JPH0883231A - Information processor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide an information processor which changes the priority order of jobs equally. CONSTITUTION: The information processor 1 is equipped with a user management means 2 which sets and manages the limits of a change in priority order by users, a priority order management means 3 which calculates the importance of a change in priority order for data processing and changes the priority order of the data corresponding to the previously calculated importance within the change limits of one user managed by the user management means 2 when the user changes the priority order given to the data processing, and a change limit management means 4 which decreases the change limits of the user according to the importance as the priority order management means 3 changes the priority order and informs the user management means 2 of the result.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus which changes the priority of processing given to a plurality of data issued by a plurality of users according to an instruction from the user and performs the processing in accordance with the priority. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art OA equipment such as copiers, printers, and facsimiles is shared by a plurality of users. For example, when a printer and a terminal are connected online, each user is basically first-in first-out. The output processing of the data sent from is performed in order.

When output processing is performed for a plurality of data, the priority order for the processing is determined at the time when the data is input, and the output is performed in accordance with this. However, if there is an urgent process in the process queue, there is a problem that it cannot be output immediately. Therefore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 4-276819 proposes an information processing apparatus capable of arbitrarily changing the priority order given to the processing of data.

Further, in recent years, so-called multi-function peripherals in which image processing devices for handling digital images such as digital copying machines, printers and facsimiles are integrated are becoming widespread. In such a multi-function peripheral, since one multi-function peripheral processes image data given by a plurality of users, the number of jobs waiting to be processed is increased, and the job is urgent as before. However, if it is stored in the queue, it cannot be processed immediately.
Therefore, in the OA equipment system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-51872, an offline copying operation in which data is directly processed by the OA equipment system is more preferable than an online copying operation in which data is processed through a predetermined line. It has been proposed to prioritize. As a result, even when the online copying operation is performed, when the offline copying operation occurs, the offline copying operation is preferentially performed so that the execution of the urgent job can be immediately dealt with.

[0005]

However, if the priorities for a plurality of jobs can be arbitrarily changed and set in this way, the priority will be unnecessarily changed and data that is not easily processed while remaining in the queue. Occurs. Also, in the case of increasing the priority of only specific processing such as offline processing, priority processing cannot be performed when there is an urgent job that is processing other than specific processing, and the response becomes insufficient. Will end up. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus that can change the priorities assigned to a plurality of jobs without unfairness.

[0006]

The present invention is an information processing apparatus configured to achieve the above object. That is,
The present invention is an information processing apparatus that gives a priority of processing to a plurality of data issued from a plurality of users, changes the priority according to an instruction from any user, and performs processing in accordance with the priority. A user management means for setting and managing a change limit for changing the priority of a user for each of a plurality of users, and the data when one of the users changes the priority given to the processing of the data. Priority management that calculates the degree of importance in changing the priority order for processing of the above, and changes the priority order of data according to the degree of importance calculated earlier within the change limit of the user managed by the user management means. And the priority management by means of priority management, the user management is performed by reducing the change limit of the user according to the importance. And a change limit management means to be notified to the stage.

[0007]

In the information processing apparatus according to the present invention, the change limit for changing the priority order is set and managed by the user management means for each of a plurality of users, and when the user changes the priority order, the priority management means operates. Then, the importance of the change is calculated, and the priority is changed according to the importance within the change limit of the user who makes the change. That is, the user can change the priority order within the set change limit, but can reduce the set change limit according to the importance of the change. The change limit managing means performs a process of reducing the change limit according to the degree of importance and notifies the user managing means of the changed change limit. That is, the greater the degree of importance, the greater the amount of change limit reduction, and the lesser the degree of importance, the smaller the amount of change limit reduction. As a result, it is possible to limit the change of the priority order by the user, and it is possible to maintain fairness with respect to the change of the priority order.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT An embodiment of the information processing apparatus of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of an information processing apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram, and FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an image processing apparatus. The information processing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment is mainly applied to the inside of the multifunction peripheral 10 as shown in FIG. In addition,
As a device to which this information processing device 1 is applied, a multifunction device 1
The number is not limited to 0, and may be a single unit such as a digital copying machine, a printer device, or a facsimile device. However, in order to make the description easy to understand, the multifunction device 10 will be described below as an example.

The multi-function device 10 is connected to a plurality of terminal devices 20a and 20b via a network and is connected to an external device (facsimile device or the like) by a telephone line. The data issued by the user may be input to the multifunction machine 10 online via this network or telephone line, or may be directly input to the multifunction machine 10 offline. In the multi-function device 10, processes (jobs) for a plurality of input data are given priorities (job priorities) and the processes according to the priorities are performed in a time-sharing manner.

The multi-function device 10 is equipped with an image processing device as shown in FIG. 3, for example, and performs predetermined image processing on input data and outputs the data. The image processing apparatus is mainly composed of the image processing unit 11. Image processing unit 1
1 is a system controller 11a and an input I / F 11b (I / F
F is an abbreviation for an interface, and the same shall apply hereinafter), a facsimile I / F 11c and a network I / F 11d,
It is composed of an output I / F 11e, a page buffer 11f, and a disk controller 11g.

An image input unit 13 connected to an ADF (automatic paper feed mechanism) 12 is connected to the input I / F 11b, and a facsimile device 14 is connected to the facsimile I / F 11c. In addition, network I / F1
A network is connected to 1d, a post-processing unit 16 is connected to the output I / F 11e via an image output unit 15, and a disk 17 for data storage is connected to the disk controller 11g. The operation panel 1 is included in the system control unit 11a for controlling these units.
8 is connected.

A multifunction machine 1 equipped with such an image processing apparatus
To perform offline processing using 0, the user must
12 or a document platen (not shown) of the image input unit 13 is set as a data document, a job operation is set by the operation panel 18, and then a start button (not shown) is pressed. As a result, the image input section 13 photoelectrically converts the original image and inputs it as digital image data.
/ Send to F11b. The image processing unit 11 performs a predetermined process on the read digital image data and then stores it in the page buffer 11f. At this time, if output is possible, output I / F from the page buffer 11f
The digital image data is transferred to the image output unit 15 via 11e and passed to the post-processing unit 16. At the same time, the digital image data is written to the disc 17 via the disc controller 11g. If output is not possible, the digital image data is not transferred to the image output unit 15 and is written to the disk 17 via the disk controller 11g.

In order to output the digital image data, the digital image data stored in the page buffer 11f (the digital image data stored in the page buffer 11f from the image input unit 13 or the disk 17) is read out, and this digital image is read. Based on the data, the image output unit 15 converts the laser light into on / off to form an image. When outputting two or more copies of the same original, basically, the image data of the first copy is passed from the image input section 13 to the image output section 15 via the page buffer 11f, and the images of the second and subsequent copies are sent. The data is read from the disk 17 and passed to the image output unit 15.

In order to perform online processing using the multi-function peripheral 10 equipped with such an image processing apparatus, image data is sent to the multi-function peripheral 10 via a user, a network, or a telephone line. In this case, the image data is taken into the image processing unit 11 from the network I / F 11d or the facsimile I / F 11c, stored in the page buffer 11f or the disk 17 through the same route as before, and then output. In addition to outputting digital image data to the image output unit 15, the digital image data fetched from the image input unit 13 is output to the facsimile device 14 via the facsimile I / F 11c, or the network I / F 1 is used.
It may be output from the network to an external device via 1d.

Further, the digital image data received by the facsimile apparatus 14 is processed by the image processing unit 11 and output from the network to an external device via the network I / F 11d, or conversely from the external device to the network I. The digital image data taken in via the / F11d is processed by the image processing unit 11, and the facsimile I / F11c is processed.
In some cases, it may be output to the facsimile device 14 via the.

As described above, since the image processing unit 11 needs to execute jobs for a plurality of digital image data input from various paths, the system control unit 11a.
Priority is given to a plurality of jobs and processing is performed according to the priority. Information processing apparatus 1 in this embodiment
Is a part of the system control unit 11a of the image processing unit 11, and is used when the user changes the priority order given to the job.

As shown in FIG. 1, the information processing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment mainly includes a user management unit 2 that registers and manages information about users, a priority management unit 3 that manages priority levels for jobs, and a user management unit 3. Change limit management means 4 for managing the change limit when changing the priority order
It is configured with and. In addition to these, a job management unit 5 that manages jobs, a job storage unit 6 that stores jobs, and a control unit 7 that controls data of the entire information processing apparatus 1 are provided.

The user management means 2 comprises a user registration section 21, a user management section 22 and a user storage section 23. Prior to changing the priority order, the user uses the terminal devices 20a and 20b (see FIG. 2) and the console (not shown) of the information processing device 1 to the user registration unit 21,
It is necessary to register the user name, net address, user points, etc. The user point is a value indicating a change limit necessary when changing the priority given to the job according to the user's request. User information including a user name, a net address, user points, etc. is stored in the user storage unit 23 and managed by the user management unit 22.

The priority order management means 3 comprises a job priority order management section 31, a job priority order change instruction section 32, and a job / user management data notification section 33. To change the priority assigned to the job by the user, the job / user management data notification unit 33, which is a console (not shown) of the terminal devices 20a, 20b (see FIG. 2) or the information processing device 1, is used to change the current priority. Check the list of accumulated jobs by inquiring about the list of jobs registered in the job queue list. When the user desires to change the priority order of a job, the user can change the priority order by the job priority order change instruction unit 32, which is the console (not shown) of the terminal device 20a, 20b (see FIG. 2) or the information processing apparatus 1. Give instructions.

The job priority management unit 31 receives a change instruction from the user and calculates the importance (for example, a value indicated by a required point) in changing the priority of the job. Further, the change limit management means 4 receives the importance calculated by the job priority management unit 31,
The user management unit 22 sets the user points of the user who makes the change.
And the process of confirming that the user points of the user are more than the necessary points indicating the importance. The job priority management unit 31
Upon receiving confirmation from the change limit management means 4, the priority of the job desired by the user is changed. After the priority is changed, the change limit management unit 4 performs a process of reducing the user points by the required points indicating the importance of the change.

As described above, in the information processing apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment, the user points that are the priority change limit are given to the user, and the priority of the job according to the importance of the change is given within the user points. I am trying to change the ranking. That is, the user can change the priority of the job with the given user points as the change limit.

At this time, when the importance of the change is large, the decrease amount of the user points is set large, and when the importance of the change is small, the decrease amount of the user points is set small. For example, when the priority is changed such that the terminal devices 20a and 20b (see FIG. 2) make an interrupt during the execution of the offline processing, the degree of importance of the change is large, and therefore the reduction amount is set to be large. On the other hand, when the priority order is changed for a job for online processing, the importance of the change is small, so the reduction amount is set small. As described above, by weighting the reduction amount of the user points according to the importance of the change, it becomes possible to change the priority order in consideration of fairness.

For example, when changing the priority of the jobs accumulated in the job queue by one, the user points are set to be reduced by one point, and when this interrupts the online processing. Is set to further reduce 10 user points. The necessary points for the change are calculated by the job priority management unit 31 at the stage when the user gives an instruction for the change.

Further, the user sets the user points so that, for example, 100 points can be given at the time of user registration or every update period (for example, one month). As a result, the user can change the priority order of up to 100 points in one month. That is, by restricting the user points given to the user, it is possible to prevent the job from being unnecessarily raised in priority or interrupted, so that the job can be executed fairly and smoothly.

Next, the priority change of the job by the user will be described with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. It is assumed that user information is registered in advance when changing the priority order of jobs. Reference numerals not shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 refer to FIGS. 1 and 2. First, as shown in step S101 of FIG. 4, the job management unit 5 accepts a job registration request, and then step S1
The cue list is generated and stored as indicated by 02. The received job is given a reception number, and the job priority management unit 31 gives a priority to the job and adds it to the queue list.

Next, as a notification of the job queue list shown in step S103, the user is notified of the position of the queue in the received job and the waiting state of another job.
Next, in step S104, it is determined whether to change the priority order. In the case of No here, the process proceeds to step S105, and the received job is registered in the job queue in the same priority order. If the priority order is to be changed, the result is Yes and the process proceeds to step S106.
In step S106, the priority change position is instructed. For the instruction, use the terminal devices 20a and 20b or execute the job /
This is performed by the user management data notification unit 33, and the job priority order change instruction unit 32 notifies the job priority order management unit 31.

Next, as shown in step S107, it is determined whether or not the priority change of the job instructed by the user is an interruption for the execution of the offline processing. Here, since the processing is different between the case where it is an interrupt and the case where it is not an interrupt, each processing will be described below.
First, in the case of an interrupt, the determination in step S107 is Yes, and the process proceeds to step S108. On this occasion,
The job priority management unit 31 calculates necessary points (for example, 10 points) in the case of interruption, and requests the change limit management unit 4 to inquire the user management unit 22 of the user points of the user.

In step S108, it is determined whether or not the inquired user point is equal to or greater than the sum of the number of jobs jumping to the interrupt required point. this is,
This is a case where one point is required to jump over one job, and the value obtained by adding 10 points required for interruption is compared with the user point. If the result of this determination is No, it means that the user points are insufficient and the user is informed that the priority order cannot be changed. As a result, the user has the option of giving up changing the priority of the job or changing the priority of the remaining user points as much as possible.

If the result of the determination in step S108 is Yes, it means that the user points are sufficient, and the process advances to step S109 to change the processing for subtracting the interrupt point and the number of skipped jobs from the user points. The limit management means 4 is used. And step S
At 110, an interrupt operation is accepted. The user points decreased with the acceptance of the interrupt operation are notified from the change limit management means 4 to the user management unit 22, and the user storage unit 2
3 will be stored.

Next, the processing when it is determined in step S107 that it is not an interrupt will be described. When it is determined that the job is not an interrupt, the job priority management unit 31 calculates necessary points (for example, if one point is required to jump one job, it is equal to the number of jumped jobs), and changes The limit management unit 4 is requested to inquire of the user management unit 22 about the user points of the user.

Then, as shown in step S201 of FIG. 5, it is determined whether or not the inquired user points are equal to or more than the calculated required points. If the result of this determination is No, it means that the user points are insufficient and the user is informed that the priority order cannot be changed. As a result, the user has the option of giving up changing the priority of the job or changing the priority of the remaining user points as much as possible.

If the result of the determination in step S201 is Yes, it means that the user points are sufficient, and the process proceeds to step S202, in which the necessary points calculated from the user points (for example, the same points as the number of jumping jobs) are set. The subtraction process is performed by the change limit management means 4. Then, in step S203, job queue registration is performed with the priority changed. The user points decreased with the job queue registration are notified from the change limit management unit 4 to the user management unit 22, and the user storage unit 23.
Memorized in.

As described above, by changing the reduction amount of the user points according to the degree of importance such as whether or not the priority order change is an interruption to the offline processing, it is possible to perform a fair priority order change. . Further, even during the execution of the offline processing, an interrupt can be issued from the terminal devices 20a and 20b via the network as long as there are user points, and an urgent job can be immediately executed. Further, when user points are used as the change limit, it is possible to achieve smoother job operation by changing the user points given depending on the job title and work content (frequency of urgent jobs). .

It should be noted that the set value and the amount of decrease of the user points shown in this embodiment are examples, and the present invention is not limited to this. Further, as the setting of the change limit given to the user, for example, the multifunction device 10 and the terminal devices 20a, 20
A change limit may be given according to the distance from b, or a change limit may be given according to a difference in post, department, group, floor, or the like.

[0035]

As described above, the information processing apparatus according to the present invention has the following effects. That is, the user can change the priority order of the job within the given change limit and prevent unnecessary changes. For this reason, it is possible for all the users to fairly change the priority order, and there is no bias in the execution of the jobs, which enables smooth operation. Further, since the priority of an urgent job can be raised within the change limit, it is possible to deal with a case where a quick process is required. Further, it becomes possible to easily manage the change of the priority order within the change limit regardless of the type of the job such as the online processing and the offline processing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a system configuration diagram.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an image processing apparatus.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (part 1) of priority change processing.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart (No. 2) of priority change processing.

[Explanation of Codes] 1 Information processing device 2 User management means 3 Priority management means 4 Change limit management means 5 Job management part 6 Job storage part 7 Control means 10 Multifunction device 20a, 20b Terminal device 21 User registration part 31 Job priority order Management Department

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An information processing apparatus for assigning a processing priority to a plurality of data issued by a plurality of users, changing the priority according to an instruction from any one of the users, and performing processing in accordance with the priority. And a user management means for setting and managing a change limit for changing the priority of the user for each of the plurality of users, and one of the users changes the priority assigned to the data processing. In this case, the degree of importance in changing the priority for processing the data is calculated, and the priority of the data is changed according to the degree of importance within the change limit of the user managed by the user management means. With the priority management means to be performed, the change limit of the user is reduced in accordance with the priority according to the priority change performed by the priority management means. An information processing apparatus, comprising: a change limit management means for notifying the user management means.