JP2000076109A - Data display device and data display method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] A data display device that provides document status and related information together with information such as a tree structure of an existing file and supports understanding of document information. An operation history analysis unit searches and correlates an operation history recorded in an operation history storage unit in response to an information display request from a user such as a list display of documents included in a directory. The search of the document or user correlation recorded in the storage unit 8 is performed, and the result is output to the display information forming unit 9. The display information forming unit 9 uses the attribute information of the document obtained from the document management unit 4, the document operation history information obtained from the operation history analysis unit 7, and the correlation information on the document to obtain the state of the document. An icon indicating a related user, a related document, or the like is generated, and a list of documents is displayed using the icon.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data display device for judging the state of data from an operation history or the like and presenting the data to a user in order to support utilization of data such as documents, and a data display method of the device. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of large-capacity storage devices and networks, in offices where business using electronic documents has become popular, it is possible to efficiently extract necessary information from a large number of documents. Or
Also, how effectively a document can be handled has a great effect on business efficiency.

The conventional file management method using a tree structure has insufficient search functions. To complement these functions, a full-text search tool for documents using keywords and a document flow in business are defined. Many document management applications have been developed for improving work efficiency, such as workflow systems for improving work efficiency.

By the way, while these applications are effective as tools for supporting information utilization,
These applications also require features that cannot be covered. For example, in a document full-text search application as described above, a search cannot be performed unless a user can think of a keyword included in a necessary document. A document whose usage is not clearly defined cannot be used in the workflow system.

[0005] Attempts have been made to support the use of information by using a user's operation history for a document and information related to the document. By using the user's operation history, for example, when searching for documents that the user has referred to in the past, it is necessary to specify when and why the user referred to the document without having to come up with a search keyword. A document can be searched using information that cannot be used in the conventional document management method, such as extracting a document, searching for a document using an operation date and time, or an operation purpose as a keyword.

[0006]

However, the use of information not provided by the conventional document management system increases the amount of information provided to the user, making it difficult for the user to understand the information, It is not always easy to use, for example, a special application for displaying is required, and a technique for providing newly provided information to the user in an easy-to-understand manner is required.

As an example of this problem, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 8-77145, an operation history performed on a document is recorded, and the recorded operation history is stored in an operation history list or operation content for each document. Although it is displayed in the form of a series of figures to represent, the operations performed on the document are enormous, and the method of displaying the operation history itself with a list or figure makes the display content complicated and difficult to understand Met.

The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and provides useful information for a user, such as the state of data such as a document and related information, together with information such as a tree structure of an existing file. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a data display device and a data display method that more appropriately support understanding of data information.

[0009]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention manages the operation history of data, determines the state of data to be displayed in a list from the managed operation history, and makes the determination. These are displayed in a list by using icons indicating the state of completion. From this operation history, the status at that time, such as the open status or the locked status, has been printed in the past, has been accessed within a predetermined period, and has been accessed after updating. It is also possible to determine a state such as no occurrence.

In the present invention, since the state of the data is represented by the shape of the icon, useful information such as the state of the data can be provided without giving the user a different feeling of use.

Further, for example, data that existed before being deleted or renamed from the operation history is detected, and the detected data is displayed as a list using an icon having a shape indicating that the data has been deleted or renamed. Is also useful.

According to the present invention, information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data is acquired, and the data is displayed in a list by using an icon having a shape indicating the acquired user information. The acquisition of the user information may be realized by registering a related user for each data in advance, or may be realized by referring to an operation history for the data.

According to the present invention, similarly to the above, the related user of the data is represented by the shape of the icon, so that the useful information of the related user of the data can be provided without giving the user a different feeling of use. Can be provided.

According to the present invention, another data having a predetermined relationship with the data is detected, and an icon having a shape indicating the existence of the detected other data is changed to an original icon used for displaying a list of data. Is attached to the display. The detection of this other data may be realized by registering other data related to each data in advance, or may be realized by referring to the operation history of the data.

According to the present invention, similarly to the above, the presence of other related data is represented by the shape of the attached icon, so that the related data can be referred to without giving the user a different feeling of use than before. It is possible to provide useful information. Further, it is also useful to display the related data by, for example, pressing an icon indicating the related data.

[0016]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a system according to an embodiment of the present invention. Main memory 1
1 is for storing a program being executed and control data necessary for executing the program, and the hard disk 12 is for storing a control program, management data, and operation history. The CPU 13 controls the operation of the entire apparatus. When the system is started, the CPU 13 reads out a program recorded on the hard disk 12 onto the main memory 11 and performs control according to the contents.

In the dialogue processing with the user, the keyboard 14 is used as an input, and the result of the input operation is displayed on the display 15. A printer 16 is connected as a device for outputting a document. Further, the system is connected to a network via a network interface 17 to perform processing for operations input from the network, output processing results to the network, and send documents by mail / fax via the network. It is also possible.

These units are connected by a system bus and controlled by an operating system operating on the CPU 13. Each function of the present invention is realized as an application program operating on the operating system.

FIG. 2 shows functional blocks of this system. The input device 1 is a keyboard, a mouse, a network device, or the like for inputting a user operation to the system.

The display device 2 is a display device for displaying a result of an operation or a document based on a user operation. The output device 3 is a printer, a facsimile, a backup device, a network device, or the like for outputting a document to the outside of the system based on a user operation.

The document management section 4 is a normal operating system for managing a storage area and controlling the input device 1, the display device 2 and the output device 3, and is used by being shared by a plurality of users. On the operating system, an application program for operating a document operates to create / edit / reference a document and display / output an operation result on a display device or an output device based on a user operation from an input device. Although the function is similar to that of a normal operating system, it will not be described in detail here. However, the document management unit 4 manages attributes such as file names and directory information of documents and information such as user groups. . Further, the document management unit 4 of this embodiment
Has been extended to monitor user operations on documents.

The operation monitor unit 5 monitors a user operation input from the input device 1 and extracts document output processing such as document creation / update / reference processing, document transmission by mail / fax, and document printing. Then, together with the document to be operated, the time at which the operation occurred, the identifier of the user who performed the operation, the user identifier of the transmission destination, etc., it is recorded as an operation history in an operation history storage unit 6 described later.

The operation history storage section 6 records the operation history detected by the operation monitor section 5. FIG. 3 shows an example of operation history data recorded in the operation history storage 6. The operation type a1 indicates the type of the recorded operation history,
"Create", "Update", "Browse", "Delete", "Print",
Items such as "send mail" are stored in the order in which the operation occurred.

The document name a2 is the name of the document to be operated recorded with the operation history. In this example, the directory and the file name in the file system of the operating system are recorded.

The operation date and time a3 records the time at which the operation occurred. The user name a4 is a user identifier of a user who has performed an operation left in the operation history, and is obtained from user information managed by the document management unit 4.

The operation history analysis unit 7 searches for an operation history recorded in the operation history storage unit 6 and stores a correlation in response to a request for displaying information such as a list of documents contained in the directory. The search of the document and the correlation of the user recorded in the section 8 is performed, and the result is output to the display information forming section 9. At this time, the correlation between documents and users newly obtained as a result of the operation history analysis is sequentially recorded in the correlation storage unit 8.

The correlation storage unit 8 includes an operation history analysis unit 7
In addition to the output from, the user / document correlation specified directly by the user via the input device is also recorded. FIG. 4 shows an example of the user / document correlation recorded in the correlation storage unit 8.

The document name b1 is the name of the document for which the correlation is to be described.
In the related document name b3, a user / document related to the target document is input. Here, the related user is a user who creates / updates a target document or frequently accesses the target document. The related document is referred to when the target document is created. Document or a document created by referring to the target document. However, the definition of the relation is not limited to this, and it is possible to freely add the relation of the document or the user at the discretion of the user (registration of the relation in the correlation storage unit 6).

In the example of FIG. 4, for example, c: @text
¥ Document A. doc is related (created, updated, etc.) by three people, Suzuki / Sato / Takahashi, and c: {text} Document B. doc and F: dirA @ document C. It can be seen that another document txt is related (similar in content, often used at the same time, referred to when creating document A, etc.).

The display information forming unit 9 responds to the information display request from the user, and relates to the attribute information of the document obtained from the document managing unit 4 and the document operation history information and the document obtained from the operation history analyzing unit 7. An icon for displaying document information is generated using the correlation information. Document management unit 4
Includes a list of documents included in the same directory, a user group, and the like. Information obtained from the operation history analysis unit 7 includes a past operation history for the target document, a user related to the target document, There are documents to do.

Information that is of interest to the user includes:
For example, the creator of the document, the person who updated the document, the users who read the document frequently, other documents related to the document, whether the document was printed, whether the user accessed the document, etc. Is the display information forming unit 9
Is based on the information obtained from the document management unit 4 and the operation history analysis unit 7, and according to the range of interest of the user, one icon for displaying the target document by combining the icons representing the respective information. create.

In order to control the display information forming process in the display information forming unit 9, the user designates display contents to the display information forming unit 9 via the input device 1 in advance.

Next, the processing contents of this system will be described in detail. FIG. 5 shows the main flow of this system. The system operates according to the following procedure.

When the system is started, the entire system is initialized (step A1), and acceptance of a user request is started (step A2). When the user makes an operation request such as creation, reference, update, and output of a document to the system, the system performs a user operation process after saving the contents of the requested operation request (step A3).
-Step A5).

If the request from the user is to register the correlation between the user and the document with respect to a specific document (YES in step A6), the system displays a dialog as shown in FIG. Registration is performed (step A7). In the dialog shown in FIG. 6, the document name c1 is specified by the user, and in this dialog, information on the document indicated by the document name is registered. The related user c2 records the user related to the target document, and the related document c3 records the document related to the target document.

If the request from the user is to set display information (YES in step A8), the system displays a dialog as shown in FIG. 7 and sets display information (step A9).

In FIG. 7, in d1 and d2, it is checked whether or not the display contents include the related user / related document registered in the correlation storage unit 8 or extracted from the history data by the operation history analysis unit 7. Specify in the box.

D3 to d8 are used to specify whether or not to display the information retrieved from the history data by a check box. d3 to d6 specify whether to display the user who has accessed the target document according to the information left in the operation history. The display d7 of the user who has recently accessed specifies whether or not to include the user who has accessed the target document within the time specified in the recent access time d11 in the display content. When the display d8 of the deleted document is checked, even if the document is already deleted from the document management unit 4 and no information is left, the document information can be displayed using the information left in the history data. it can. The display d12 of the document state designates display of information such as "whether the document is printed" and "whether the document is open" other than those specified in d3 to d6 among the histories left in the operation history. . The access frequency threshold d9 and the neighborhood access time d10 are:
It is used as a parameter of a process for extracting a related user and a related document.

When the user makes a request for displaying information such as a list of documents contained in the directory (step A1)
(YES at 0), the system obtains the document name of the document specified by the user from the document management unit 4 (step A11), and searches the operation history for the document from the document history storage unit 6 using the obtained document name. A related user / related document extraction process for the specified document is performed (step A12).

FIG. 8 shows an example of a process for extracting a related user and a related document from the accumulated history data. One of the target documents obtained in step A11 in FIG. 5 is selected as document A (step B1). Next, an operation history of accessing the document A is searched from the history data, and operation histories in the vicinity of the found operation history are combined into one cluster (step B2). At this time, in order to determine the neighborhood of the operation history, the neighborhood access time specified by d10 in FIG. 7 is used, and the neighborhood of the operation history specified by the neighborhood access time before and after the operation history of the document A is determined to be the neighborhood. I do.

Among the documents included in the obtained cluster group, a document that appears a certain number of times or more is determined to be strongly related to the target document, and the document A
(Step B3). At this time, the access frequency threshold designated by d9 in FIG. 7 is used as the threshold of the number of appearances of the document for determining whether or not the document is related.

Next, a user associated with the document A is extracted. Since the user who created and updated the document A is considered to be strongly related to the document A, the user who created / updated the document A is searched from the operation history and set as the related user (step B).
4).

In order to find a user who frequently accesses the document A, history data is searched to obtain an access history of the document A, the access user, and the number of accesses for each user (step B5). .

The number of accesses for each user obtained is
By comparing the same access frequency threshold as before, the user who has accessed document A more than the number of times specified by the threshold is determined as the related user of document A (step B).
6).

In this correlation extraction processing, the processing from step B2 to step B6 is performed on all the target documents obtained in step A11 in FIG. 5 (step B7, step B8).

Next, display information for displaying information of the target document is constructed using the attribute, operation history, and related information of the document obtained by such processing (step A13), and the construction of this display information When the processing is completed, the system displays the configured information to the requesting user (step A14).

FIG. 9 shows an example of an information display icon for displaying document information. e1 to e4 are
This is an icon for displaying user information regarding the document. Different user icons are prepared for each user who accesses the system, and it is possible to identify which user is represented by the icon image. Further, this icon is different depending on the operation performed by the user, such as e1 to e3. When it is necessary to display information on a plurality of users, and when the user group matches the user group obtained from the document management unit, one group icon e4 is used collectively.

F1 to f6 are icons for displaying information on the document itself, and different icons are used according to the contents of the operation on the document. When there is only one type of information regarding the document (such as when only the creation user or the document state is specified in FIG. 7), the display contents are as shown in FIGS.

FIG. 10 shows the contents of a display window for displaying the creator information of a document as an example of listing directories, and includes a document management unit 4 such as a document file name and an update date and time.
In addition to the document attributes obtained from, the user who created the document and information on the processing performed by the user are added and displayed. For example, document A. doc
In the document C., the creator of the document also performs a document output process. It can be seen that txt is open by another user.

FIG. 11 shows an example in which information of the document state extracted from the operation history is displayed together with a directory list. doc has been frequently accessed recently, and the document C.D. txt
You can see that has already been deleted. FIGS. 12 to 14 show examples of information displayed when a plurality of pieces of information regarding a document exist.

FIG. 12 shows a list of documents related to the target document along with the state of the document along with the target document in the list. The displayed document icon is a link to the document body. Therefore, by pressing the icon of a related document, the document can be displayed immediately. Further, from the display contents of FIG. 12, document A has been frequently accessed recently, there are three documents related to document A, and documents related to document C have been deleted. I understand.

When displaying a plurality of pieces of information, simply arranging the pieces of information would complicate the display.
14 and FIG. 14, a method is used in which icons corresponding to a plurality of pieces of information relating to a document are displayed in an overlapping manner.

FIG. 13 shows the users associated with the documents to be listed. By displaying the related users, it is possible to see the relationship between documents through the user, which cannot be understood from only the attribute information obtained from the normal document management system. In this figure, it is possible to visualize the possibility that documents A, B and D are related through the access of a specific user.

FIG. 14 shows the display contents of FIG. 13 together with related documents. If the user's request to the system is to end the system (YES in step A15), the system performs a system end process and ends the process (step A1).
6).

As described above, in the system according to the present embodiment, various information including the state of the document is expressed by the shape of the icon. Can be provided.

[0056]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, information such as the related user / related document and the state of the document, which cannot be used in the ordinary document management system, is provided to the user with good visibility. It is possible to provide a great effect on document search and document utilization.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary view showing functional blocks of the system according to the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is an exemplary view showing an example of operation history data recorded in an operation history storage unit of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary view showing an example of a user / document correlation recorded in a correlation storage unit according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a main flow of the system according to the embodiment;

FIG. 6 is an exemplary view showing a dialog displayed when the system according to the embodiment is requested to register a user and a document correlation with respect to a specific document;

FIG. 7 is an exemplary view showing a dialog displayed when the system of the embodiment is requested to set display information.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing an example of a process of extracting a related user and a related document from accumulated history data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an exemplary view showing an example of an information display icon for displaying document information of the embodiment.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary view showing contents of a display window in a case where document creator information is displayed as a directory list according to the embodiment;

FIG. 11 is an exemplary view showing an example in which information on a document state extracted from the operation history according to the embodiment is displayed together with a directory list;

FIG. 12 is an exemplary view showing an example in which documents related to the target document are displayed along with the state of the document along with the target document in the list according to the embodiment;

FIG. 13 is an exemplary view showing an example of displaying a user associated with the document to be listed according to the embodiment;

FIG. 14 is a view showing an example in which documents related to the display contents of FIG. 13 are further displayed.

[Explanation of symbols]

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 input device 2 display device 3 output device 4 document management unit 5 operation monitor unit 6 operation history storage unit 7 operation history analysis unit 8 correlation storage unit 9 Display information constituent unit, 11: main memory, 12: hard disk, 13: CPU, 14: keyboard, 15: display, 16: printer, 17: network interface.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Shiro Takagi 70 Yanagicho, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa F-term in Toshiba Yanagimachi Plant (reference) 5B082 FA11 GC03

Claims (18)

[Claims] 1. A data display device that displays a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management unit that records an operation on the data and manages the operation as an operation history; Data state determination means for determining the state of data from the operation history managed by the operation history management means, and display means for displaying a list of data using an icon having a shape indicating the state determined by the data state determination means A data display device, comprising: 2. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data detection unit that detects existing data before being deleted or renamed from the operation history managed by the operation history management unit; and a shape indicating that the data detected by the data detection unit has been deleted or renamed. And a display means for displaying a list using icons. 3. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein related user information for acquiring information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data. A data display device comprising: an acquiring unit; and a display unit that displays a list of data using an icon having a shape indicating user information acquired by the related user information acquiring unit. 4. A data display device for displaying a list of data by using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; Related user information acquiring means for acquiring information of a user having a predetermined relationship with data from the operation history managed by the operation history managing means, and an icon having a shape indicating the user information acquired by the related user information acquiring means And a display means for displaying a list of data by using the data display device. 5. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein related data detection for detecting other data having a predetermined relationship with the data. A data display device comprising: an obtaining unit; and a display unit that displays an icon attached to an icon used for displaying a list of data and that indicates the presence of other data detected by the related data detecting unit. . 6. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing it as an operation history, Related data detection acquisition means for detecting other data having a predetermined relationship with the data from the operation history managed by the operation history management means; and the related data detection means attached to an icon used for displaying a list of data. Display means for displaying an icon indicating the presence of other data detected by the data display device. 7. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determining unit that determines a state of data from an operation history managed by an operation history managing unit; a related user information obtaining unit that obtains information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data; and the data state determining unit And a display means for displaying a list of data using an icon having a shape indicating the state determined by (1) and the user information acquired by the related user information acquisition means. 8. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determination unit that determines a state of data from an operation history managed by the operation history management unit; and obtains information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data from the operation history managed by the operation history management unit. Related user information obtaining means, and display means for displaying a list of data using icons having a shape determined by the data state determining means and user information obtained by the related user information obtaining means. A data display device characterized by the above-mentioned. 9. A data display device for displaying a list of data by using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determination unit that determines a state of data from an operation history managed by an operation history management unit; a related data detection acquisition unit that detects other data having a predetermined relationship with the data; and the data state determination unit A list of data is displayed using icons in the shape indicating the state determined by
Display means for displaying an icon indicating the presence of other data detected by the related data detection means, attached to the icon used for the list display. 10. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein: an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determination unit that determines a state of data from the operation history managed by the operation history management unit; and another data having a predetermined relationship with the data is detected from the operation history managed by the operation history management unit. Related data detection and acquisition means, while displaying a list of data using icons having a shape indicating the state determined by the data state determination means,
Display means for displaying an icon indicating the presence of other data detected by the related data detection means, attached to the icon used for the list display. 11. A data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determining unit that determines a state of data from an operation history managed by an operation history managing unit; a related user information obtaining unit that obtains information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data; and the data state determining unit A list of data is displayed using an icon having a shape indicating the state determined by the above and the user information obtained by the related user information obtaining means, and the related data detecting means is attached to the icon used for the list display by the related data detecting means. Display means for displaying an icon indicating the presence of the other detected data. Data display device comprising and. 12. A data display device for displaying a list of data by using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, an operation history management means for recording an operation on the data and managing the operation as an operation history; A data state determination unit that determines a state of data from an operation history managed by the operation history management unit; and obtains information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data from the operation history managed by the operation history management unit. A list of data is displayed using related user information obtaining means and icons having a shape determined by the data state determining means and the user information obtained by the related user information obtaining means. Of the other data detected by the related data detecting means attached to the icon Data display apparatus characterized by comprising a display means for displaying an icon indicating the standing. 13. The display device according to claim 3, wherein said display means has means for superimposing a plurality of icons having mutually different shapes.
Or the data display device according to 12. 14. The display device according to claim 1, wherein the display unit has a unit that combines a plurality of icons having a common attribute and different shapes into one icon having a shape indicating a group constituted by the icons. 3, 4, 5, 6,
The data display device according to 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12. 15. A data display method of a data display device for displaying a list of data by using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein the operation of the data is recorded and managed as an operation history. A data display method comprising: determining a data state from the managed operation history; and displaying a list of data using an icon having a shape indicating the determined state. 16. A data display method of a data display device for displaying a list of data by using one or more icons whose shape is determined for each function or attribute, wherein the operation of the data is recorded and managed as an operation history; From the step of detecting existing data before being deleted or renamed from the managed operation history, and the step of displaying the detected data in a list using an icon having a shape indicating that the data has been deleted or renamed A data display method, comprising: 17. A data display method for a data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein information of a user having a predetermined relationship with the data is obtained. And displaying a list of data using an icon having a shape indicating the acquired user information. 18. A data display method for a data display device for displaying a list of data using one or more icons whose shapes are determined for each function or attribute, wherein another data having a predetermined relationship with the data is detected. And displaying an icon indicating the presence of the detected other data attached to an icon used for displaying a list of data.