarily indicate all the control lines and the information lines on the product. All components may be connected to each other.

  In addition, other implementations of the invention will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art from a consideration of the specification and embodiments of the invention disclosed herein. Various aspects and / or components of the described embodiments can be used alone or in any combination in a computerized storage system having the ability to manage data. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.

101 terminal device 102 CPU
103 memory 104 display unit 105 storage device 106 operating system (OS)
107 communication unit 108 communication unit 109 bus 110 server device 112 CPU
113 memory 114 communication unit 120 storage device 130 storage device 150 bus 160 network

Claims (7)

A server device for grasping a communication status between terminal devices,
A storage device for storing communication history information and user management information,
A communication device that receives information of a communication source user and information of a communication destination user, which are information of a user using the terminal device, from the terminal device as user information,
A processor that executes a process of estimating a communication status between the terminal devices using the user information,
The user management information includes information on the organization and position of each registered user,
The processor comprises:
Searching for user management information based on the user information, obtaining information on the organization to which the communication source user and the communication destination user belong, and for estimating the situation of a combination of users who communicated between the organizations. A situation estimation route identification process for identifying a route;
Performing a situation estimation process of estimating a situation for each route identified by the situation estimation route identification process ,
The processor, in the situation estimation process, when the frequency of communication included in the communication history information exceeds a first threshold, when the time included in the communication history information includes a predetermined time zone, the user management information And when the number of departments obtained from the communication history information exceeds a second threshold, or when the number of job titles obtained from the user management information and the communication history information exceeds a third threshold, A server device that is presumed to have a problem . In claim 1,
The server device, wherein the processor specifies a combination other than the combination of the communication source user and the communication destination user as a route for estimating the status in the status estimation route specifying process. In claim 1,
The storage device further holds department association degree information indicating the degree of closeness between the communication destination user specified by the user using the terminal device and the communication destination user on the route estimated by the situation estimation process,
The server device further executes an estimation result report determination process of determining whether to notify the terminal device of a result estimated by the situation estimation process based on the department relevance information. In the server device, a communication status grasping method for grasping a communication situation between terminal devices,
The server device includes a storage device that stores communication history information and user management information, and the communication source user information and the communication destination user information, which are user information using the terminal device, as the user information, A communication device that receives from the device, and a processor that executes a process of estimating a communication status between the terminal devices using the user information,
The user management information includes information on the organization and position of each registered user,
The method comprises:
The processor searches for user management information based on the user information, obtains information of an organization to which the communication source user and the communication destination user belong, and determines a combination of users who have communicated between the organizations, Performing a situation estimation route identification process of identifying a route for estimation;
Wherein the processor is seen containing a and performing state estimation process for estimating the status of each identified route by the state estimation path specifying process,
The processor, in the situation estimation process, when the frequency of communication included in the communication history information exceeds a first threshold, when the time included in the communication history information includes a predetermined time zone, the user management information And when the number of departments obtained from the communication history information exceeds a second threshold, or when the number of job titles obtained from the user management information and the communication history information exceeds a third threshold, A communication status monitoring method that estimates that there may be a problem . In claim 4 ,
The communication status grasping method, wherein the processor specifies a combination other than the combination of the communication source user and the communication destination user as a route for estimating the status in the status estimation route specifying process. In claim 4 ,
The storage device further holds department association degree information indicating the degree of closeness between the communication destination user specified by the user using the terminal device and the communication destination user on the route estimated by the situation estimation process,
The method comprises:
A communication status grasping method, comprising: performing, by the processor, an estimation result report determination process of determining whether to notify the terminal device of a result estimated by the status estimation process based on the department relevance information. . A communication status grasping system comprising a plurality of terminal devices and a server device for grasping a communication status in the plurality of terminal devices,
The server device has at least a storage device that stores communication history information and user management information, and a communication device for communicating with the plurality of terminal devices,
Each of the plurality of terminal devices has at least a communication device for communicating with the server device,
The user management information includes information on the organization and position of each registered user,
The terminal device transmits information of a communication source user and information of a communication destination user, which are information of a user who uses the terminal device, to the server device as user information,
The server device receives the user information from the terminal device,
Searching for user management information based on the user information, obtaining information on the organization to which the communication source user and the communication destination user belong, and for estimating the situation of a combination of users who communicated between the organizations. run the condition estimation path specifying process for specifying a path, and a state estimation process for estimating the state of each path identified by the state estimation path specifying process,
In the situation estimation process, the server device may be configured such that when the frequency of communication included in the communication history information exceeds a first threshold, when the time included in the communication history information includes a predetermined time zone, If the number of departments obtained from the information and the communication history information exceeds a second threshold, or if the number of posts obtained from the user management information and the communication history information exceeds a third threshold, the target route Communication status grasping system that estimates that there may be a problem in

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