Patent Grant
8200520
The present invention generally relates to the fields of time management, appointment scheduling, event scheduling, meeting management, and calendaring applications. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems, methods, and computer program products for automatic confirmations of meetings in time management or event scheduling applications, such as calendar applications.
Time management and event scheduling applications have become integral parts of the lives of many people. People use calendar applications to help them manage business schedules and daily activities, such as for making appointments for various types of meetings. Electronic calendar applications, such as Lotus Notes®, Microsoft Outlook®, Mozilla® Sunbird™, and other types of calendaring and e-mail suites or programs provide capabilities for scheduling meetings.
People, such as managers and team leaders, use calendar applications or time management applications to schedule meetings with their respective employees or team members. A person may use the calendar application to schedule a meeting time and send invitations for the meeting to prospective attendees. Each attendee invited to the meeting may accept, decline, or ignore the invitation. The calendar applications may notify the person scheduling the meeting which attendees have accepted, declined, and ignored the invitations. The calendar applications may update or make appropriate entries, or reservations, in the calendars of the attendees or invitees which have accepted the invitations to attend the meeting.
One drawback of existing calendar applications is they generally do not have any automatic follow-up or auditing capabilities. The existing calendar and time management applications do not allow for automatic confirmation of attendance by invitees or prospective attendees. For example, a meeting coordinator may use a calendaring application to schedule a meeting and send out meeting invitations. Unfortunately, many of the prospective attendees to the meeting may accept the meeting invitations and plan to attend but have conflicts arise which prevent them from attending the meeting. If the meeting coordinator does not follow-up with the prospective attendees, such as by calling or sending an e-mail reminder, he or she may be surprised to find that many of the prospective attendees have changed their schedules and will not attend. Additionally, with poor attendance, the purpose or objective of holding the meeting may become moot due to the poor attendance. For example, the purpose of the meeting may be to give a series of presentations to a general manager. If the general manager cannot attend the meeting, the goal of the meeting is rendered unachievable.
Aspects of the embodiments will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the accompanying drawings in which like references may indicate similar elements:
The following is a detailed description of example embodiments of the invention depicted in the accompanying drawings. The example embodiments are in such detail as to clearly communicate the invention. However, the amount of detail offered is not intended to limit the anticipated variations of embodiments; but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The detailed descriptions below are designed to make such embodiments obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
Generally speaking, the present invention relates to systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer program products for automatic confirmations of meetings in time management or event scheduling applications, such as calendar applications. One embodiment comprises a method of confirming attendance to a meeting. The method comprises scheduling the meeting, waiting for a period of time, and automatically sending confirmation requests to one or more prospective attendees of the meeting. Some embodiments also comprise sending invitations to, and receiving acceptances by, one or more of the prospective attendees. Some embodiments further comprise receiving one or more responses to the confirmation requests from the prospective attendees.
One or more embodiments may also notify a meeting coordinator about one or more of the responses. Some embodiments involve rescheduling the meeting events based upon one or more of the responses to the confirmation requests, such as a response involving a declination to attend the meeting by a prospective attendee whose attendance has been designated as mandatory. Various embodiments may employ various methods of sending the confirmation requests and/or receiving the responses to the requests. For example, embodiments may send or receive the requests and/or responses via instant messaging (IM) messages, e-mail messages, and short message service (SMS) messages.
Various embodiments may determine whether events of the meeting are occurring within their scheduled time slots, or more generally whether the meeting events are on schedule. When the events are not occurring on schedule, one or more of the embodiments may send one or more rescheduling requests to prospective attendees. Further embodiments may also determine an arrangement of events for the meeting based on selected time slots for events of the meeting received from prospective attendees.
Some embodiments involve scheduling one or more events in calendar applications of prospective attendees, which may include designating the meeting or event as pending until after acceptance and/or confirmation. Various embodiments may perform numerous actions upon the sending of the confirmation requests, such as canceling the meeting, determining whether to reschedule the meeting, notifying a meeting coordinator of one or more of the responses to the confirmation request, and determining an alternate arrangement of events of the meeting.
System embodiments may comprise a meeting definition module to store parameters of a meeting, such as names of prospective attendees to the meeting, a time calculation module to determine when the meeting is scheduled to begin, and a confirmation module to automatically send, based on when meeting is scheduled to begin, confirmation requests to the prospective attendees of the meeting. The system embodiments may also include an input module to enter the parameters for the meeting definition module, which may accept parameters of a start time for the meeting, a meeting end time, a meeting date, and when one or more confirmation requests are to be sent.
Alternative system embodiments may include a communication module to send invitations to prospective attendees, as well as potentially sending the confirmation requests. Various system embodiments may employ various means of sending the confirmation requests, such as by way of an e-mail, a text message, an alpha-numeric page, an SMS message, an IM message, and a telephone call and/or voice-mail message. Some embodiments may have an arrangement module to determine an arrangement of the events for the meeting.
One or more computer program product embodiments may include code for scheduling parameters for a meeting, with one of the parameters being a time to send a confirmation request to a prospective attendee of the meeting, code for determining whether the time to send the confirmation request has arrived, and code for automatically sending the confirmation at the proper time. Some embodiments may include code for sending invitations to prospective attendees, while other embodiments may include code for receiving responses to the invitations. Even further embodiments may include code to solicit input from one or more prospective attendees for events of the meeting. For some of these embodiments, the arrangement module may select an alternative arrangement based on the solicited input.
Numerous computer program products include code for receiving responses to confirmation requests, with some of those embodiments also including code to notify a meeting coordinator of the responses and/or reschedule the meeting based upon one or more responses of prospective attendees. Various embodiments include code for determining an arrangement of events for the meeting, with some of those embodiments also including code for scheduling one or more events of the arrangement in a calendar application of one or more prospective attendees. Further embodiments may also include code for detecting when an event of the meeting occurs at an unscheduled time, with some of those embodiments also having code to send notifications to prospective attendees due to the occurrence of one or more events occurring at unscheduled times.
Of the embodiments that have code for determining an arrangement of events for the meeting, some also have code for sending confirmation requests based on the arrangement. Some of the embodiments may select an alternative arrangement based upon one or more responses to confirmation requests of the prospective attendees. Various program code embodiments may include code for automatically sending confirmation requests via an IM message, an e-mail message, an SMS message, or a message by way of a telephone.
Many of the discussions use the terms “meeting coordinator” and “prospective attendee”. The term “meeting coordinator” may, depending on the embodiment or the situation, mean a supervisor of a group of people. However, the term may also be interpreted to mean one of the participants to the meeting, who is a coworker of other people who will be attending the event. Additionally, the meeting coordinator may not be a person participating in the meeting at all. For example, a supervisor may ask his or her secretary to schedule a meeting, wherein the secretary may not attend the meeting. “Prospective attendee” may generally be thought of as a person who is expected to attend the meeting. However, the person may not be able to attend, for one reason or another, and may have an alternate person attend the meeting in his or her place. Additionally, worth emphasizing, is the fact that “meeting coordinator” and “prospective attendee” may refer to people who do not actually attend the meeting.
Some of the discussions use the terms “server” and “client”. Generally, the term “server” may refer to a computer or device on a network that manages network resources. Clients may generally be thought of as computer applications running on computer systems that access the services provided by server applications and dedicated server computers. However, in several instances in the discussion these terms are interchangeable. Accordingly, one should not conclude that a discussion that uses only “client” or “server” terms, as opposed to using “computer” or “computer systems” terms, is meant to limit the discussion to one term or the other. One of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that such variations may be substituted for the described methods and systems, and employed in accordance with similar constraints, to perform substantially equivalent functions.
Turning to the drawings,
The other computers of a system may also comprise different types of computing devices. For example, one or more computers may comprise a desktop or a laptop computer. Alternatively, in different embodiments, the computers of a system may comprise a mixture of server and client computing devices. For example, computer 155 may comprise a server running calendar application 130 that users of client computers, such as computers 160 and 165, may access.
The computers of a system, such as system 100, may connect to other computers of the system using a variety of different hardware in various embodiments. For example, computer 160 may comprise a desktop computer connected to computer 155 via an Ethernet cable coupled to a local or wide area network (LAN or WAN). Portable calendar device 175 may comprise a combination cellular telephone/PDA device coupled to computer 155 over the Internet, which may be represented by communication network 185, via a wireless virtual private network (VPN) link and located across town or in another country. In other words, various embodiments of a system like system 100 may comprise an almost limitless number of wired and wireless communication devices, allowing computers and portable devices of the system to communicate with each other, wherein the computers may be located close to or remote from each other.
The computers and other devices of a system may each execute a variety of different applications and communicate with each other in a variety of different ways, in different embodiments. For example, in addition to calendar application 130 computer 155 may run a second application 150, which may be an e-mail server application. That is to say, application 150 may comprise a simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) server application, as an example. Calendar application 130 may work in conjunction with the SMTP application, sending e-mails to and/or receiving e-mails from users of system 100. Alternatively, application 150 may comprise a web page server, a file transfer protocol (FTP) server, a gopher server, or a telnet server, as examples. In other words, applications 130 and 150 may establish communication links or sessions with applications running on computers 160 and 165, cellular device 170, and portable communication device 175.
Applications on computers 160 and 165, as well as other devices such as portable calendar device 175, may also be SMTP server applications, telnet servers or clients, local calendaring applications, time management applications, dedicated e-mail applications, web browsers, and so on. For example, a person using portable calendar device 175 may receive a confirmation request dispatched via an e-mail. The person may retrieve the confirmation request while traveling via an e-mail program and reply with a response e-mail to computer 155. Alternatively, upon receiving the e-mail confirmation request, the person may initiate a secure web browser session with computer 155 and calendar application 130 and confirm via an interactive web page of calendar application 130.
In one or more embodiments, a system may have a processor, such as processor 105, for executing program instructions for different types of applications, such as calendar application 130 and application 150, that may be in memory 125. Using a time management application like calendar application 130 a system may implement a technique for managing business schedules and daily activities for a person or a group of people. Stated differently, a system may allow automatic coordination, scheduling, and confirmation of meetings and other types of activities, wherein the meetings and activities may have multiple time slots as or events of the activities. Additionally, a calendar application may allow automatic coordination, scheduling, and attendance confirmation by interacting with other calendar and/or personal information manager applications running on the computers and devices of other users, such as users of computers 160 and 165, cellular device 170, and portable calendar device 175. As examples, calendar application 130 may comprise Lotus Notes®, interacting with Pocket Microsoft Outlook® on portable calendar device 175 or Mozilla® Sunbird™ on computer 165. A calendar application of a system, such as calendar application 130, may send confirmation requests to prospective attendees for meetings and events of those meetings. The calendar application may also receive confirmation responses from one or more of the users and perform such actions as canceling the meeting if a necessary person, such as a person designated as mandatory, will be unable to attend or simply notifying the meeting coordinator of confirmations and cancellations.
A system may display data of a calendar application on a monitor or other computer display, such as display 110. For example, display 110 may allow a meeting coordinator to view scheduled meetings, activities or events of the meetings, confirmations, and cancellations related to those meetings or events for calendar application 130. Display 110 may also show input from other users for events to be scheduled by calendar application 130 and allow the user of computer 155 to view responses to confirmation requests from prospective attendees. Using input device 115 the user of computer 155 may schedule the meetings and request that confirmation requests be automatically sent to prospective attendees. For example, input device 115 may comprise a keyboard and/or a mouse. In some embodiments input device 115 may comprise a tablet and stylus, such as a pressure-sensitive surface of a PDA that recognizes hand-written characters. In even further embodiments input device 115 may comprise an audible input device, such as a microphone used for speech recognition.
A system may automatically schedule meetings and activities based on parameters related to events of the activities. As depicted in
A user of computer 165 may be scheduled to give a presentation. User of computer 165 may receive a meeting invitation from the user of computer 155, which may be the meeting coordinator or meeting chair. The user of computer 165 may be responsible for a small portion of the presentation that only requires forty minutes during a meeting which is scheduled to last 3 hours. Various other prospective attendees may be similarly situated. All prospective attendees may have received invitations, responded to the invitations saying that they would each be available for the entire 3 hours, and given prioritized preferences for particular time slots in which they would each like to give his/her presentation. With an automatic scheduling feature of system 100, which may allow flexibility for invitee attendance of only specific portions or time slots of the meeting, or sub-meetings, calendar application 130 may select an arrangement or order of the events based on the invitation responses received from the users (e.g.—parameters 140 and 145).
For example, calendar application 130 may schedule the presentation for user of computer 165 for the first hour, based on his invitation response preferences. After the initial creation, invitation, and scheduling of the meeting based on invitation responses, the user of computer 165 may have a conflict arise during the time that he is scheduled for the presentation. Calendar application 130 may send out confirmation requests to the prospective attendees. User of computer 165 may respond, saying that he is no longer available during the first hour but can give his presentation at a later time. Calendar application 130 may receive his confirmation response, as well as the responses to confirmation requests of other prospective attendees, and reschedule or reprioritize the order of events, such that another prospective attendee gives her presentation during the first hour and the user of computer 165 gives his presentation at a later time. Based on the new order of events for the meeting, or agenda, calendar application 130 may send out a revised meeting agenda to the prospective attendees via e-mail. In an alternative embodiment, calendar application may only notify those people who are affected by the change in schedule.
Depending on the embodiment, the time slots that prospective attendees have chosen may be updated in real-time. For example, if the user of portable calendar device 175 receives an invitation, opens it, and then goes to lunch, when the user of the portable calendar device 175 returns and someone else has already chosen a slot, then system 100 may gray out that slot or otherwise disable the slot on the calendar of the screen of portable calendar device 175. In other words, the system may indicate that the slot is “reserved” or “pending” for one or more prospective attendees. Consequently, the user of portable calendar device 175 may accept the invitation to the meeting for a different time slot. However, when calendar application 130 sends out confirmation requests to prospective attendees, the confirmation requests may allow the prospective attendees to indicate that they are confirming their originally scheduled time slot, but will be available to attend or give a presentation at another time in the meeting. In other words, the confirmation aspect of a calendar or time management application may allow the application to dynamically reschedule or rearrange events of a meeting based on prospective attendee availability and preferences based on the information of responses to confirmation requests.
Alternatively, in one or more embodiments, the time slots may not be exclusive. In other words, many attendees may have the ability to attend the same slot. An example where this scenario may be appropriate is a meeting that gives an overview of a several newly released products of a company. An attendee may only wish to attend the portion of the presentation that relates to the product he or she has worked on and sign up for only that slot, or the attendee may wish to stay and view other products of coworkers and sign up for those slots as well. The calendar or time management application may allow such acceptance of overlapping time slot attendance, as well as confirmation of the overlapping attendance.
The calendar applications of computers in system, may communicate with each other using a variety of communication protocols. For example, applications 130 and 150 may use simple mail transfer protocol, FTP, or Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Additionally, depending on the embodiment, the computers of a system may run various types of operating systems. For example, computers 155, 160, and 165 may run Unix®, Microsoft® Windows®, OS/2®, Linux®, DOS, or Mac OS®. Each computer may run the same operating system as the others or a different one.
Appointments and related items of calendar application 130 may be stored in a database 120. For example, database 120 may comprise a calendar database for calendar application 130, storing lists of appointments, events, invitation acceptances, and lists of parameters for the events, and responses to confirmation requests of appointments and events. A system may store a database in a mass storage device. For example database 120 may reside on a parallel or serial hard disk drive. Database 120 may also be stored on an optical storage device, such as a rewritable compact disc (CD) or a digital versatile disc (DVD) drive. In other embodiments, database 120 may reside in a flash memory device, such as a universal serial bus (USB) thumb drive.
While the preceding example discussed a system 100 employing local memory 125 and a local database 120, alternative embodiments may comprise a system executing or accessing programs and documents in remote locations. For example, calendar application 130 may actually comprise two programs, one on a local client system and another on a remote server system. The local client program may be a web browser running a Java application for a web page of a calendar or time management application. The time management web page may have been downloaded from a remote server system. The user of computer 155 may use application 130 to insert parameters 140 and 145, review and approve schedules arranged by system 100, and modify activity events and event parameters. As a person skilled in the art will quickly appreciate, system 100 may comprise numerous communication and networking configurations, with almost unlimited combinations of local and remote event scheduling applications.
Screen 200 illustrates four events (events 205, 210, 215, and 220) in columnar format. The meeting coordinator may use a title field 225 to assign a title to each of the events. Additionally, the meeting coordinator may be able to enter details for individual supervisors responsible for each of the events using supervisor field 230, details for the team leader responsible for each event using team leader field 235, and members of the team that participate or contribute to the individual events using team members field 240. In some embodiments, the meeting coordinator may type in this information. In other embodiments, the meeting coordinator may drag-and-drop this information into the respective fields of the events. In further embodiments, the meeting coordinator may select from information in drop-down boxes. When entering this information, the meeting coordinator may preliminarily assign each event to a tentative time slot. As depicted in
The invitees may be located in different time zones, making it a difficult challenge for the meeting coordinator to contact the prospective attendees, find out times in which they will be available, determine which times do not conflict with other attendees schedules, arrange the events in a permissible manner where all schedules are compatible, and send out the meeting invitations. Many times in scheduling a meeting in this manner, there are conflicts among the prospective attendees. Consequently, the meeting coordinator may only be able to ensure that a primary person, or a delegated person, can attend. Occasionally, the meeting coordinator may also need to take additional time to confirm attendance, via an e-mail, a telephone call, or an instant message. For example, attendees may have to alter their schedules due to intervening conflicts. As one may readily conclude, this simple task of scheduling a meeting, and confirming that prospective attendees will be able to attend, can easily get complicated and consume thirty minutes or more of work for the meeting coordinator.
The meeting coordinator may have an embodiment of the system, such as system 100, send invitations to each of the supervisors, team leaders, and team members. In other words, the supervisors, team leaders, and team members may be the prospective attendees for the meeting. Upon receiving the invitation, each of the prospective attendees may respond by indicating their preferences, such as which times they would like to attend or when they have conflicts. Additionally, depending on the embodiment, the prospective attendees may attach files related to the event, such as presentation documents, using link field 245. For example, team leaders of events 205 and 210 may attach documents via linked documents 250 and 255. Example attached documents may be electronic slides, spreadsheet files, and other types of demonstration files.
The system may receive the invitation responses, which may comprise acceptances and time slot preferences, compute or evaluate the various combinations of events occurring at different times, and determine an arrangement of events that maximizes attendance by the largest number of prospective attendees. Alternatively, the meeting coordinator may indicate which prospective attendees must attend or which prospective attendees should attend if at all possible. In other words, the meeting coordinator may assign a weight or rating to one or more of the prospective attendees, based on whether the attendance is mandatory, highly desired, suggested, requested, or only offered. In this case, the system may evaluate the various combinations using these parameters.
Additionally, the meeting coordinator and the prospective attendees may enter other parameters for the events, such as which time slots are more important than others, which time slots are unavailable for certain attendees, which topics have priority over other topics, etc. The system may use these additional parameters when evaluating the various combinations of events to determine an acceptable arrangement of events. For example, based on the parameters defined by the prospective attendees and the meeting coordinator, the system may move event 210 from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., and event 220 from 3:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. due to more team members of event 220 being able to attend at 2:30 p.m. versus 3:30 p.m.
In some embodiments, screen 200 may represent the schedule proposed by the system after the system goes out, queries the calendar entries of the prospective employees, and determines a recommended or proposed schedule. The meeting coordinator may accept the proposed arrangement of events and send out invitations to the prospective attendees to have them accept or place priorities on the individual time slots, based on their preferences of when they would like to attend. The system may continually receive such feedback, or input parameters, adjust the schedule accordingly, and update the calendars of the affected attendees (as pending, alternate, confirmed, etc.) based on the adjustments. In automating this process, the system may minimize the schedule impact of the people involved.
In at least one embodiment, screen 200 may also display information pertaining to attendance confirmation requests, as well as responses to those requests, for the scheduled meeting and events. In one or more embodiments the meeting coordinator may be able to specify whether he/she would like to confirm the attendance for all prospective attendees for a particular event by using event confirmation request fields, such as event confirmation request fields 207 and 212. For example,
Aside from a global-type of event confirmation request, in one or more embodiments the meeting coordinator may also be able to request attendance confirmations from individual prospective attendees, instead of all prospective attendees to an event. For example, team leader confirmation request fields 236, 237, 238, and 239 illustrate how the meeting coordinator may have requested attendance confirmations for each of the individual team leaders of the individual events. Additionally, in at least one embodiment, the meeting coordinator may also be able to request attendance confirmations from other individuals besides team leaders. For example, the meeting coordinator may have requested attendance confirmations from both members of event 210 (element 242) and a couple of members of event 220 (element 243).
Although different embodiments may indicate that attendance confirmations have been requested from individual members in different manners, at least one embodiment may indicate such requests for attendance confirmations by placing asterisks next to the name of the member. For example, the two asterisks to the left of the two team members for event 210 (element 242) may indicate that the meeting coordinator desires attendance confirmations from both of them. Similarly, the two asterisks to the left of Member1 and Member 4 for event 220 (element 243) may indicated that the meeting coordinator may desire attendance confirmations from each of them as well.
In one or more embodiments, the calendar or time management application may also display the responses from the prospective attendees for the invitation requests and attendance confirmation requests. To display such responses, the calendar application may place letters next to the names of prospective attendees representing their responses. For example, the calendar application may place an “A” next to the names of people who have accepted the original meeting or event invitation, such as Member4 of event 220. The calendar application may place a “D” next to the people who have declined either the original invitation or the confirmation request, such as Member1 of event 210. For people that have not responded to either the invitation request or the confirmation request, the calendar application may display no characters or letters, such as Member2 of event 210. After the calendar application has received a positive response to a confirmation request indicating the prospective attendee will attend, it may place a letter “C” next to their name, like Member1 of event 220.
Alternative embodiments may have fewer or more features than those just described for displaying information related to attendance confirmation. Additionally, alternative embodiments may display the information differently, such as by using different letters, or with variations of the features described. For example, the calendar application may use the letter “A” to denote that a person has accepted either the original meeting invitation or confirmed that he/she will attend by responding to the confirmation request. The calendar application may differentiate the two responses using color. For example, when the person accepts a meeting invitation, the system may display the “A” in one color, such as yellow. When the person responds to a confirmation request saying he or she will attend, the system may display the “A” in another color, such as green.
Depending on the embodiment, the system may submit proposed changes to the meeting coordinator for approval. In other words, the prospective attendees may request a new arrangement of the events but the meeting coordinator may either approve or disapprove of the changes. For example, assume a prospective attendee accepted a meeting invitation for one time slot but later confirmed that she would only be able to attend the meeting during a second time slot. The calendar application may be able to review the parameters and other feedback information from the other prospective attendees and propose an alternate schedule that meets the needs of all prospective attendees. Depending on the embodiment, the calendar application may reschedule the events and send out notices to the affected members or all of the prospective attendees. The calendar application may also allow the meeting coordinator to select whether such rescheduling is automatic, or whether the calendar application should first submit or propose the changes to the meeting coordinator for approval first.
Screen 300 may contain a number of text input fields allowing the meeting coordinator to define numerous parameters associated with the meeting being created. The meeting coordinator may enter a description for the meeting using text input field 302. The meeting coordinator may enter the date on which the meeting is to occur using text input field 330. Using scroll boxes 332 and 334, the meeting coordinator may define a time range for which the system should take into consideration when attempting to define an arrangement of the events and scheduling the events in the electronic calendars of the attendees. The meeting coordinator may limit the range of time to only the amount of time needed to conduct the meeting. For example, the meeting may need to be held at a specific time for one reason or another. Alternatively, the meeting coordinator may specify an amount of time much larger than the amount of time needed to conduct the meeting. In so doing, the meeting coordinator may allow the system more flexibility in attempting to find a suitable arrangement of events compatible with the events already scheduled in the calendars of the prospective attendees, as well as more flexibility in attempting to find suitable alternative arrangements after prospective attendees cancel or confirm when they submit responses to confirmation requests.
Using scroll box 304, the meeting coordinator may define the number of events which are to occur during the meeting. The system may automatically increase or decrease the size of screen 300 to accommodate the selected number of events. As illustrated in
Using drop-down boxes 310 and 316, the meeting coordinator may define mandatory attendance for each of the individual events. For example,
The meeting coordinator may also use checkboxes 338 and 342 to define which events are crucial and which events are non-crucial. For example,
In different embodiments, the calendar application may provide different ways for a meeting coordinator to send confirmation requests. For example, the meeting coordinator may want to receive responses for confirmation requests from all invitees to the meeting. To do so the meeting coordinator may select radio button 318. Alternatively, the meeting coordinator may want to receive confirmations or cancellations from only certain invitees. To do so the meeting coordinator may select radio button 320 and select one or more people in the associated scroll box.
In one or more embodiments, the calendar application may allow the meeting coordinator to choose how far in advance of the meeting that the attendance confirmation requests are sent to the prospective attendees. For example, the meeting coordinator may want the calendar application to send out the confirmation requests 3 days before the meeting by using a scroll box such as scroll box 322. The amount of time before the meeting that the calendar application automatically sends the attendance confirmation requests may be selectable or variable in some embodiments, such as in the manner just described, or the amount of time may be fixed at some default amount of time in alternative embodiments, such as 2 days.
Once the meeting coordinator has defined the preliminary parameters of the meeting, the system may offer several scheduling alternatives. For example, the meeting coordinator may click on box 324 to have the system query the calendars of prospective attendees, propose an arrangement of events compatible with those calendars, and automatically schedule the meeting without first soliciting input from the prospective attendees. The attendees may, however, view the scheduled events in their calendars and attempt to modify or change the arrangement if the parameters for the various events allow. For example, “Person B” may view her calendar and see that the meeting has been scheduled for a particular time which she cannot attend. She may indicate her inability to attend at the scheduled time by responding to a confirmation request whereupon the system may automatically attempt to reschedule the meeting. In other words, the system may automatically try to determine another arrangement of the events compatible with the alternately defined parameters.
The meeting coordinator may click on box 326 to have the system first send out electronic invitations to the meeting before scheduling it in their calendars. For example, the system may send invitations via e-mail, electronic pages to pagers, or via instant messages or text messages sent to cellular telephones or PDAs of the prospective attendees. The prospective attendees may respond to the invitation by indicating their availability and their preferences for the various proposed time slots for the events. The system may receive such feedback in the form of parameters for the events and use those parameters to select arrangement and scheduled the selected arrangement in the calendars of the attendees. Alternatively, the meeting coordinator may click on box 348 to have the system query the calendars of prospective attendees, propose one or more arrangement of events compatible with those calendars, and display those arrangements to the meeting coordinator for selection or approval.
After sending out the invitations, receiving the invitation responses and attendance preferences back from the prospective attendees, the system may develop a tentative schedule for the events of the meeting and schedule the events and meetings in the calendars of the prospective attendees. The system may then wait until a predetermined time before the meeting is scheduled to begin. For example, the system may wait until 3 days before the meeting begins, based on the selection of the meeting coordinator via scroll box 322 on screen 300, before sending out confirmation requests to the prospective attendees that are scheduled to attend. To see how a system may interact with prospective attendees in one or more embodiments and confirm their meeting attendances, we turn now to
A confirmation screen, such as screen 400, may remind the prospective attendee that he or she previously accepted an invitation to the meeting, wherein text display field 405 may display the description of the meeting assigned by the meeting coordinator. Text display fields 410 and 415 may display the date of the meeting and the duration of the meeting, or at least the duration of the one or more events for which the prospective attendee agreed to attend. For example, while the quarterly review meeting (element 405) may last several hours, the prospective attendee may have agreed to only participate in the equipment purchasing status portion of the meeting (element 420), which only lasts from 8:00-8:30 AM (element 430).
Screen 400 may allow the prospective attendee to confirm his or her attendance to the meeting, or event of the meeting as the case may be, in a variety of different ways. As
Screen 400 may also allow the prospective attendee to decline attending the meeting by clicking on radio button 460. Upon indicating whether or not the prospective attendee still plans on attending the meeting, or requesting that an alternative person attend the meeting in his or her place, the prospective attendee may send the confirmation response back to the system by clicking on box 480. Upon receiving one or more confirmation responses from the prospective attendees, the system may perform a variety of actions. For example, the system may tally the numbers of confirmations and declinations and send a report to the meeting coordinator that indicates which prospective attendees still plan on attending the meeting. Alternatively, in one or more embodiments, the system may try to dynamically reschedule the meeting based on the declinations received from one or more of the prospective attendees. For example, if a prospective attendee had requested one or more alternative persons attend in his or her place using scroll box 470 and radio button 450, the system may try to schedule one or more of the alternative persons for the meeting. The system may first examine the calendars for each of the requested alternative persons to see which of them may have available timeslots for the allotted time of the meeting. The system may then send invitations to each of the alternative persons having the available time, asking them to attend the meeting. Based on the responses received from the alternative persons the system may automatically schedule one or more of them for the meeting.
If one or more of the prospective attendees, which had previously been listed as critical attendees by the meeting coordinator, send responses to the confirmation requests indicating that they will no longer be able to attend, the system may respond in different ways. For example, the system may automatically cancel the meeting and send cancellation notices to the remaining prospective attendees. Alternatively, the system may notify the meeting coordinator about the cancellations and ask the meeting coordinator whether or not she would like to cancel the meeting, or whether she would like to attempt to reschedule alternative persons to attend a meeting in the places of those prospective attendees that indicated that they will no longer be able to attend. Alternatively, in even further embodiments, the system may attempt to reschedule the meeting or rearrange the order of events for the meeting based on the confirmation responses. For example, the system may determine an alternate sequence of agenda items or arrangement of meeting events which accommodates the schedules and/or preferences of the initial invitation responses of the prospective attendees. The system may prompt the meeting coordinator and ask her whether she would like to reschedule the attendees for the alternate arrangement of meeting events. Additionally, the system may automatically send out notifications to the prospective attendees about the proposed rescheduling of the meeting and ask them if they would still be able to attend. Based on the responses, the system may be able to automatically reschedule the meeting or events of the meeting.
One or more elements of apparatus 500 may be in the form of hardware, software, or a combination of both hardware and software. For example, in one embodiment, all of the modules of apparatus 500 may comprise software algorithms of a calendar application, executed in memory by a processor of a computer. In other words, one embodiment of apparatus 500 may comprise portions of a calendar application, like calendar application 130, running in memory of a computer system, like system 100 shown in
Apparatus 500 may comprise a meeting definition module 510 to store meeting details and parameters of the meeting. For example, meeting definition module 510 may store information or data for the meeting, such as a description for the meeting, the number of events for the meeting, a description for each of the events, one or more lists of names of prospective attendees for the individual events, prioritization information for the events and/or prospective attendees, and whether confirmation requests should be sent to the prospective attendees. Additionally, meeting definition module 510 may allow the meeting coordinator to select different or variable times for sending the confirmation requests. For example, meeting definition module 510 may allow the meeting coordinator to select how far in advance of the date and time of the meeting to send the confirmation requests, such as 1 day, 2 days, a week in advance, etc.
Apparatus 500 may have a time calculation module 520, which may be a hardware module or a software module of program code, for determining whether conditions related to time for the meeting have been satisfied. For example, one of the parameters stored by meeting definition module 510 may be a time that a meeting coordinator wants a system running a calendar application to send confirmation requests to all of the prospective attendees of the meeting. Time calculation module 520 may periodically compare the desired time to send the confirmation requests with the actual system time. In other words, time calculation module 520 may determine when the time to send the confirmation requests has arrived.
Time calculation module 520 may also perform other calculations related to time such as calculating beginning and ending times for events of a meeting, when the calendar system is trying to determine a particular order or arrangement of the events based on responses to the confirmation requests of the prospective users. In other words, time calculation module 520 may perform calculations related to time when analyzing various arrangements of the events for the meeting. In other embodiments, time calculation module 520 may actually monitor the progression of meeting events and compare them with the time slots in which the events were scheduled to occur. If one or more of the events occurs at an unscheduled time, such as when an event ends prematurely or lasts longer than planned, time calculation module 520 may detect the unscheduled occurrence and initiate some type of action, such as notifying the meeting coordinator or affected prospective attendees.
Once time calculation module 520 has determined that the time to send the confirmation requests has arrived, confirmation module 530 may automatically send the confirmation requests to one or more of the prospective attendees. Confirmation module 530 may send the confirmation requests to all of the prospective attendees or only certain prospective attendees. For example, the meeting coordinator may have entered a parameter via meeting definition module 510 requiring that all prospective attendees should receive confirmation requests, or that only prospective attendees designated as having “essential” or “mandatory” attendance requirements should receive the confirmation requests. In other words, the meeting coordinator may not care if non-essential attendees attend but only mandatory attendees, such as those scheduled to give a speech or a presentation.
In order to send confirmation requests to one or more prospective attendees, apparatus 500 may have a communication module 540. While confirmation module 530 may determine which prospective attendees are to receive confirmation requests, as well as determine the type of message and actual text of the message that the prospective attendee is to receive, communication module 540 may actually send the message to the individual prospective attendees. For example, communication module 540 may comprise an e-mail application that sends e-mail confirmation requests to the prospective attendees. Alternatively, in a different embodiment, communication module 540 may comprise a hardware module that sends pages, text messages, SMS messages, IM messages, or even telephone messages to the prospective attendees. In even further embodiments, apparatus 500 may cause communication module 540 to send different types of confirmation requests to prospective attendees. For example, communication module 540 may send only e-mail confirmation requests to prospective attendees whose attendance is “optional”, but send pages, IM messages, e-mail messages, and telephone messages to prospective attendees whose attendance requirement has been indicated as “mandatory”.
Confirmation module 530 may also receive responses to the confirmation requests. For example, confirmation module 530 may receive a positive response or “confirmation” from a prospective attendee indicating that the prospective attendee plans to attend the meeting or event of the meeting. Confirmation module 530 may also be configured to receive negative responses or “declinations” from prospective attendees indicating that the prospective attendees will not attend the meeting at the scheduled times. Additionally, confirmation module 530 may also be configured to receive other types of responses that are neither confirmations nor declinations. For example, some prospective attendees may respond by asking that one or more other people attend in their place, or that the prospective attendees would still like to attend events of the meetings but cannot do so at the previously scheduled times.
Based on the responses that confirmation module 530 receives from the prospective users, apparatus 500 may perform a variety of other actions. In some embodiments, confirmation module 530 may send one or more summaries of the responses to the meeting coordinator, keeping her abreast of the responses when they are received by confirmation module 530. For example, in one embodiment, confirmation module 530 may work in conjunction with communication module 540 to send the meeting coordinator a text message when a mandatory prospective attendee responds saying she will not be able to attend. Alternatively, in another embodiment, apparatus 500 may have another module which tries to determine an alternative arrangement of the events, such as a different sequence of events of the meeting for the previously scheduled meeting time slot or a different time or different day on which to hold the meeting, based on the availability and/or previously submitted responses to the original meeting invitations. If apparatus 500 is able to determine an alternative arrangement conforming to the needs and availabilities of the users, apparatus 500 may cause confirmation 530 and communication module 540 to send out one or more new confirmation requests asking the prospective attendees to attend events of the alternately selected or “rescheduled” arrangement.
As noted, time calculation module 520 may monitor the progression of meeting events and detect when events occur at unscheduled times, such as when the meeting is running ahead or behind schedule. In such a situation, apparatus 500 may cause confirmation module 530 and communication module 540 to send notifications and/or new confirmation requests to prospective attendees who will be affected by the new schedule. Based on how the affected prospective attendees respond, apparatus 500 may be able to accommodate the needs of the prospective attendees. For example, say a meeting that lasts all day starts running ahead of schedule. The occurrence of this may be manually noted by the meeting coordinator or automatically detected by time calculation module 520. Apparatus 500 may tentatively reschedule the remaining events into new (earlier) time slots and cause confirmation module 530 to send out confirmation requests to the affected prospective attendees. If one of the prospective attendees indicates that he cannot attend the earlier time slot but can still attend the original time slot, apparatus 500 may propose another arrangement which moves up another prospective attendee and asks her if she can attend the earlier time slot. Again, depending on the embodiment, apparatus 500 may notify the meeting coordinator as the responses to the confirmation requests are received.
Apparatus 500 may vary in different embodiments. Some embodiments may have fewer modules than those module depicted in
An embodiment of flowchart 600 continues by sending invitations to prospective attendees (element 620). For example, a system may send an e-mail to prospective attendees asking them to sign onto a website that outlines events of a meeting and allows the prospective attendees to select which events they would like to attend and what days and times the prospective attendees will be available. The system may receive invitation responses from some or all of the prospective attendees that were sent an invitation, analyze the parameters of the invitation responses, determine a date and/or arrangement of the meeting events which satisfies the largest number of prospective attendees, and schedule the meeting (element 630).
A method according to flowchart 600 may proceed by waiting for a period of time before the meeting begins (element 640) and sending confirmation requests to prospective attendees (element 650). For example, the meeting coordinator may have requested that confirmation requests only be sent to team leaders and team members scheduled to give a presentation and that the confirmation requests be sent three days before the meeting begins in order to allow enough time for all of the team leaders and team members to respond. The meeting originator may have further specified that the confirmation requests be sent via SMS messages to the cellular telephones of members who have them and sent via e-mail messages to the rest. Based on the responses received to the confirmation requests (element 660), one or more embodiments according to flowchart 600 may then schedule the meeting as the meeting was originally scheduled or, in the alternative, determine an alternate arrangement of events for the meeting (element 670). For example, if all prospective attendees confirm that they can still attend for the time slots for which they were originally scheduled, the system may send a message to the meeting coordinator indicating such responses. On the other hand, if one or more of the prospective attendees responds by saying that a conflict has arisen, the system may try to send a confirmation request to an alternative team member, asking that team member if he or she can attend instead of the originally scheduled person. If the alternate confirms that he or she can attend, the system may schedule the meeting. If the alternate declines attendance, the system may try to confirm the attendance of yet another team member and automatically cancel the meeting if no alternate attendee can be found. If the meeting is cancelled, the system may be configured to send out cancellation notices to the remaining prospective attendees.
As alluded to earlier, one or more embodiments may be implemented as a program product for use with a system to confirm attendance of prospective attendees to a meeting scheduled by a calendar or time management application, such as a calendar application in accordance with, e.g., calendar application 130 shown in
In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments, may be part of an operating system or a specific application, component, program, module, object, or sequence of instructions. The computer program of the one or more embodiments may comprise a multitude of instructions that will be translated by a computer into a machine-readable format and hence executable instructions. Also, the programs may comprise variables and data structures that either reside locally to the program or are found in memory or on storage devices. In addition, various programs described hereinafter may be identified based upon the application for which they are implemented in a specific embodiment of the invention. However, it should be appreciated that any particular program nomenclature described is used merely for convenience, and thus the specific embodiments should not be limited to use solely in any specific application identified and/or implied by such nomenclature.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that the present invention contemplates methods, systems, and program products for confirming attendance of prospective attendees to meetings scheduled via time management or event scheduling applications, such as calendar applications. It is understood that the forms of the embodiments shown and described in the detailed description and the drawings are to be taken merely as examples. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted broadly to embrace all the variations of the example embodiments disclosed.
Although the present invention and some of its advantages have been described in detail for some embodiments, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Further, embodiments may achieve multiple objectives but not every embodiment falling within the scope of the attached claims will achieve every objective. Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.
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