WO2004100448A2

WO2004100448A2 - Method for the distribution of messages to several users

Info

Publication number: WO2004100448A2
Application number: PCT/EP2004/050679
Authority: WO
Inventors: Hermann Granzer
Original assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
Priority date: 2003-05-09
Filing date: 2004-05-03
Publication date: 2004-11-18
Also published as: DE10321000A1; WO2004100448A3

Abstract

According to the invention, the users are provided with at least one respective user ID and use different types of communication. A message is input at a user interface along with user IDs and types of communication of users that are to be informed, respectively. The user interface transmits said data to a server which stores the data, adjusts the message to the types of communication, and delivers the adjusted message via a type of communication that is allocated to the respective user IDs.

Description

description

Method of distributing messages to multiple participants

The invention relates to a method according to claims 1, 2 and 3.

In the field of communication technology, situations arise more or less often in which the same information is to be sent to several participants promptly. The following cases are mentioned here by way of example only:

• A club chairman who wants to inform the members of his club about a new or postponed appointment.

• A school group that wants to organize an event.

• A sports team that wants to exchange information about changed training dates or games.

• A working group in which important information and innovations should be distributed at short notice.

In an office environment, information distribution can easily be e.g. by email or fax. In a mobile

In the environment, in the area of teleworking stations and in the private environment, the information distribution only works to a limited extent, since the participants, members or partners to be reached either do not have an e-mail-capable receiving device or, if available, those received by e-mail Do not read information regularly.

Also known is a so-called e-mail newsletter, which is suitable for non-time-critical information that does not have to be guaranteed to be delivered. This type of information transfer to larger groups of participants is always considered if the short-term delivery is not a role le plays and reading is not a problem after a few days. However, since experience has shown that not all participants regularly read their emails, this means that short-term and secure delivery of information is not guaranteed.

Distributing information by fax also has the advantage that the message can be delivered immediately. However, many people do not have a fax machine. In addition, a relatively large amount of paper is used when receiving short-term faxes. This method is therefore only considered for occasional deliveries to certain groups of participants or users.

Distributing information to a large number of participants via the telephone is in itself a safe method, but has the disadvantage that it is cumbersome and time-consuming since all participants have to be called individually. Do you want e.g. To postpone a planned working group meeting or an announced club game, all participants must be called individually. If individual subscribers cannot be reached, the effort increases because the calls may have to be repeated several times.

The object of the present invention is now to ensure a simple and reliable distribution of information for a large number of points to be informed.

This object is solved by independent claims 1, 2 and 3.

The basic idea of the invention consists in a central service which relieves the distributor of information or users of the effort of informing the different participants or contact partners in different ways, possibly repeatedly and with feedback. This central service is provided by a server or by an application server. This automatically contacts all participants. The advantage of the invention is therefore that all participants can be informed simply and securely about different types of communication through a single action by a message distributor.

Advantageous embodiments of the invention are specified in the subclaims.

In an advantageous embodiment, a callback is made to a subscriber who cannot be reached by telephone. This has the advantage that this subscriber can be informed immediately as soon as he can be reached.

In an advantageous embodiment, participants who are initially unreachable by telephone start a new communication attempt after a certain time using the same or a different type of communication, for example fax. This has the advantage that even difficult-to-reach participants can be reliably informed.

In a further embodiment of the invention, transmission confirmations assigned to the individual news programs are evaluated and, depending on the latter, renewed transmission attempts are started via the same or a different type of communication. In addition, these delivery confirmations are saved and evaluated. This has the advantage that the message distributor is informed about the status of the information distribution to the participants.

An embodiment of the invention is shown in the drawing and is described below.

It shows: Figure 1 is a block diagram for explaining the method according to the invention.

FIG. 1 shows a server SV to which a user interface BI and three subscriber terminals T1 to T3 are connected via connections that are not shown. The subscriber terminal TI is, for example, a cell phone or cell phone that is connected to the server SV via a cell phone network. The subscriber terminal T2 is, for example, a computer that is connected to the server SV via the Internet. E-mails can be received with the computer, multi-media clips can be played, calls made over the Internet, e.g. can be received using the SIP or H.323 protocol, or faxes. The subscriber terminal T3 is, for example, a telephone, such as an analog or ISDN telephone, or a fax.

The user interface BI can be designed as a web interface that communicates with the server SV via an Internet connection.

Further subscribers, not shown, can be connected to the server SV.

A user who wants to distribute a message to subscribers to be informed logs on to the server via the user interface. This can be done using an authentication mechanism. After "login", the message and the participants to be informed are entered on the BI user interface. Participants can directly, with subscriber identification or connection identification, such as telephone number, email address, IP address, fax number, pager number, etc. and communication type, such as telephone call, SMS, fax, email, Pager info, instant messaging or multimedia clip can be entered. Names can also be entered which are compared with a list stored in the server. Names are entered in the list with min at least one subscriber identifier and the subscriber identifier is assigned at least one communication rt. By comparing the entered names with the names of the list, subscriber identifications and communication types of subscribers to be informed are determined by the server. Likewise, the identification for one of several lists of subscribers to be informed, which are stored in the server, can be entered on the user interface. Based on the selected list, the participants to be informed or participant identifiers and communication types are determined.

The participants stored on the server or the lists of participants can be transferred from the server to the user interface and displayed there for the selection of the participants to be informed. Other variants are also conceivable here.

For each user there can be individual user areas on the server, in which each user can enter, save, select, add, maintain, manage lists, etc.

The message can be a pure text message that is entered, a text file that is stored on the user interface, a voice message that is recorded, a stored voice file, an image message that contains the necessary information, an image file, a multi -Media clip or other message.

It can also be a combination of the listed types of messages that the user enters, stores, selects or copies on the user interface.

The data entered is transferred from the user interface to the server. For example over the Internet using the protocols TCP, UDP, IP or other protocols. As already mentioned, the server uses the entered or stored data to determine the types of communication of the participants to be informed. The determined types of communication are used as input values for the messages to be converted. The message is converted or adapted in such a way that it can be transmitted via the determined types of communication.

For example, text messages are divided into one or more partial messages, depending on their size, in a short message

Service, short SMS, frame inserted and sent with the SMS service to the participants to be informed by SMS. In an analogous manner, messages can be transmitted using the Multimedia Message Service, or MMS for short. For information about email or fax, the message is inserted into an email or fax. For fixed network or mobile phone subscribers to be informed by voice, the text message is fed to a voice output which converts the text message into a voice message. The participants to be informed by telephone are called individually and the converted voice message is played.

Voice messages can be converted into text messages via voice recognition and sent out analogously to the above.

The converted text or voice messages are now delivered, sent or attempted to be delivered to the individual participants via the communication types.

If subscribers cannot be reached, the message can be sent via one or more other types of communication or a cyclical repetition of the delivery can be attempted.

For example, a subscriber cannot be reached by telephone on his mobile phone. Then the message can be sent via SMS be sent to the mobile phone. In addition, an email can be sent to his email address.

If a subscriber cannot be reached by phone, a callback can be made.

The following points are also mentioned:

The distributor of a message, e.g. a group leader, game captain or chairman gives to the server or central

Service submits the message to be distributed, puts it there or transmits it there.

The message can consist of: a message recorded on a recording unit of the service,

• a sound file or voice recording sent by email,

• consist of a text message transmitted by e-mail, which can be output or read out as a voice message by the server with a voice output.

An incoming text message can be forwarded to participants to be informed via e-mail, short message service, short SMS, fax, multimedia clip, pager message or instant messages and transmitted as a voice message to a telephone or mobile phone or cell phone via a text-to-speech converter become .

An incoming voice message can be sent to a telephone or

Mobile phone issued and forwarded by email with attached language file.

The distributor of the message determines to which subscribers the message is distributed. Participants can also be entered, for example, via a convenient user interface, such as an In ternet website, or a server voice server service.

If primarily participants are to be informed via the telephone, the server can call the participants one after the other and play the message. If the participants cannot be reached, the server can start retries. Alternatively, he can use the standardized callback feature. To do this, the server can call back the participants to be reached. As soon as these are recognized as reachable, e.g. because the subscriber comes home and has a telephone conversation, e.g. is recognized by the callback logic in a switching center, a new call to the subscriber starts. The server can now take the call from the server and receive the message. He can also answer the callback and listen to the message on the server.

In the case of delivery via several routes, the subscriber could be sent an e-mail, the delivery and readout of which is monitored. If the mail is not read after a certain period of time or if there is no response in the form of a reply, the server initiates telephone contact.

In the area of internet protocol, or IP, communication, a so-called "presence" service can be used to determine when a subscriber is "online" and can therefore be reached. In this case, for example, a so-called " ^constant message" in the form of an audio, video, ^multimedia or text message can be sent to him immediately.

In the following, the invention will be explained using a practical example.

Short-term postponement of a meeting of the ESV association. Message: "The club meeting scheduled for tomorrow must be postponed by a day."

Three members have email in the office that they read daily and have a phone.

Four members have email but only read it from time to time. They also have a telephone.

Five members have a cell phone

Three members regularly use Internet applications with presence and instant messaging. They also have a phone.

The remaining eight members can only be reached by phone.

The chairman of the ESV is a registered user of a server according to the invention. He has entered the accessibility data of his members in a personal area on this server.

To distribute the message, he sends the text message to the server. The server now tries to reach all members:

An email is immediately sent to the three email-enabled participants. The email has a read receipt entry. After the e-mail has been displayed to the participant, a read confirmation is sent to the server. The server stores this information per participant.

In parallel to sending the e-mail, the server places a callback on the telephone connection for these subscribers. As soon as the server has received a read confirmation from a subscriber, it deletes the callback of this subscriber, since it is no longer necessary to contact the phone. The four participants who only read their e-mail from time to time are sent an e-mail and a call back is made on the phone. However, since the time of reading the email is uncertain, the callback remains active. If a subscriber now picks up the telephone handset, for example to make any call, he automatically signals that he can be reached. The server now starts a phone call to this subscriber. If the call is accepted by him, the server converts the message received as text into speech and transmits the message to the subscriber as acoustic speech signals. If the chairman of the association has also stored a language file, for example by email, on the server, the server plays it. The callback will then be deleted. However, the email remains in the participant's mailbox. Alternatively, the subscriber can answer the callback and contact the server. The server then converts the message into speech and reads it out or plays the speech file, similar to the one previously written.

The five cell phone subscribers are informed by the server via SMS. At the same time, a callback is made to the subscriber terminals of these subscribers. If the delivery of the SMS is confirmed, which can happen automatically, the callback can be deleted. Otherwise, the participants will be contacted as described above.

The three Internet users use the presence service to indicate when they are "online". Monitoring this status will find out when a subscriber can be reached. As soon as a participant is either recognized as online or "goes online", a message is immediately sent to him. This can be a text, voice, multimedia or other message.

If a participant does not go online for a longer period of time, the server switches to a certain configurable one Period of time on a telephone or other contact.

The eight classic telephone users are contacted by telephone from the server. The message to be distributed is transmitted to them acoustically. If a subscriber cannot be reached, a "callback" can be made, as described above, or a renewed call attempt can be started at certain intervals.

A combination of all of the above options can also be used, e.g. serial processing of the steps:

Send an email. If it is not read after a certain period of time:

Send an SMS. If the server receives confirmation that the SMS has been read after a certain period of time: Send an instant message. If this does not lead to success:

A telephone contact or a fax, ..., analogous to the scenarios already described.

A parallel notification can also be given for important dates, e.g .:

Parallel sending of an email, SMS, fax, instant message and telephone contact.

In addition, the server can give the distributor of the message feedback about the successful or unsuccessful delivery of messages up to a certain point in time.

The user can receive confirmation of every successful message transmission, for example in the form of: • an automatic call from the server, • an email,

• an SMS and / or

• per fax,

As a result, he is automatically informed about the status of the news or Information distribution informed.

This can be done periodically, e.g. hourly and display the status of the message distribution for each participant.

It can be provided that the server provides a feedback option for each contacted subscriber in such a way that each contacted subscriber has the option of recording or delivering a message which is sent to the message distributor.

For example, a voice message that is recorded by the participant on the means of the server, a reply SMS or reply email that is received by the server and forwarded to the message distributor.

The fundamentally new idea is the definition of a combined service that, on behalf of the user, contacts target participants across various media, delivers prepared information, can collect feedback and can pass it on collectively.

Claims

claims

1. Method for distributing messages to a plurality of subscribers, each with at least one subscriber identifier, using different types of communication, in which a message is entered together with subscriber identifiers and types of communication from subscribers to be informed in each case on a user interface, from which this data is sent to a server are transmitted, which stores this data, adapts the message to the communication types and delivers the adapted message via a communication type assigned to the respective subscriber identification.

2. Method for distributing messages to a number of subscribers, each with at least one subscriber identifier, using different types of communication, in which a message and subscribers to be informed are entered on a user interface from which this data is transmitted to a server which This data is stored on the basis of a list stored in the server, in which subscribers are each assigned at least one subscriber identifier and one type of communication, for which the subscriber to be informed determines the type of communication and subscriber identifier, adapts the message to the types of communication and the adapted message via a respective one Communication type assigned to subscriber identifiers is delivered.

3. Method for distributing messages to several participants, each with at least one participant identifier, using different types of communication, in which a message is entered or filed on a user interface and a list is selected in which participants to be informed are entered and each participant at least one subscriber identifier and type of communication is assigned, and in which the data entered and / or selected on the user interface is transmitted to a server which This data is saved, the subscriber IDs and communication types are determined on the basis of the list selected and stored in the server, the message is adapted to the communication types and the adapted message is delivered via a communication type assigned to the respective subscriber IDs.

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that voice, image and / or text messages are entered on the user interface and stored by the server.

5. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that as communication types e-mail, fax, short message

Service, pager, telephone and multimedia can be entered or selected.

6. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i'c h n t that the subscriber is authenticated on the user interface.

7. The method as claimed in one of the preceding claims, that a separate memory area is set up for each user of the server, in which at least one list can be stored and maintained via the user interface.

8. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that entered text messages are converted into voice messages and are output via voice-enabled communication types.

9. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that voice messages are sent as voice data or files containing voice to the subscriber identifiers.

10. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that entered voice messages are converted into text messages and are delivered via text-capable communication types.

11. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that a message transmission attempt is repeated cyclically in the case of unreachable participants.

12. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that a call is placed at the unreachable subscriber at the subscriber terminal to be informed.

13. The method as claimed in one of the preceding claims, that a message is transmitted to at least one subscriber in parallel or in series by means of different types of communication.

14. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that a message transmission confirmation is sent from the subscriber or from the subscriber terminal to the server.

15. The method according to claim 14, characterized in that when a period of time is exceeded and in the absence of receipt of a message transmission confirmation from a subscriber again a message from the server via the be already used or another type of communication is sent to the subscriber ID or to the subscriber.

16. The method according to claim 14 or 15, so that the status of the information distribution can be queried or displayed by the user entering the message via the user interface and / or the user is informed of the status of the information distribution via a type of communication.

17. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e that the user interface is executed as a web interface and is connected via the Internet to a server provided there.