1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data processing systems and in particular to electronic mail. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for sending and receiving electronic mail using group headers.
2. Description of the Related Art
A company may use electronic mail (email) for communication within the company and between the company and outsiders, such as customers and suppliers. Typically, when someone sends emails to the same group of people on a regular basis, the sender defines a group of email recipients and sends an email to each member of the group simultaneously using the group as the email recipient. The group is private because the group exists only on the sender's email server. As a result, this group is not accessible to any members of the group.
Thus, when a group member receives an email addressed to the group, the group member cannot respond to the entire group because the group member does not have access to group information, such as the email address for each member of the group. The group member can respond only to the sender of the email and ask the sender to forward his or her response to the group. One solution to the problem of group email recipients not being able to see other recipients is to allow senders of email to publish the group list and make the identities of the group public. However, two drawbacks are present in this approach.
First, a member of the group who wants to send email to the rest of the group typically must use the same email server as other members of the group. Thus, any member of the group that is not on the same email server as the rest of the group cannot respond to emails addressed to the group. Second, it is not possible to confine the sharing of group information to members of the group, because once the group is published on the email server, anyone using the email server may see the group information.
The different embodiments provide a computer implemented method and apparatus for sending and receiving electronic mail messages. A group header is defined using simple mail transmission protocol. The group header provides information about a set of members of a group. The set of members of the group are recipients of the electronic mail message. The group header is placed in the electronic mail message to form a completed electronic mail message addressed to the group. The completed electronic mail is sent to the group.
The novel features believed characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims. The invention itself, however, as well as a preferred mode of use, and further objectives and advantages thereof, will best be understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
With reference now to the figures, and in particular with reference to
With reference now to the figures,
In the depicted example, server 104 and server 106 connect to network 102 along with storage unit 108. In addition, clients 110, 112, and 114 connect to network 102. These clients 110, 112, and 114 may be, for example, personal computers or network computers. In the depicted example, server 104 provides data, such as boot files, operating system images, and applications to clients 110, 112, and 114. Clients 110, 112, and 114 are clients to server 104 in this example. Network data processing system 100 may include additional servers, clients, and other devices not shown.
In the depicted example, network data processing system 100 is the Internet with network 102 representing a worldwide collection of networks and gateways that use the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols to communicate with one another. At the heart of the Internet is a backbone of high-speed data communication lines between major nodes or host computers, consisting of thousands of commercial, governmental, educational and other computer systems that route data and messages. Of course, network data processing system 100 also may be implemented as a number of different types of networks, such as for example, an intranet, a local area network (LAN), or a wide area network (WAN).
With reference now to
In the depicted example, data processing system 200 employs a hub architecture including a north bridge and memory controller hub (MCH) 202 and a south bridge and input/output (I/O) controller hub (ICH) 204. Processing unit 206, main memory 208, and graphics processor 210 are coupled to north bridge and memory controller hub 202. Processing unit 206 may contain one or more processors and even may be implemented using one or more heterogeneous processor systems. Graphics processor 210 may be coupled to the MCH through an accelerated graphics port (AGP), for example.
In the depicted example, local area network (LAN) adapter 212 is coupled to south bridge and I/O controller hub 204 and audio adapter 216, keyboard and mouse adapter 220, modem 222, read only memory (ROM) 224, universal serial bus (USB) ports and other communications ports 232, and PCI/PCIe devices 234 are coupled to south bridge and I/O controller hub 204 through bus 238, and hard disk drive (HDD) 226 and CD-ROM drive 230 are coupled to south bridge and I/O controller hub 204 through bus 240. PCI/PCIe devices may include, for example, Ethernet adapters, add-in cards, and PC cards for notebook computers. PCI uses a card bus controller, while PCIe does not. ROM 224 may be, for example, a flash binary input/output system (BIOS). Hard disk drive 226 and CD-ROM drive 230 may use, for example, an integrated drive electronics (IDE) or serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) interface. A super I/O (SIO) device 236 may be coupled to south bridge and I/O controller hub 204.
An operating system runs on processing unit 206 and coordinates and provides control of various components within data processing system 200 in
Instructions for the operating system, the object-oriented programming system, and applications or programs are located on storage devices, such as hard disk drive 226, and may be loaded into main memory 208 for execution by processing unit 206. The processes of the illustrative embodiments may be performed by processing unit 206 using computer implemented instructions, which may be located in a memory such as, for example, main memory 208, read only memory 224, or in one or more peripheral devices.
The hardware in
In some illustrative examples, data processing system 200 may be a personal digital assistant (PDA), which is generally configured with flash memory to provide non-volatile memory for storing operating system files and/or user-generated data. A bus system may be comprised of one or more buses, such as a system bus, an I/O bus and a PCI bus. Of course the bus system may be implemented using any type of communications fabric or architecture that provides for a transfer of data between different components or devices attached to the fabric or architecture. A communications unit may include one or more devices used to transmit and receive data, such as a modem or a network adapter. A memory may be, for example, main memory 208 or a cache such as found in north bridge and memory controller hub 202. A processing unit may include one or more processors or CPUs. The depicted examples in
Email is commonly used for communication between employees in a company and between employees and outsiders, such as customers and suppliers. When someone regularly sends emails to the same set of people, the sender typically defines a group of email recipients, and sends an email to each member of the group. A set consists of one or more people. In this example, the set is one or more recipients for the email. The group definition exists only on the sender's email server, and is not accessible to any of the other members of the group.
When a member of the group receives an email addressed to the group, the member cannot respond to the entire group, because the group member does not have access to the email address for each member of the group. The group member can respond only to the sender of the email because that is the only email address available to the recipient.
Some email servers, such as Lotus Domino®, solve this problem by allowing senders of email to publish the group list and make the identities of the group public. However, this approach has two problems. First, a member of the group who wants to send email to the rest of the group typically must use the same email server as other members of the group. Second, it is not possible to confine the sharing of group information to members of the group because once the group is published on the email server, anyone using the email server may see the group information.
Therefore, the different illustrative embodiments provide a computer implemented method and apparatus for sending and receiving electronic mail messages. A group header is defined using simple mail transmission protocol. The group header provides information about a set of members of a group. The set of members of the group are one or more recipients of the electronic mail message. The group header is placed in the electronic mail message to form a completed electronic mail message addressed to the group. The completed electronic mail is sent to the group.
Referring to
A simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) agent, which is a software process for sending and receiving emails, runs on each client's computer and on each server. In this example, simple mail transmission protocol agent 310 runs on server 302, and simple mail transmission protocol agents 312, 314, and 316 run on clients 304, 306, and 308, respectively.
Simple mail transmission protocol agents 310, 312, 314, and 316 use simple mail transmission protocol for exchanging emails. Embodiments extend the simple mail transmission protocol by introducing new simple mail transmission protocol headers for managing groups. Simple mail transmission protocol defines a set of standard email headers such as “To” and “From” to facilitate the exchange of information between simple mail transmission protocol agents. In the illustrative embodiments, these currently used email headers are augmented to use an additional type of header called “group”.
Referring to
Line 402 defines a group as having one or more group names separated by a group separator. Line 404 defines the group separator as a colon “:”. Line 402 also specifies that the group name is followed by a list of email recipients, with each recipient separated by an email separator. Line 406 defines the email separator as a comma “,”. Line 408 defines that each email recipient is specified by providing the recipient's name and the recipient's email address.
Referring to
In email headers 500, lines 508-516 depict an example of simple mail transmission protocol headers in a system where a group header has been defined. Line 510 is the same as line 504, and shows the name of one or more groups to which the email is addressed. Thus, one advantage of defining group headers is that an email can be sent to more than one group.
Lines 512 and 514 show recipient information for the two groups mentioned in line 510. Specifically, line 512 displays information, such as the name and email address, for the members of the group named Project Team. Similarly, line 514 displays information for the members of the group named Upper Level Managers.
One advantage of implementing groups in the manner described above is that this method is backwards compatible. For example, the above approach will work in a mixed network in which some simple mail transmission protocol email agents recognize the group definition and others do not. If a recipient's simple mail transmission protocol email agent does not recognize the group header, then the recipient's simple mail transmission protocol email agent can simply ignore the group header, and operate as it would in a conventional system.
Once the group headers are defined in simple mail transmission protocol, the sender's simple mail transmission protocol email agent maintains the group definition locally. When an email is sent to the group, the simple mail transmission protocol email agent, such as agent 312 in
If the recipient's simple mail transmission protocol email agent recognizes the group header, then when the recipient replies to the email, the simple mail transmission protocol email agent extracts the group header information and builds the appropriate headers. For example, line 512 shows information about the members of the Project Team group, and line 514 shows information about the members of the Upper Level Managers group.
Typically, the information about each member of the group is the intended recipient's name and email address. Of course, those versed in the art will appreciate that additional or different information about each recipient may also be listed.
Those versed in the art will appreciate that the recipient's simple mail transmission protocol email agent may provide other features using the group header. For example, the recipient may be allowed to import the group information to the recipient's local address book.
Optionally, when a sender defines multiple groups of recipients, the sender may choose to designate a group as public or private. A public group is one in which the recipient can see information about the group, such as the names and email addresses of the recipients. The recipient may also be allowed to import the public group and the group's members to a local server. A private group is a group, which does not allow the recipient to see the group members' information.
For example, lines 518-526 are an example of email headers in which the group Project Team is public but the group Upper Level Managers is private. Therefore, because the group Project Team is public, information about the group is displayed on line 522. Because the group Upper Level Managers is private in this example, group information is not displayed, and instead the group information is indicated as private in line 524. Thus, if a group is designated as private, group information is not sent by the sender's simple mail transmission protocol email agent.
Optionally, when a sender defines multiple groups, the sender may designate which recipients have access to group information. Thus, one recipient may see the group information for both groups, a second recipient may see the group information for one group but not another, and a third recipient may not see group information for either group. In this scenario, a recipient will only see group information if (i) the recipient has designated the group as a public group, and (ii) the recipient has designated the recipient as someone who can view the members of the group.
The process begins when a user uses the electronic mail software to create a group header definition using simple message transmission protocol (step 602). For example, a systems administrator may create the group header definition on an email server, such as server 302, using an agent, such as agent 310 in
The user uses the software to define one or more groups (step 604). Each group has a group name and a list of group members. The list of group members contains a name and electronic mail address for each member of the group. A group may be defined by a system administrator or by any user with access to electronic mail.
The user uses the software to create an electronic mail addressed to one or more previously defined groups (step 606). The user may use electronic mail software, such as agent 312, to create the electronic mail. The electronic mail may be sent using an electronic mail server, such as server 302 in
For each group, the user uses the software to designate whether the group is public or private (step 608). If a user designates that a group is public, then the recipients of the electronic mail may view the members of the group as shown in line 522 of
The process begins once an electronic mail message is received (step 702). The agent examines a header of the email and finds a group name (step 704). The agent makes a determination as to whether the sender of the electronic mail designated the group as a private group or a public group (step 706).
If the group is designated private, the agent indicates that the recipient of the electronic mail is private (step 708). For example, the electronic mail may display a blank field after the word “Group”, or the electronic mail may display the word “private” after the word “Group” to indicate that the group is private. A determination is made as to whether another group is present in the group header (step 710). If the answer is “no” and no more group headers are present, then the process ends. If the answer is “yes” and another group is present, then the group name is extracted from the group header (step 704) and the process repeats.
If the group is designated as public, then optionally, a determination is made as to whether the status of the recipient allows the recipient to view the members of the group (step 712). If the status of the recipient does not allow the recipient to view the members of the group, then the process indicates that the group name is private (step 708).
If the status of the recipient allows the recipient of the electronic mail to view the members of the group, or if the determination in step 712 is optionally not performed, then the information about the members of the group is retrieved (step 714) from a mail server, such as server 302 in
Once the electronic mail agent of the recipient retrieves the group information from the server, the electronic mail agent displays the names and electronic mail addresses for each member of the group (step 716). Next a determination is made as to whether another group is present in the group header (step 710). If the answer is “no” and no more group headers are present, then the process ends. If the answer is “yes” and another group is present, then the group name is extracted from the group header (step 704) and the process repeats.
Therefore, the different illustrative embodiments provide a computer implemented method and apparatus for sending and receiving electronic mail messages. A group header is defined using simple mail transmission protocol. The group header provides information about a set of members of a group. The set of members of the group are one or more recipients of the electronic mail message. The group header is placed in the electronic mail message to form a completed electronic mail message addressed to the group. The completed electronic mail is sent to the group.
The different embodiments allow a group of email recipients to be defined so that emails may be addressed to the group instead of addressing the email to individual recipients. In one embodiment, the group may be designated as public or private. If a group is public then each recipient can see the other members of the group and may import the group to a local email server so that the recipient can send emails to the group. If a group is private then each recipient may not see other members of the group and may not import the group and the members of the group to a local email server.
In another embodiment, each recipient is given a status which determines whether or not the recipient can view the other members of the group. In this embodiment, a group must be public and the recipient must be designated as someone who can view members of the group in order for the recipient to view the other members of the group.
For example, suppose an email is composed and sent to one department, and the department has several teams, with each team led by a team leader. Suppose a public group is created for all members of the department, and only the team leaders are designated as recipients who can view members of the group, while the rest of the department members are designated as not being able to view members of the group. In this example, each team leader in the department can view members of the group and send emails to the entire group. However, the other members of the department who are not team leaders may not view other members of the group and may not send emails to the group.
The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of some possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be noted that, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved.
The invention can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.
Furthermore, the invention can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any tangible apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.
The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk—read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk—read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD.
A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution.
Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers.
Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.
The description of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention, the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.