Patent Application
20090030609
Often, for various reasons, some within and some beyond the control of a traveler or a business person, appointments cannot be kept on time. For example, a traveler may be victim of transportation system delays. In other cases, a delay at an appointment may be due to a meeting that is important and cannot be cut short running past its anticipated ending time. In any case, appointments and meeting times are often wasted when one party does not attend, resulting in, at the least, annoyance and inconvenience for the other attendee(s), and sometimes resulting in more serious damaging consequences.
What is clearly needed is system and method that proactively recognizes the potential for such a problem, or recognizes early-on that such a problem is arising, and notifies the attendees of the meeting at risk of either a delay or of the need to reschedule. What is further needed is a system and method for rescheduling meetings that seem at risk of being delayed or missed and for reorganizing and rebooking facilities and services attendant on the meeting as needed.
The disclosure is illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements
Some embodiments of the present invention are summarized in this section.
One embodiment provides a method, that may be implemented on a system for identifying a schedule of events for a first user, the schedule of events comprising of one or more of appointments and travel arrangements; identifying a current location of the first user relative to a scheduled location of the first user based on the schedule of events; in response to a divergence between a current location and a scheduled location, projecting a latency for one or more remaining scheduled events; and in response to the projected latency meeting or exceeding an identified amount, identifying priorities among remaining scheduled events and rescheduling one or more remaining scheduled events based on the identified priorities.
The present disclosure includes methods and apparatuses which perform these methods, including processing systems which perform these methods, and computer readable media which when executed on processing systems cause the systems to perform these methods.
Other features of the present invention will be apparent from the accompanying drawings and from the detailed description which follows.
In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical, functional, and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.
Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the disclosure. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not other embodiments.
In some cases, importance can be derived by comparing the relative position of the person(s) to be met in the other company, and the size of the business that is done. In other cases, the user defines importance, for example on a 1-3 scale, or a 1-10 scale. Defaulting based on previous meetings may also be offered. In some cases, a post meeting review may rate the meeting and be used for future meetings as a pre-defined default, or adjusted accordingly.
In some cases, attendees will receive along with the schedule change message an option to vote their preference or decline alternatives, which may or may not be considered.
Tracking software module 305 has observed that transportation TR1203b did not progress along path 1 from location 1 to location 2 according to schedule using a GPS function of a smart phone device, as is described below in relation to the description of
In process 404 the process branches. If the latency is not over a certain limit (no), which may be a predetermined limit or a dynamically calculated limit, the system loops to process 405, where the system waits for a predetermined period of time before continuing back to process 401 to restart. For example, a latency of 15 minutes at a meeting may be acceptable in many cases, so by calculating the current location and the remaining way, you can predict the ETA. Also, traffic condition may be used.
The delay before continuing back to process 401 provides certain granularity to the process, because the system would be over-burdened if it continually processed data on a real-time basis. For example, the system could restart the process every minute, every 5 minutes, every 10 minutes, or after any other suitable period of time. If the latency is over the limit (yes), the system moves to process 406, where it prioritizes meetings based on information obtained from database 104 (e.g., based on predefined rules, historic data and preferences).
Based on the derived priorities, in process 407 the system calculates one or more rescheduling proposals for the user and sends them to the user's communication device 420. This device could receive such a message as an SMS, an IM, an email, as a phone call with a voice interaction system, or by any other suitable means of communication. In some cases, the system could call a designated alternate, if the user does not want to be interrupted or if he is out of reach. In process 408 the user sends a response. If the user does not accept any of the system's proposals (no), the system sends a message in process 409 to other parties, informing them of expected delay times for the next event(s). If the user accepts one of the system's proposals (yes), then in process 410 the system checks arrangements to implement the proposal with other parties 106a-n and suppliers 107a-n as needed and in process 411 it goes about the necessary rebooking, canceling, or modifying services and meetings. For example, in process 410 the system may need to check a flight first, before changing an appointment, etc., in process 411.
Although
The processes described above can be stored in a memory of a computer system as a set of instructions to be executed. In addition, the instructions to perform the processes described above could alternatively be stored on other forms of machine-readable media, including magnetic and optical disks. For example, the processes described could be stored on machine-readable media, such as magnetic disks or optical disks, which are accessible via a disk drive (or computer-readable medium drive). Further, the instructions can be downloaded into a computing device over a data network in a form of compiled and linked version.
Alternatively, the logic to perform the processes as discussed above could be implemented in additional computer and/or machine readable media, such as discrete hardware components as large-scale integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC's), firmware such as electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM's); and electrical, optical, acoustical and other forms of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.).
It is clear that many modifications and variations of this embodiment may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the novel art of this disclosure. These modifications and variations do not depart from the broader spirit and scope of the invention, and the examples cited here are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
