Electronic mail receiver

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD [Detailed description of the invention]

【0001】

[Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to an e-mail receiving device, and more particularly to an e-mail receiving device that classifies and organizes and stores e-mails delivered by an e-mail system.

【0002】

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, with the development of various network systems, an e-mail system for transmitting and receiving e-mails between terminals connected on a network has become widespread. These e-mail systems are widely used not only for communication between individuals but also in various fields such as business communication and news distribution, and how to effectively use a large amount of information is an issue. ..

【0003】

In a conventional e-mail system, a subscriber reads a received e-mail from a mailbox, manually classifies it, and stores it in a folder or the like. In order to eliminate such troubles for subscribers, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-170642 publishes an automatic mail by delivering a mail satisfying a preset attribute condition to a storage area corresponding to the attribute condition. An e-mail system has been proposed that is designed to be classified and organized. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-351134 proposes an e-mail device in which the header and contents of a received e-mail are cut out and the priority is determined by applying fuzzy inference.

【0004】

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

However, the devices of JP-A-2-170642 and JP-A-4-351134 focus only on the content of one e-mail, and take into consideration the process until the e-mail is sent and its relevance. Because there is no such thing, it was not possible to classify emails in detail. For example, when reply emails are exchanged many times for a certain matter, it becomes unclassifiable even though there are related emails, or it becomes difficult to understand by mixing with other emails. was there.

【0005】

An object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail receiving device capable of performing more accurate classification and arrangement according to the relation of received e-mails and the like.

【0006】

[Means for solving problems]

The e-mail receiving device according to the present invention is an e-mail receiving device including a classification means for classifying received mail and a mail storage means for storing the classified mail together with a corresponding identifier, and the received mail is If the e-mail was sent as an e-mail associated with another e-mail, the related e-mail search means for searching the target e-mail from the e-mail storage means and the e-mail that received the searched e-mail earlier It is characterized by providing a related mail management means for storing with the same identifier.

【0007】

[Action]

The received mails are classified by the classification means and stored in the mail storage means together with the corresponding identifiers. An email that cannot be classified by the classification means is determined by the related email search means whether or not it was sent as an email associated with another email. As a result of the determination, if the e-mail is an e-mail associated with another e-mail, the related e-mail search means searches the target e-mail from the e-mail storage means. The related mail management means stores the searched mail with the same identifier as the previously received mail.

【0008】

According to this, even for emails that are not classified by normal processing, it is determined whether the received email is associated with another email, so the email is sent as an email related to another email. If it has been sent, it will be saved in the same category together with the reply target email.

【0009】

[Example]

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the e-mail receiving device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

【0010】

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of an e-mail receiving device according to the present invention. The e-mail receiving device 10 is realized on a user system such as a workstation, receives e-mails from other workstations through a computer network, and sorts them.

【0011】

The e-mail receiving means 12 receives an e-mail sent on the computer network 11 according to a predetermined format. The received email is composed of elements such as body, subject, address, sender, reply destination, and importance.

【0012】

The classification means 13 classifies the mails received by the e-mail receiving unit 12 based on the subject and the comment. In this embodiment, pattern matching is performed to determine whether or not a preset character string exists in the subject and comment of the email. The mail classification method is not limited to the pattern matching, and any classification method may be used as long as the same result can be obtained. The classified mail is stored in the e-mail storage means 14 in association with a predetermined keyword (identifier).

【0013】

The e-mail storage means 14 is a storage device for storing the e-mails classified by the classification means 13, and stores each e-mail together with a keyword by dividing it into a predetermined area.

【0014】

The related mail search means 15 determines whether or not the received mail is associated with another mail, and if the mail is sent as a mail related to another mail, the related mail storage means. Search for emails that have been replied to since 14. The related e-mail includes, for example, a received e-mail sent as a reply to another e-mail, or a case where the same e-mail is forwarded to another user. In this embodiment, a case where the e-mail is sent as a reply to another e-mail will be described.

【0015】

The control means 16 is a processor unit that controls the operation of each of the above units, and classifies and organizes received mails according to a predetermined procedure. That is, the control means 16 passes the received mail to the classification means 13 to classify the mail, and stores the classification result in the e-mail storage means 14 in association with the subject of the mail. If there is no keyword as a result of classification by the classification means 13, the subject of the received mail is passed to the related mail identification means 15, and the mail associated with the mail is searched by the e-mail storage means 14. And store it with the same keywords as the found email.

【0016】

Next, in such an e-mail receiving device 10, the operation when classifying and organizing the received e-mails will be described. Here, the case where two emails as shown in FIG. 2 are received from two users of workstations (not shown) connected on the same network will be described as an example. Figure 2 shows the "Specification Change Request No. 205" email sent from Taro Yamada to Hanako Yamano and the reply email "Reply) Specification Change Request No. 205 sent from Hanako Yamano to Taro Yamada in response to this email. Represents. Here, the "electronic secretary" is an e-mail address given to the e-mail receiving device 10.

【0017】

When the e-mail receiving means 12 receives the mail "Specification change request No. 205" sent by the user Taro Yamada, the e-mail receiving means 12 notifies the control means 16 that the mail has been received. The control means 16 passes the received mail to the classification means 13 and classifies the received mail based on the subject and the comment of the mail.

【0018】

Here, the processing procedure in the classification means 13 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Classification means 13 is when the subject and comment of the email contain the character string "Purin" (step 101 "Y"), or when the character string "PR-CTL" is included (step 103 "". Y ), classify by the keyword printer (step 102, step 104). Also, when the string "scan" is included (step 105 "Y"), or when the string "SCN-CTL" is included (step 107 "Y"), the keyword scanner is used. Classify (step 106, step 108). If neither string is included, the keyword is unknown (none) (step 109).

【0019】

In "Specification change request No. 205" in Fig. 2, the character string "Purin" is not included in both the subject and the comment, but the comment contains the character string "PR-CTL", so the keyword "printer" is used. being classified.

【0020】

The control means 16 stores the result obtained by the classification means 13 in the e-mail storage means 14 in association with the subject specification change request No. 205 of the mail. Figure 4 shows the results when "Specification Change Request No. 205" is stored in the e-mail storage means 14. The data structure of the e-mail storage means 14 does not have to be a table, and any structure may be used as long as the e-mail can be searched and organized based on the classification result.

【0021】

Next, suppose that the user Hanako Yamano replies "Reply) Specification Change Request No. 205" to Taro Yamada's email. The attribute "Reply target" in Fig. 2 is automatically generated and added from the email of "Specification change request No. 205" that was the reply target by the e-mail transmission means (not shown) of Hanako Yamano's workstation. It is an attribute that has been used. When the e-mail receiving means 12 receives the e-mail and notifies the control means 16 of the receipt of the e-mail, the control means 16 passes the received e-mail "reply) specification change request No. 205" to the classification means 13 and the subject of the e-mail. , Classify based on comments. The classification means 13 classifies according to the flowchart of FIG. 3, but in the case of "Reply) Specification change request No. 205", since there is no matching character string, the classification result has no keyword.

【0022】

In the conventional e-mail receiving device, the classification process is completed at this stage, so "Specification change request No. 205" and "Reply) Specification change request No. 205" cannot be classified even though they are related, and they are the same. It was never preserved in the classification. However, in the e-mail receiving device 10 of this embodiment, the related e-mail identification means 15 determines whether or not the received e-mail is associated with another e-mail, and the e-mail is related to another e-mail. If the e-mail is sent as, the target e-mail is searched from the e-mail storage means 14.

【0023】

The control means 16 receives the classification result of the classification means 13 and passes the "reply) specification change request No. 205" to the related mail search means 15, and the mail (reply target) that is the source of the "reply) specification change request No. 205". Have the user search whether or not the e-mail) is classified and stored in the e-mail storage means 14. Here, the processing procedure in the related mail search means 15 will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

【0024】

When the passed mail has the attribute of "reply target" (step 201 "Y"), the related mail search means 15 stores the mail having the sender and the sending date and time that match the attribute value of the reply target by e-mail. Search by means 14 (step 202, step 203). If a matching email is found, the email with the same sender and sending date and time is set as the reply target email (step 204).

【0025】

If the email does not have the "reply target" attribute in step 201 (step 201 "N"), it is determined whether the subject of the email starts with either "reply" or "Re:" (step 201). 206). Here, if the beginning of the subject corresponds to any of the above, the mail that matches the rest of the subject is searched (step 207, step 208). If a matching email is found, the email with the matching subject is set as the reply target email (step 209).

【0026】

If no sender or email with a date and time that matches the attribute value to be replied to is found in step 203, or if the subject of the email does not start with "Reply" or "Re:" in step 206, the subject in step 208 If no email is found that matches the rest of the email, then there is no email corresponding to the email to be replied to (step 205).

【0027】

In the case of "Reply) Specification Change Request No. 205" in Fig. 2, the email has an attribute called "Reply Target", so search for the email to be replied from the sender and the date and time of sending written there. Obtain "Specification Change Request No. 205". Even if the email does not have the attribute of reply target, the reply target email is estimated based on the subject and address. That is, if the subject begins with a given pattern, such as "reply" or "Re:", the email storage means 14 is searched, assuming that the string following it corresponds to the original subject. It is configured as follows. Therefore, even if the email does not have the attribute of reply target, "Specification change request No. 205" can be obtained.

【0028】

When the related mail identification means 15 finds the mail to be replied from the e-mail storage means 14, the control means 16 classifies the "reply) specification change request No. 205" into the reply target "specification change request No. 205". Store in the e-mail storage means 14 according to the above. Fig. 6 shows the result when "Reply) Specification change request No. 205" is stored in the e-mail storage means 14 of Fig. 4. "Reply) Specification change request No. 205" is stored in the same classification (printer) as "Specification change request No. 205".

【0029】

In this way, even though "Reply) Specification Change Request No. 205" could not be classified by its contents alone, it is possible to organize it in the same classification based on the reply target "Specification Change Request No. 205". did it.

【0030】

In this embodiment, an example of an automatic e-mail receiving device that exclusively receives e-mails has been described, but it is configured to be incorporated in the e-mail sending / receiving device of the user system so that the sent / received e-mails are automatically classified and saved. May be good.

【0031】

Further, in the above embodiment, the classification means for automatically classifying by the contents of the mail is provided, but instead of this classification means, the user manually classifies and registers the mail in the mail storage means 14. It may be configured as. The processing flow at that time is treated as if the classification means 13 always gives a classification result that there is no keyword in FIG. In this way, when a user classifies an email, the emails exchanged in connection with the email are automatically classified in the same manner as the email.

【0032】

For example, if the user manually registers the mail of "Specification change request No. 205" in the e-mail storage means 14 by the classification of "Printer" as shown in Fig. 3, "Reply) Specification change request No. 205" is sent. The received control means 16 passes this to the related mail search means 15, and searches whether the mail that is the source of the "reply) specification change request No. 205" is classified and saved. As described in the above embodiment, the related mail identification means 15 finds the mail specification change request No. 205 to be replied to the e-mail storage means 14. The control means 16 classifies the reply) specification change request No. 205 into the same classification as the reply target, and stores it in the e-mail storage means 14 as shown in FIG. In this way, the user can simply classify an email, and the emails exchanged in connection with the email can be automatically classified in the same manner as the email.

【0033】

Of course, it may be configured to include both the classification means 13 that automatically classifies by the contents of the mail and the means that manually classifies the mail and registers it in the e-mail storage means 14. Further, a related mail display means may be provided to display a list of related mails stored in the e-mail storage means 14.

【0034】

[Effect of the invention]

As described above, in the e-mail receiving device according to the present invention, when the received e-mail is sent as an e-mail associated with another e-mail, the target e-mail is searched and the search is performed. Since the received email is stored with the same identifier as the previously received email, even if the email was not classified by normal processing, the email was sent as an email related to another email. If is, it will be saved in the same classification together with the reply target mail. Therefore, even if reply emails are exchanged many times for a certain matter, it will not be impossible to classify or mixed with other emails and it will not be difficult to understand, and more accurate classification will be performed. Is possible.

[Simple explanation of drawings]

[Figure 1]

Block diagram showing the functional configuration of an e-mail receiver [Figure 2]

The figure which shows the specific example of the mail in an Example [Fig. 3]

Flowchart showing the processing procedure of the classification means [Fig. 4]

Diagram showing the stored contents of the e-mail storage means [Fig. 5]

Flowchart showing the processing procedure of related mail search means [Fig. 6]

Diagram showing the stored contents of the e-mail storage means [Explanation of symbols]

10 ... Email Receiver, 11 ... Computer Network, 12 ... Email Receiving Means, 13 ... Classification Means, 14 ... Email Storage Means, 15 ... Related Mail Search Means, 16 ... Control means