JPH08237272A - Office automation unit - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To notify optimum person, organization and place of original information which is read and received document with an optimum output means by providing the data base of destination data of information and that of data on the output means. CONSTITUTION: Individual destination data and output means data of a QA unit are provided with a font, an external character, a form, a read picture, FAX receiving data, use history data and charging data for the data base 27 under the control of a data base manager 17. The connection of them is dynamically managed. When an opposite party to which information is transmitted is designated, information can be transmitted to the optimum place with the optimum means even if the opposite party is absent. The destination data base can easily be generated. Furthermore, information which does not require printing (conference held place, time and a simple connection item) can be transmitted as sound.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an office automation device such as a personal computer or a word processor which can be connected to a network, and particularly, to output read manuscript information and received documents to an optimum person / organization / location. It relates to office automation equipment connected on a network so that it can be notified by means.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, a technique such as a personal computer network is known in which a large number of office automation devices (OA devices) such as personal computers are connected to one network so that they can communicate with each other. However, in the conventional office automation device on the network, it is difficult to determine which office automation device on the network to send the read manuscript information or the received document to output in what form. It is very troublesome for the user of the office automation device to specify each time, and on top of that, the user must always know the optimal information destination, and if the user who does not know the destination uses it. There was a risk of confusion. In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-2
Japanese Patent No. 8221 discloses a method and apparatus for automatically distributing a document by a data processing system, which is characterized by automatically identifying a distribution destination from the content of the document and distributing the distribution destination. However, it can sufficiently cope with changes in the network. It wasn't something.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, and its purpose is to optimize read manuscript information, received documents, etc. to an optimum person / organization / location. It is to provide an office automation device that can be connected on a network so that the output means can notify.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, the invention described in claim 1 is an office automation device connectable on a network, and information destination data,
It is characterized by comprising a database having data on the location of the office automation equipment at the destination and data on the output means of the office automation equipment at the destination. According to a second aspect of the invention, in the office automation equipment according to the first aspect, an OA device connected to a network is displayed when the database is created. According to a third aspect of the invention, in the office automation equipment according to the first aspect, the output means of the office automation equipment is a print output or a voice output. According to a fourth aspect of the invention, in the office automation equipment according to the first aspect, a print output or a voice output is automatically selected as the output means of the office automation equipment depending on the content of information. . According to the invention described in claim 5, in the office automation equipment according to claim 1, when the office automation equipment which should receive the information cannot be used due to some influence, the information is automatically transmitted by an alternative means. Characterize. The invention according to claim 6 is characterized in that, in the office automation equipment according to claim 1, when the office automation equipment which should receive the information cannot be used for a long time due to some influence, a message prompting a database update is sent. To do. According to a seventh aspect of the invention, in the office automation device according to the first aspect, the information is transmitted in cooperation with the destination bulletin board. The invention described in claim 8 is
The office automation device according to claim 1, further comprising means for determining whether or not information has been received at a remote place at a home position of the office automation device.

[0005]

According to the above construction, by designating the other party to whom the information is to be sent, the information can be transmitted to the most suitable location by the most suitable means even when the other party is absent. In addition, the destination database can be easily created. Also, information that does not need to be printed (meeting place and time, simple contact information, etc.) can be transmitted as voice, which is also effective in reducing paper resources. In addition, it is possible to prevent the contents to be transmitted from entering a waiting state or disappearing. Also, it is possible to cope with changes in the connection status of office automation devices. Further, the destination can be centrally managed, and the labor for setting the destination can be reduced by half. Also,
It is possible to obtain information that could not be obtained at the destination without leaking it.

[0006]

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional explanatory diagram of an office automation device embodying the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, this office automation device (hereinafter, simply referred to as OA device) is connected in large numbers on a network (not shown), and has hardware 1, various drivers 3, and real-time os5. And the above hardware 1
Has physical devices such as a scanning device 7, a printing device 9, a paper feeding device 11 and a media device 13 and physical resources such as an external storage device, a memory and a font, and an operation panel 15 for realizing a user interface. I also have.

The various drivers 3 provide an interface for controlling the hardware 1. In the real-time os5, the interfaces are regarded as a task unit, and scheduling of these tasks and exclusive control are realized. System call or application API (collectively called API)
To serve as.

Then, various manager groups realize an interface with the user by utilizing the above API.
That is, the database manager 17 is a process for managing, accessing, and saving resources (fonts, forms, phonebooks, etc.) of OA equipment, and the service manager 19 manages, executes, completes, and states various services. The device manager 21 is a process for monitoring, the device manager 21 is a process for performing management, access, status monitoring, attribute management, etc. for using the various physical devices 7 to 13, and the job manager 23 is specified by the user. When one job is executed by a plurality of services and devices, it is a process of performing status management / completion notification by using them as one unit. The operation manager 25 has operation panel information of OA equipment, etc. The display contents and operation contents can be interactively communicated to It is a process.

In the present embodiment, the database 27 under the control of the database manager 17 has a "personal destination" together with fonts, external characters, forms, read images, FAX reception data, usage history data, billing data and the like. It has data (see FIG. 2A), “location of OA equipment” data (see FIG. 2B), and “output means of OA equipment” data (see FIG. 2C), It manages those relationships dynamically as described below.

Next, the procedure for creating the database 27 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, in step 101 of FIG. 3, an “individual destination” database as shown in FIG. 2A is created by designating an individual destination range (a destination range of information from the OA device). At 103, OA devices within the range of the destination of the individual are extracted. Then, in step 105, based on the extraction result, an "output device of OA device" database as shown in FIG. 2C is created. Next, in step 107,
Based on the above extraction result, OA devices are collected for each place to create an “OA device place” database as shown in FIG. 2B, and the OA device ID, output means (print or voice) and place Map and display (Step 11
1), based on that, OA device ID for each location
And the desired output means are set (step 113),
The creation process ends.

Next, a method of transmitting information by the OA equipment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, in step 201, when the information transmission partner and the transmission information are designated, step 2
In 03, it is judged whether or not the request output means is the automatic selection, and in the case of the automatic selection, it is determined whether the output should be voice output or print output (steps 205, 207, 20).
9). Next, in step 211, it is determined whether or not there is a destination display version. If there is a destination display version, the destination is searched from the transmission partner (step 213). If not, the destination is obtained from the home position information (step 215), An OA device ID is obtained from the destination (step 217).

Next, steps 219, 221, 223,
In 225, whether the request output means of information transmission is the same as the desired output means of the OA equipment, whether the urgency is high, whether the OA equipment has an alternative output means, or the OA equipment is in the same place. Whether or not the OA device is selected (step 227) or the home position O
It is determined whether to select the A device (step 229), and in step 231, the status of the selected OA device is acquired.

Next, in step 233, the OA
It is determined whether or not the device is in failure, and if it is in failure, a database update request is added to the information (step 2
35), select the home position (step 23
7) The history is saved at the home position (step 243). If it is not in failure at the above step 233, as long as it is not busy (step 239), the O
Information is sent to the A device (step 241) and the history is stored at the home position (step 243).

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, by designating the other party to whom the information is to be sent, the information can be transmitted to the most suitable place by the most suitable means even when the other party is absent. In addition, the destination database can be easily created. Also, information that does not need to be printed (meeting place and time, simple contact information, etc.) can be transmitted as voice, which is also effective in reducing paper resources. In addition, it is possible to prevent the contents to be transmitted from entering a waiting state or disappearing. Further, it is possible to deal with a change in the connection status of OA devices. Further, the destination can be centrally managed, and the labor for setting the destination can be reduced by half. In addition, it becomes possible to obtain information that could not be obtained at the destination without leaking it.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a functional explanatory diagram of an OA device embodying the present invention.

2 (a), (b) and (c) are explanatory views of the database shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure for creating the database shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an information transmission method of the OA device shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Hardware, 3 ... Various drivers, 5 ... Real-time os, 7
... scanning device, 9 ... printing device,
11 ... Paper feeding device, 13 ... Media device,
15 ... Operation panel, 17 ... Database manager, 19 ... Service manager, 2
1 ... Device manager, 23 ... Job manager, 25 ... Operation manager,
27 ... Database, 101-113, 201-24
3 ... each step,

Claims (8)

[Claims] 1. An office that can be connected to a network.
An automation device, comprising: a database having information destination data, data of a location of an office automation device at the destination, and data of output means of the office automation device at the destination. -Automation equipment. 2. The office automation device according to claim 1, wherein an OA device connected to the network is displayed when the database is created. 3. The office automation equipment according to claim 1, wherein the output means of the office automation equipment is a print output or a voice output. 4. The office automation equipment according to claim 1, wherein print output or voice output is automatically selected as the output means of the office automation equipment depending on the content of information. 5. The office automation equipment according to claim 1, wherein when the office automation equipment to receive the information cannot be used due to some influence, the information is automatically transmitted by an alternative means. 6. The office automation equipment according to claim 1, wherein when the office automation equipment to receive the information cannot be used for a long time due to some influence, a message prompting a database update is sent. 7. The office automation device according to claim 1, wherein information is transmitted in conjunction with a destination bulletin board. 8. The office automation equipment according to claim 1, further comprising means for determining whether or not information has been received at a remote place at one's home position.