JPH04170255A - Received document automatic distribution system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To distribute a received document to a destination quickly by sending the document received by a facsimile equipment to a selected mail box in plural computers based on a protocol command received with the document. CONSTITUTION:A facsimile equipment 2 and personal computers 3-5 are connected to a network 1. The document received by the facsimile equipment 2 is sent to the selected mail box in the plural personal computers 3-5 based on a protocol command received together with the document. Thus, a picture information storage section 22a in the facsimile equipment 2 is used for a storage means storing tentatively the document addressed to the registration person using the mail box in the personal computers 3-5 and the mail box in the facsimile equipment 2 except for the registration party is used for a recipient. Thus, the received document is distributed early and the load of the main storage device of the facsimile equipment is relieved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to a received document automatic distribution system, and particularly to a received document automatic distribution system for sending documents received by a facsimile machine to a plurality of computers.

(Prior Art) Facsimile machines having a mailbox function are widely used. FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of the storage area of the image information storage section of the facsimile machine.

As shown in the figure, the storage area of the image information storage section includes a general document storage section A and a mailbox area B. General document storage section A stores received documents that are not addressed to a mailbox, and mailbox area B stores received documents that are addressed to a predetermined mailbox. This mailbox storage area corresponds to a password registered in advance.

If the protocol command includes mailbox specification information, the sent document will be stored in the mailbox area (hereinafter simply referred to as the mailbox) based on the specified information, and the document will be stored in the mailbox area (hereinafter simply referred to as the mailbox) based on the specified information. Accumulated data can be retrieved.

By the way, there are systems in which a facsimile machine is remotely controlled by manually inputting the password from a personal combination coater (hereinafter referred to as a computer), and documents stored in a mailbox can be printed using the facsimile machine's printer. It has become.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) The above conventional technology has the following problems.

The storage area used as the mailbox is allocated in advance and its size is limited. Generally, the mailbox of a facsimile machine is used by a plurality of registrants. Therefore, when a large amount of documents addressed to a specific registrant are stored, there is a problem in that the storage area that can be used by other registrants is severely limited.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a received document automatic distribution method that can promptly distribute received documents to addressees in order to solve the above-mentioned problems and reduce the load on the storage means of a facsimile machine. be.

(Means and effects for solving the problems) The present invention solves the above problems and achieves the objects by at least one
A plurality of computers having one mailbox are connected to a facsimile machine via a network, and a document received by the facsimile machine is sent to a selected mailbox in the plurality of computers based on a protocol command received with the document. The feature is that it is configured to send to a mailbox.

According to the present invention configured as described above, the facsimile machine distributes the received document to a predetermined mailbox provided in the computer in accordance with the protocol command. Therefore, for documents addressed to registrants who use mailboxes in the computer, the image information storage unit in the facsimile machine is used only as a storage means for storing the documents, and most of the documents are sent to registrants other than the registrants. can be used for recipients who use mailboxes within their facsimile machines.

(Example) Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an automatic document distribution system showing an embodiment of the present invention.

In the figure, network 1 includes facsimile machine N2.
and personal computers 3.4 and 5 are connected.

The facsimile device 2 includes a communication control circuit 21 connected to a system bus 20, a main storage device 22, a system control unit (CPU) 23, and an interface circuit 24.

On the other hand, the computer 3 is also connected to the system bus 30.
It has a PU 31, a main storage device 32, and an interface circuit 33.

The main storage device 22 of the facsimile machine 2 is provided with a mailbox area as shown in FIG. 4, and the main storage device 32 of the personal computer 3 is also provided with a mailbox.

Note that since the personal computers 4 and 5 are configured similarly to the personal computer 3, detailed illustrations are omitted.

With the above configuration, among documents input to the facsimile machine from a public line via the communication control circuit 21, documents with a mailbox designation are stored in the mailbox area of the main storage device 22, and documents without a designation are stored in the mailbox area of the main storage device 22. It is stored in the general document storage section of the main storage device.

Among the documents accumulated in the mailbox area, documents whose destination is the personal computer 3 to 5 are transferred from the main storage device 22 of the facsimile device 2 to the personal computer 3 to 5.
The email will be forwarded to the mailbox on the specified computer.

Among the accumulated documents, documents for which the mailboxes of the personal computers 3 to 5 are not designated as destinations are held in the mailbox area of the main storage device 22 of the facsimile device 2, and are separately supplied from a manual means (not shown). Printout is performed by a predetermined printing device according to the printout command.

Note that the interface circuits 24 and 33 are appropriately selected and used depending on whether the data transmission method between the facsimile machine 2 and the personal computers 3 to 5 is serial or parallel. For example, in the case of a serial transmission method, an interface circuit conforming to R3-2320 of the American Institute of Electronics Engineers standard is used, and in the case of a parallel transmission method, an SC of the same standard is used.
An example of using an interface circuit that is compliant with 3I is given.

Next, a function for transferring a document received by the facsimile device 2 to a scheduled personal computer will be explained.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the main functions of this embodiment.

In the figure, a protocol command analysis unit 6 in a communication control circuit 21 determines whether a received document is a document addressed to a mailbox or a general document based on the protocol command, and further analyzes each mailbox based on the protocol command. The specified identification data is detected.

The mailbox storage unit 7 stores the mailbox number of the facsimile machine 2 and the mailbox numbers of the personal computers 3 to 5 that have been registered in advance.

The mailbox determination section 8 includes a mailbox storage section 7.
The mailbox number is supplied from the protocol command analysis section 6, and identification data for identifying the mailbox is supplied from the protocol command analysis section 6.

Based on these numbers and identification data, the mailbox determination unit 8 determines whether the received document is a document addressed to a mailbox in the personal computers 3 to 5, or a document addressed to a mailbox set in the main storage device inside the facsimile machine. Make a judgment.

As a result, if the document is addressed to the mailbox of the personal computers 3 to 5, the mailbox determining section 8 issues a command to the personal computer calling section 9 to call the specified personal computer.

The mailbox determination unit 8 calls the personal computer and
A write instruction signal is sent to the write control unit 10. The write control section 10 responds to the write instruction signal, adds the mailbox number supplied from the protocol command analysis section 6 to the received document, and stores it in the image information storage section 22a.

The read control section 11 reads out the stored document in response to a read instruction signal sent back from the personal computer in response to a call from the personal computer calling section 9.

The read document is transferred to a mailbox within the personal computer.

The operation of this embodiment having the above functions will be explained with reference to flowcharts.

In FIG. 3, in step S1, an incoming call is monitored, and if an incoming call is detected, the process proceeds to step S2.

In step S2, it is determined whether the received document is addressed to a mailbox. If it is determined that the document is addressed to the mailbox, the process advances to step S3.

In step S3, it is determined whether the mailbox within the facsimile machine or the mailbox of the personal computer is designated as the destination of the document.

On the other hand, if no mailbox is specified, step S
The process advances to IO, performs normal reception, and stores the document in the image information storage section 22a.

If it is determined in step S3 that a mailbox in the facsimile device is designated as the destination of the document, the process advances to step S9, where the mailbox number is added and the document is stored.

If the mailbox of the personal computer is designated as the destination of the document, the process advances to step S4, where the mailbox number is added and the document is stored.

In step S5, the personal computer having the designated mailbox is called.

In step S6, it is determined whether there is a response from the personal computer. If there is a response, proceed to step S7,
Transfer accumulated documents to your computer's mailbox.

In step S8, the transferred document is deleted from the image information storage section 22a of the facsimile machine.

On the other hand, if the judgment in step S6 is negative, that is, if there is no response from the personal computer for some reason such as the power is not turned on, the process ends without erasing the document stored in the image information storage section 22a.

Since the stored document has not been deleted, if it is subsequently accessed from a personal computer and a new transfer instruction is issued, the document will be read out and transferred to the personal computer in response.

In this way, in this embodiment, a network is constructed by coordinating one facsimile machine and a plurality of personal computers, and the main storage device of each personal computer can be used as a mailbox.

Note that since the personal computer may be used by a plurality of people, the number of mailboxes provided in the main storage device is not limited to one, but may be provided in a plurality.

(Effects of the Invention) As is clear from the above description, according to the present invention, a computer storage device can be used as a mailbox in addition to a mailbox provided in a facsimile machine. Therefore, received documents can be quickly distributed to each destination, and the load on the main storage device of the facsimile device can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the main parts of a system showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the main parts of a facsimile machine,
FIG. 3 is a flowchart 1 showing the operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of the image information storage unit. 1. System bus, 2. Facsimile device, 3 to 5
...PC, 6...Protocol command analysis section,
7.Mailhox storage section, 8.Mailbox judgment section, 9.PC access section, 22.33.Main storage device, 24.33.Interface circuit agent Patent attorney Michito Hiraki and 1 other person □□" It is

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) Coordination is established between one facsimile device and multiple computers having at least one mailbox, a network is established between the facsimile devices and the computers, and documents received by the facsimile device are A method for automatically distributing a received document, characterized in that the received document is configured to be sent to a selected mailbox in the plurality of computers based on a protocol command received together with the received document.