JPH11177616A - System raving delivery option for deleting/replacing message - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a user interface with which a message to a recipient can be remained. SOLUTION: In the message deletion process of a system, the validity of a message stored in the system is investigated, and the message over the validity without being read by the recipient is deleted or purged. The notice of urgency in the limit of messages more than one is prepared for a caution to a subscriber related to deletion. This process issues the caution of message deletion to the transmitter or returns the message to the transmitter. Similarly, this system can provide a unique identifier for replaceable message. The identifier can be made into code generated by the system or inputted by the transmitter or unique pattern such as the voiceprint of the transmitter.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a system for providing a message system to a user, such as a voice mail system, for indicating a message to be invalidated and deleted or replaced. A system that can specify the time / date at which the message is to be deleted, or specify a particular earlier message that is no longer valid and is deleted or replaced by the current message.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Current message systems, such as voice mail systems, electronic mail systems, and the like, allow a sender (individual or machine) to leave a message for another person or recipient. The sender can mark a "urgent" message or specify a delivery option that requires an incoming response. Some systems include a system-level feature that marks all messages as deleted after a certain period of time, such as 30 days. However, the sender cannot specify when the message should be deleted. This brings unnecessary work to the recipient when listening to messages that are no longer valid. For example, if a message is left for a meeting involving the recipient and the recipient does not listen to the message until after the meeting begins, the recipient's time is wasted. Do you need a message delivery option that allows the sender to specify a message expiration date?

[0003] Some subscribers of the messaging system are:
Request automatic delivery of messages such as weather and stock prices.
Until many such auto-delivery messages are stored,
If the subscriber does not listen to the stored messages, the subscriber wastes time listening to delayed messages.
Do you need the ability to automatically replace previous messages with more current messages?

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to allow a sender of a message to leave a message for the recipient and to specify when the message should be deleted.

[0005] In addition, the present invention provides for deleting only messages having a deadline date specified by the sender if the deadline date has not been played or viewed by the recipient. Aim.

[0006] It is also an object of the present invention to provide the ability to identify the source of a message, which source can delete or replace previously stored messages.

It is a further object of the present invention to reduce unnecessary storage of invalid messages.

Another object of the present invention is to reduce the number of meaningless messages stored in a message system.

[0009] In addition, it is an object of the present invention to provide a user with more control than message delivery options.

It is another object of the present invention to voluntarily notify a sender of a message including a deadline date and deleted without being viewed by a receiver.

[0011] Similarly, an object of the present invention is to enable the sender to check the content of an unread message by returning the deleted message to the sender when the message has been deleted. is there.

[0012] Another object of the present invention is to collect storage allocated to expired messages.

[0013] The above objective is to provide a "perishable" message expiration date and part of a message delivery option specification.
This is achieved by a system in which the user can specify the time. The system's message deletion process checks for message expiration and deletes expired messages that have not been viewed by the recipient. The deletion process optionally alerts the sender that the message has been deleted and / or returns the message to the sender. The system can provide the sender with an identifier of the message when the message is recorded, which can later be used to find previously stored unread messages to replace or delete them. used. The identifier is a voice print
(voice print) or a unique code or pattern.

[0014] Other objects and advantages will both become apparent from the embodiments described hereinafter and the construction and operation described in the claims. In reference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the present application, the same reference numerals refer to the same parts.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention allows a message, such as a voicemail message, to be marked with an expiration date / time by the sender of the message. deadline/
After that time, the system that stores the message deletes or purges the message that has not been read by the intended recipient.

The present invention is preferably implemented in a voice mail system 8 as shown in FIG. 1 described in US Pat. No. 5,029,199 and referenced below. Such systems, such as the CO ACCESS (R) and Access NP (R) systems, are available from Boston Technology, Inc. The system 8 as shown in FIG. 1 generally marks each message with a retention time that defines the time remaining before the message is purged. System 8 includes a process for deleting messages (or message files) that have been marked for deletion or purging such that their maximum retention time has been reached. Such a process, often referred to whimsically as a "grim reaper" program, is performed daily, during periods when the system is not generally busy. The present invention prefers to use such a program to delete or purge messages whose expiration time has been reached. A typical removal process can be performed daily, or such a program can be modified to be performed more frequently.

To provide the sender with the ability to specify an expiration date, in a system such as a voice mail system, a user interface for prompting the sender to select a delivery option includes a prompt procedure for delivery of a parisable message. Need to be modified to add A typical transmission procedure is shown in FIG. The delivery option 13, which is part of the procedure, is modified as shown in FIG. The prompt script 20 for prompting the delivery option by voice is, for example, “To set (cancel) the expiration date”
Press 5 "is modified to include voice prompt 22 as a menu item that speaks. The processing flow path is also modified to include a "5" selection 24 and a parisable delivery prompt procedure 26. Figure 4 shows the details of this step 26.
Is shown in

Messages sent from the subscriber to the voice mail system as shown in FIG. 1 are stored in a message file. The linked list of message records (or entries) contains the name of each subscriber's message file, and the master control unit (MCU)
Subscriber database or dedicated database management
(DBU) Maintained in the system / server. The message file itself is stored in the disk storage of the voice processing unit (VPU). Figure 5 shows each message file.
And 6 has a header accompanying the audio data.
The data structures of the message record entry 30 of the linked list and the file header 32 of the message file are both the message expiration time field (expiration_time) 3
It is possible to modify to include 4 and 36,
It is not necessary to modify both entry 30 and header 32. The header of FIG. 6 is preferably modified only. If the modifications are appropriate, a search of either the file header or the linked list will filter out expired messages.

The procedure of the event executed by the distribution option process for obtaining the deadline time is shown in the flowchart of FIG. When the option in the record message 40 is selected, the process determines at 42 whether a "delivery option" has been selected. If so, the process determines at 44 whether "other delivery options", such as a future delivery date, have been selected, and sets those other delivery options at 46. The process then determines at 48 whether the "Parisable Delivery Option" has been selected, and if so, sets the expiration time of the message at 50 from the expiration time entered by the sender. The message is then sent or stored at 52.

There are several different ways to ensure that messages are purged from the system at the due date / time. The first approach sends a command specifying the message to be purged (either a record in the linked list or the message file itself) and the expiration time of the message to the variable message management process.
Such a deadline command is generally sent in conjunction with step 50 of FIG. The parisable message management process as shown in FIG. 8 includes the parisable message being sent or stored at 70 and the expiration time at 72 record entry 30 and / or message file header 3.
Start moving after being set to 2. The time limit command for the message time limit is recorded in a command queue based on the time specified by the time limit command at 74. This queue is stored, for example, in a file or other suitable memory. The notification process wakes up from the normal standby state and scans the queue for events to be initiated. When the scan finds a deadline command, it notifies the management process. When the parisable message management process is notified, the expiration time is compared to the current time at 76, and if the expiration time has passed, the message record is removed from the linked list and a process such as the grim ripper process described above is performed. The message is purged from the recipient's mailbox at 78 by deleting the message file using.

If the queue of time limit commands is stored in the queue according to time, the notification process that determines whether the parisable message management process needs notification need only look at the first entry of the queue. is there.

After the messages have been purged, at 80, the deadline command is removed from the queue. Since the removal from the queue is not notified, the management process is stopped from the start of the purge check procedure shown in FIG. If the expiration time has not expired, the process checks at 82 to see if the message has already been deleted and if at 80 the command has been removed from the queue. If the message has not been deleted, the process checks at 84 to see if the message has been saved. Saving the message indicates that the message was received by the recipient. If the message has been saved, the command is removed from the queue at 80. If two commands have the same expiration time, the notification process notifies the management process for each of those commands.

The purge operation at step 78 can be set to use the sender field of record 30 of FIG. 5 to notify the sender that the message will be deleted, but the message has been viewed. In such a case, a general reply receiving process may notify the sender. This action can return the message to the sender rather than notifying the sender that the message will be deleted.

A second approach to parisable message management utilizes the expiration time stored in record 30 or header 32 for each message. Periodically, the delete program is activated and all message records 30 and / or message file headers 32 are checked to determine whether any expired time has been stored.
Is inspected. Any messages that have expired are purged.

A third approach involves creating a linked list of messages with expiration times. This requires that the record of the message or the header of the message be modified to include a further set of concatenations. In this data structure, as shown in FIG. 9, each mailbox includes a pointer 90 to the linked list of messages 92, 94 and 96 for each mailbox, with each message pointing to the next message in the list. Contains pointers. Parish (perish)
The pointer 98 points to the message with the earliest expiration time (9
Pointing to 2), each message has a pointer to the message (94) with the next earliest expiration time. The delete or purge process periodically checks the first entry in the overdue list using pointer 98. If the first message on the list has expired (and the message has not been saved), the message file is deleted and pointer 98 points to the next (second) message (94) on the list. Is instructed. If the elapsed time of the first message has not elapsed, no action is required since no message has expired. This approach requires that a new message be scanned to scan the list and have its deadline set to be added to the list, in order to insert a link to the message at the appropriate point in the list.

If messages are aged instead of deleted, they can be replaced with new messages. During the recording process described above, it allows the sender to change "other delivery options" to specify messages that will be replaced in the future and to identify messages to be replaced. As shown in FIG. 10, when the user selects this option at 100,
The system returns or provides the unique code at 104 to the sender to identify the message generated at 102, and stores the code in record 30 at 106.
Instead of thinking from time to time, the sender can supply or enter that unique code, allowing for the selection of a code that is easy to remember. At a later date, when the sender re-activates the mailbox where the replaceable message is stored, the delivery option process selects the option to replace the message at 110 and the message to be replaced at 112, as shown in FIG. Can be specified by a unique code. The system then searches the message list of the mailbox using the unique code at 114, detects messages to be replaced that have not been replaced or saved at 116, and adds the new message to the message list. Of course, the message along with the unique code can be just deleted instead of being replaced.

A further improvement in message replacement involves that the replacement message is recorded and at the same time the sender's voice print is obtained on a routine basis. At a later date, the sender's voice print is obtained and used to search for messages in the mailbox to find a matching voice. If a match is found, the sender can play the message and replace the found message with a replacement message.

The unique code or identifier is used to allow the sender to identify a previously stored message that should be deleted rather than replaced, which is essentially “OK”. It is possible.

If both the sender and the recipient are subscribers of the system, the sender's mailbox ID can be used as a unique identifier.

The processes and data structures of the present invention
Usually stored on the hard disk medium of the system in Figure 1, but the process is floppy disk, ROM and PROM
Can also be stored on other media such as.

To create a system that is easy for the recipient of the message to use, preferably, when the recipient accesses the mailbox, the system checks the parisable message and the recipient checks the one or more parisable messages. To the recipient, and in the same way, for the urgent message. The system can also indicate, among other things, the number of messages that will expire in the next 24 hours. The system may also notify recipients of expired unread messages. Change interface prompt sequence to inform number of messages and time limit
Shown in 12. In addition, the system can indicate whether an individual message is a parisable message when the subscriber enters the subscriber's mailbox via the message list to play or skip the message. This is shown in the interface sequence of FIG.

When the messages are played to the recipient, the system can play them in the order in which they were recorded, or play the parisable message at a higher priority.

The present invention has been described with emphasis on voice mail system messages. However, the present invention
It is applicable to other types of messaging systems, such as text, facsimile, email, video, etc. Similarly, the invention has been described with an emphasis on setting a deadline time or date. Instead, a variable retention period can be set by the user. Similarly, the system has been described with an emphasis on setting variable times. The system may also allow the user to select a preset time limit, such as “end of month”. Similarly, the invention has been described with an emphasis on detecting overdue messages at the due time. This detection operation could alternatively be performed at specific intervals, such as every night.

Many features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the detailed description of the embodiments, and the appended claims are intended to cover all such features and advantages that fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention. Intended to cover. Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to the construction and operation shown and described, since a person skilled in the art will readily find numerous variations and modifications, and therefore all suitable modifications and similarities which may be sued are not covered by the present invention. It falls within the scope of the invention.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a voice mail system that can be incorporated in the present invention.
Figure showing 8,

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a bubble diagram of a message transmission process procedure;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a man-machine interface procedure for selecting an edited distribution option prompt;

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a prompt procedure of a man-machine interface for a parisable message delivery option;

FIG. 5 shows a message record 30 for voice messages;

FIG. 6 shows a message file header 32 for voice messages;

FIG. 7 shows a distribution process.

FIG. 8 illustrates a purge process.

FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a list of linked parsible messages;

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing generation of a code for a replaceable message;

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing message replacement;

FIG. 12 illustrates a modified user interface procedure related to multiple parisable messages.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a modified user interface procedure for notifying the status of each message.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of front page (72) Inventor Robert Jay. Slezak United States Massachusetts 01810 Andova, Westcott Road 4

Claims (11)

[Claims] 2. A message processing method comprising: setting a time limit of a message recorded by a sender to a recipient; setting a time limit of the message to the sender, and deleting the message when the time limit expires. 2. When the recipient views a message,
Claims wherein the message is not deleted
Message processing described in 1. 3. A system for storing a message, comprising: storing a message addressed to a recipient to a user;
A system having a user interface that allows specification of a deadline time for the message. 4. The system according to claim 2, further comprising a purging means for purging the message after the expiration of the deadline. 5. A computer readable record comprising the step of enabling the sender to set an expiration time for a message recorded by the sender and addressed to a recipient, and deleting the message when the expiration time has expired. Medium. 6. A computer readable record, wherein a message having an expiration time of a message addressed to a recipient stored by a sender is recorded, said expiration time being used for deleting said message. Medium. 7. A replaceable message having a unique replacement identifier is stored, and when the replaceable message is specified by the identifier, the replaceable message is deleted or replaced with a replacement message. Message processing. 8. A computer system storing a replaceable message having a unique replacement identifier, and when the replaceable message is specified by the identifier, replacing the replaceable message with a replaceable message. A message system characterized by the following. 9. A message process comprising storing a deleteable message having a unique replacement identifier, and deleting the deleteable message when the deleteable message is specified by the identifier. 10. A computer system for storing a deleteable message having a unique replacement identifier, and deleting the deleteable message when the deleteable message is designated by the identifier. Message storage system. 11. A message storage system comprising a user interface for notifying a recipient of a stored message and setting an expiration time for the stored unviewed message. 11. The message storage system according to claim 11, wherein the notification is generated a predetermined time before the message is deleted.