JPH057907B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field of the Invention] This invention connects a plurality of terminals through a network,
This invention relates to an electronic mail system for transmitting electronic messages.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

Electronic mail includes voice-based foil mail using a telephone, fax mail using a fax, and computer mail using a computer and its terminal, but the basic functions are the same, so we will discuss computer mail as an example below. Traditional e-mail has a mailbox inside the computer that sends, receives, stores, and controls messages.
A message is created by entering a document entered from the terminal or a specified document already in the file, the sender's address, and the receiver's address, and is registered in the mailbox. Requesting a reply was also done in conventional systems, but it was difficult to create a reply message each time.

[Purpose of the invention]

The purpose is to easily generate reply messages in an electronic mail system.

[Summary of the invention]

A mailbox stores and controls messages in an electronic mail system.
One of its functions is the ability to identify fields in messages that can define attributes. A field with reply request attributes is created in the message, and when input is entered into this field at the receiving terminal, a function is provided to generate a reply message based on the input data such as the sender address and the receiver address.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, the reply message only needs to be entered in some fields, there is no need to input the entire text, and there is no need to create an address, so the creation of reply messages by e-mail is almost automated and the operation is very simple. It becomes easier. This also ensures that replies are sent promptly. This also improves the efficiency of document processing.

[Embodiments of the invention]

FIG. 1 shows an example of an electronic mail system with one mailbox and a centrally managed network.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the mailbox. The mail sending unit 1 and receiving unit 2 are connected to the network via an interface 3, and under the control of the control unit 4, messages from the receiving unit 2 are
Accumulated in the storage section 6 via the O controller 5,
The message is output from the transmitter to the terminal. Mailboxes are usually realized by computers.

The terminal allows text creation functions and definition of destination input attributes. FIG. 3 shows an example of a meeting notification, and the field surrounded by □ is where the receiving party requests input of a reply.

There are other attributes such as blinking and numerical values, but one way is to define them using command keys.

FIG. 4 shows the format of this message when it is communicated. Figure 5 shows the format of files stored in the storage section of the mailbox. When there is a reply request field, there is link data that shows the link between the reception flag and the reply message. The number is entered.

When the message in Figure 3 is sent to the recipient's terminal, the recipient simply looks at the message and enters the reply request field, and a reply message with the sender and recipient addresses swapped is created on the terminal and placed in the mailbox. The reply mail is sent to the storage unit in the format shown in FIG. 6, and a reply mail is communicated to the sender of the first message.

[Modified example of the invention]

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments. For example, there is a way to give attribute information mixed with the message body. Further, there is a modification such that the link of the reply message may be a storage address of a storage device instead of a number. The scope of this invention also includes interlocking with other mail functions.

For example, the broadcast function is generally effective for mail, but in this case, the mail is sent by specifying multiple recipient addresses. FIG. 7 shows an example of the format of a message in the storage device in the case of broadcasting.
When these messages are sent to each destination and a reply message is input into the reply request field, it is automatically generated as described above and stored in the storage device, and the reception flag in Figure 7 is turned ON and a number is added to the reply link data. There is.

The control section of the mailbox searches the reception flag to check whether an all-reply message has been sent.

If the message has been returned from all addresses, check the reply link data,
The effects of this invention are further enhanced by having the function of extracting the data input at the destination, creating a message as shown in FIG. 8, and communicating it to the sender who created the first message.

As described above, the functions of the present invention can be realized and effectively applied not only to mail using a centralized management network as shown in FIG. 1, but also to mail using a distributed management or exchange network having a plurality of mailboxes, or a combination of these mails.

Also, this can be done not only with computer mail but also with fax mail and voice message.
It is valid.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a mail, Figure 2 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a mailbox, Figure 3 is a diagram showing an example of a message, and Figure 4 is an example of the format when communicating a message. 5 shows an example of the format of a message stored in the mailbox storage section, and FIG. 6 shows an example of the format of a reply message created according to the present invention stored in the mailbox storage section. , FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of a case with a broadcast function, and FIG. 8 is a diagram showing an example of a message obtained by editing a reply message to a message sent with the broadcast function. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Receiving section, 2... Transmitting section, 3... Interface, 4... Control section, 5... I/O controller, 6... Storage section.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. An information processing device having a function of storing and transmitting messages and a plurality of terminals having functions of creating messages and defining reply request fields in the messages are connected to a switching network or a network. In a combined e-mail system, when a single terminal specifies multiple recipient addresses and sends a message with the same content, the information processing device transmits the same content to each terminal corresponding to the recipient address. message, and when all reply messages to the reply request field of the message are received from the respective terminals, these are generated as one message and sent to the one terminal as the receiving address. e-mail system.