JPH06284145A - Electronic mail system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a mail system capable of making high speed transmission reception and prevent the event of repetitive transmission. CONSTITUTION:Each of 1st and 2nd electronic devices having a transmission reception function includes at least one user terminal equipment 11 connecting to a mail server 18A, and the mail server has a reception mail storage means 25 relating to a connected terminal equipment, a transmission management means 221 managing a mail transmission and reception history, a reception management means 222, a means 111 generating transmission management information representing a mail content, a means 26 collating the transmission management information and a mail transmission history to confirm whether or not the mail transmission history is in existence, a means 22 sending the transmission management information to a transmission destination mail server when the transmission history is in existence, a means 222 collating a history of the transmission means 22 with a mail reception history when no transmission history is in existence to confirm whether or not the reception history is in existence, and a means 26 extracting a corresponding mail from the reception mail storage means to send it to a designated user terminal equipment when the mail reception history is in existence.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail system for transmitting and receiving a large amount of information such as images as mail.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, an information processing system has been remarkably developed in a distributed environment via, for example, a LAN. For example,
In an electronic mail system, it is possible to electronically send and receive mail documents between a plurality of users, which has contributed to the efficiency and speed of information transmission. In the electronic mail system, a user can transfer texts, images, and further graphics information to a destination user via a LAN by designating a destination user.

[0003]

However, when a large amount of information such as image data having the same content is transmitted and received, both the transmitting side and the receiving side consume a large amount of memory, which is a finite resource, and the text It was inefficient compared with the data such as. Furthermore, since a large amount of data is transferred via a network such as a LAN,
It took longer communication time. As described above, there is a problem in that image data or the like including a large amount of information cannot be sent at high speed as an email, and improvements have been demanded.

As a further problem, the same information may be sent to the same destination a plurality of times due to an operation error on the sender side, and it has been required to warn the sender of this error before sending. . There was a need for a system that could omit these inefficient operations because it mistakenly made mistakes and sent it multiple times, and it took time and effort to check the transmission history.

Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a mail system capable of transmitting / receiving more mails at high speed by effectively utilizing a memory and preventing the situation of repeatedly sending the same mail.

[0006]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is an electronic mail system having an electronic device having a mail transmission / reception function, wherein the electronic device relates to a mail to be transmitted. A means to confirm whether or not the destination has information having the same content,
An electronic mail comprising means for sending to the destination the transmission management information indicating the content of the mail to be sent when the destination is present, and means for transmitting the mail when the destination is not. It provides a system.

Further, the present invention is an electronic mail system having at least first and second electronic devices each having a mail transmission / reception function, wherein the first and second electronic devices are respectively reception mail storage means. And a transmission management means for managing the mail transmission history, a reception management means for managing the mail reception history, a means for generating transmission management information representing the content of the mail to be transmitted, and the transmission management information and the transmission management means. A method to check if there is an email transmission history for the email you are trying to send by checking the email transmission history managed by and the content of the email you are trying to send when there is an email transmission history A means for sending the transmission management information to the destination, a means for sending the mail when there is no mail transmission history, and a means for sending the mail sent from the sender. Means for checking whether or not there is a mail reception history by collating the transmission management information indicating the contents of the mail with the mail reception history managed by the reception management means, and if there is a mail reception history, storing the received mail The present invention provides an electronic mail system characterized by including a means for retrieving a corresponding mail from the means. Furthermore, the present invention is an electronic mail system having at least first and second electronic devices each having a mail transmission / reception function, wherein the first and second electronic devices are a mail server and a mail server, respectively. The mail server includes at least one user terminal connected to the mail server, and the mail server manages a received mail storage unit related to the user terminal connected to the mail server, a transmission management unit managing a mail transmission history, and a mail reception history. Regarding a mail to be sent by comparing the reception management means, a means for generating transmission management information indicating the contents of the mail to be sent, and the mail transmission history managed by the transmission management information A method to check whether there is a mail transmission history,

[0008] When there is a mail transmission history, means for sending transmission management information indicating the contents of the mail to be sent to the destination mail server, and means for sending the mail when there is no mail transmission history, and transmission A means for checking whether or not there is a mail reception history by collating the transmission management information indicating the contents of the above-mentioned mail to be transmitted from the original with the mail reception history managed by the reception management means; The present invention provides an electronic mail system comprising: a means for taking out a corresponding mail from the received mail storage means and sending it to a destination user terminal when there is a reception history.

[0009]

Operation: In a system for transmitting and receiving information as electronic mail between a plurality of users, the information is stored at the receiving side when it is first transmitted, and is sent before when the next information is transmitted. It is determined by checking the mail transmission / reception history whether it is the same as, and when it is the same, send the transmission management information that can specify the stored information and do not send the information body, but save the information to be sent on the receiving side By taking out the stored data, duplicate transmission is avoided and waste of memory is eliminated.

[0010]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

First, FIG. 1 shows a conceptual configuration of an image mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention. The user terminals 11 to 17 are terminals used by the users 11A to 17A to send and receive image mails and edit, and each has a function of displaying an image and receiving an input from the user. The user terminals 11 and 12 are connected to the mail server 18A, the user terminals 13 and 14 are connected to the mail server 18B, and the user terminals 15, 16 and 17 are connected to the mail server 18C. In this embodiment, each user belongs to one of the mail servers.

The mail servers 18A to 18C control mail transmission / reception, manage mail data, control news transmission / reception,
It has functions such as management of user organization information, executes mail processing requested by the user via the user terminals 11 to 17, and sends and receives mail between the user terminals 11 to 17 via the LAN 19. It is used when receiving information from the news server 20.

FIG. 2 shows the mail server 18 in this embodiment.
The internal schematic structure of A-18C is shown. Here, the mail server 18A is shown as a representative, but another mail server 1
The same applies to 8B and 18C. The mail server 18A includes a user organization information management unit 21, a mail distribution control unit 22, a news transmission / reception control unit 23, another server communication unit 24, a mail server internal document management unit 25, a user access control unit 26, and user information management. It includes a section 27 and a user personal document management section 28. The user organization information management unit 21 manages the organization structure such as the department name of the user of this mail system in the organization.

The mail distribution control unit 22 controls the mail transmission / reception processing. When sending a mail, the mail is sent based on the envelope information of the mail formed on the user terminal.
On the other hand, when the mail is received, the connected user (here, the user terminal 11 or 12) is notified of the arrival of the mail. The mail distribution control unit 22 includes a mail transmission history table 221 and a mail reception history table 222 regarding the user terminals 11 and 12 connected to this mail server 18A. The news transmission / reception control unit 23 realizes a function of delivering the same mail to a plurality of users, that is, destinations.

The other server communication unit 24 has a function of communicating mail data between mail servers via the LAN 19 when sending and receiving mail between users belonging to different mail servers.

The mail server internal document management unit 25 manages, in the mail data memory 251, internal data of the mail server 18A for each document of the mail data received by the mail server 18A. The received mail data is stored in the memory 251, and the writing and modification of the data by the recipient is prohibited, and the data is set to be copied when the modification is necessary.

The user access control unit 26 controls the connection with the user terminals 11 and 12 and notifies the reception of the mail processing request from the users 11A and 12A and the processing result and error for the request. The user information management unit 27 manages user information when using the mail system, and includes a user management table 271 for that purpose.

The user personal document management unit 28 provides an environment for the user to arbitrarily change data such as mail. For example, when the recipient changes the content of the received mail, the received mail data in the memory 251 managed by the mail server internal document management unit 25 is copied to the personal management document database 281, and thereafter used. The individual personal document management unit 28 manages the data as changeable data.

Further, in FIG. 2, the user terminal 11 is taken as an example to show the conceptual configuration of processing in the user terminal 11 when connecting to the user access control unit 26. The user terminal 11 is provided with a mail server access control unit 111 and communicates with the user access control unit 26. Email creating unit 112
Then, referring to the user terminal local database 114, the body data of the mail to be transmitted and the transmission management information, that is, the envelope information is created. To create envelope information,
The transmission envelope table 113 is provided. Further, the user terminal 11 includes an input / output control unit 115 for controlling a device for inputting a processing request from a user, a display output device, and the like, and a CRT (not shown) as a display device.
Is equipped with.

In FIG. 3, a transmission management consisting of 100 pages as an example of a mail construction data configuration diagram stored in the transmission management transmission envelope table 113 used by the mail composition unit 112 for transmitting an e-mail. The structure of information is shown.

First, in the item of number of users of mail transmission destination, the number of users of the destinations to which the mail is transmitted is described, and the mail transmission destination user name list has a list of names of users who are mail transmission destinations. In the email sender user name item, the user name of the sender of the email (here: 11A)
There is. The mail type option item describes information about the type of mail such as express delivery and delayed delivery.
In the Email total data size item, describe the size of the entire data structure. The total page number item indicates the number of pages included in the mail body data. As the description structure of the data inside the page, first, the page number, the data type (non-compressed image, compressed image, text, etc.), and then the data size and the data file name are described. The mail creation unit 112 creates transmission management information with this configuration and sends it to the mail distribution control unit 22 via the user access control unit 26.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of outgoing mail / distribution data used when the mail distribution control unit 22 distributes a mail. A difference from the data structure diagram for creation of FIG. 3 is that there is special data called link control in the data type. The page data subject to link control is
The file name that already exists in the destination mail server and the mail entity data is stored in the destination mail server is set as the data link information. This data is an important part of the present invention, and by using this data, if the data entity already exists in the destination mail server, it is not necessary to transfer the data entity between the mail servers. To be

FIG. 5 shows an example of the user management table 271. This table 271 is stored in the user information management unit 2
The user name and the mail server name to which the user belongs are included as items in the table. By referring to this table, the name of the mail server to which the destination user of the mail belongs can be obtained.

In FIG. 6, the mail transmission history management table 2
21 is shown as an example of the mail server 18A. The mail distribution control unit 22 uses this table 221 to manage the mail transmission history. If there is more than one email data, generate a column for each page in the email. Items included in this table 221 include, for example, a transmission time, a transmission destination mail server name, a transmission destination user name, a transmission source user name, a mail management serial number, a page number to be transmitted, and the substance of transmitted data. , A sender user file name (original file name) used as mail data, and an item that describes whether the sending process has completed normally or an error has occurred.

For example, in the case of the uppermost line, it indicates the first page of the mail X100 sent from the user A to the user G belonging to the destination mail server name Z when the transmission is started at 1:00. ing. The substance of the data is transmitted using the transmission source user file, myfile 0, and is stored as a transmission history in the file X100.1 of the transmission source mail server 18A.

In FIG. 7, the mail reception history management table 2
22 is shown. Items included in this table 222 include a reception time, a transmission source mail server name, a transmission source user name, a transmission destination user name, a mail serial name, a page number, a data file name storing the substance of the received data, There is an item indicating the normal completion of reception processing.

In FIG. 8, the mail server internal document management unit 2
5 shows an example of the internal document management table in the memory 251 managed by No. 5. Items included in this table include a file name in which each received mail data is stored and an item describing the number of received mails (the number of links) referring to the file. Even if it is necessary to delete the transmission / reception history due to the memory capacity of the mail server 18A, the deletion prohibition item is set to FALSE and the number of links is 1
The above files are set so that they cannot be deleted. In addition, this table also has an item for managing the data size of the file, and if the data entities of the sent and received mails have the same size, the data entities are further compared, and if they are the same, the user Can be notified. Now, an example of transmitting a mail in the system according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 9 to 12.

First, for example, when the user A uses the user terminal 11 to generate a request from the input / output control unit 115 to the mail creating unit 112, the mail creating unit 112 sends the mail to the user A. By setting the destination of the mail, each page in the mail, and the like, the mail transmission management information (also referred to as envelope information) conforming to the data structure for creating the mail shown in FIG. 3 is created. FIG. 11 shows a display example during the creation of a mail. When the transmission management information is completed, the mail creation unit 112 transfers the transmission management information to the user access control unit 26 of the mail server as a mail transmission request. The user access control unit 26 sends the transmission management information to the mail distribution control unit 22. The mail distribution control unit 22 compares the envelope transmission management information with the mail transmission history table 221, and determines, for each page included in the mail, whether the data has been transmitted to the same mail server in the past. That is, the "original file name" item of the mail transmission history table 221 is compared with the data file name for each page in the transmission management information, and the same file name is extracted. It can be determined that the data stored under the file name thus extracted may have been transmitted in the past.

When the same file name exists, the mail distribution control unit 22 inquires of the user personal document management unit 28 whether the file last modification time of these files is the same as or older than the mail transmission time.

When the corresponding file exists, it can be judged that the page using the data in the file is the same as the page recorded in the mail transmission history table 221.

Then, the transmission source mail server 18A inquires of the transmission destination mail server whether or not these data are retained as a reception history. That is, the sender mail server 18A sends information including the mail serial name and page number of these pages and the sender user name 11A to the recipient mail server, and the same mail data exists in the recipient mail server. And wait for a response. The destination mail server that received the inquiry searches the table corresponding to the mail reception history table 222 and determines whether there is a corresponding page. If the page exists, the internal document management table 25 determines whether the received data file for the page also exists.
Confirm by referring to the table corresponding to 2. When it is confirmed that the data file exists, it can be determined that the requested data exists in the destination mail server. If the data file exists, the destination mail server will delete the file from the deletion prohibition flag (see Fig. 8).
Is set to TRUE. By setting this flag, it is possible to prevent files from being lost between the time of inquiry and the actual mail transmission. After confirming the existence of the data file, the destination mail server sends the file name storing the existing data to the source mail server 18A as the determination result. The sender mail server 18A changes the transmission management information for the page for which the existence of the data has been confirmed, and sets the link control information instead of the actual data.

On the other hand, for a page whose data does not exist in the destination mail server, the data is read from the original file designated by the transmission management information. In this way, mail data conforming to the transmitted mail / distribution data structure is generated. When the distribution data is generated, the mail distribution control unit 22 delivers the mail.

It is also possible to send a mail to the users 11A to 12A. In this case, the destination mail server 18A is the same as the source mail server 18A. The mail distribution control unit 22 sends the distribution data to the mail server internal document management unit 25. The mail server internal document management unit 25 holds the received mail data in the memory 251 and notifies the user information management unit 27 of the arrival of the mail.

The mail server internal document management unit 25 analyzes the received mail data and writes the data entity in the memory 251 based on the data type. At this time, when the data type is link control, the file name described as the data link information is searched in the internal document management table (FIG. 8) and the reference number of the file is incremented by 1.

As described above, according to this embodiment, it is possible to determine whether the data of each page of the mail to be transmitted has been transmitted from the source mail server to the destination mail server in the past.

When sending the same data, even if it is the data of a mail sent by a different user, as long as the data exists in the mail server of the transmission destination, the mail server of the transmission source can Do not send the substance.

For example, when the same user creates only the first page for a plurality of users for each user, and the subsequent pages transmit a document having a large number of pages that are the same. , The data for the second and subsequent pages need only be transmitted once to each mail server of the transmission destination, and the memory resources of the mail server can be effectively utilized.

As a modified example of this embodiment, it is possible to detect that the same user has tried to send the same data to the same destination user in the past, and notify the person concerned. By notifying the source user of the result detected in this way, duplication of information transmission in business can be reduced. A display example at the time of notification is shown in FIG. In this embodiment, one user can connect to one mail server, but the present invention is not limited to this.

As a further embodiment, regarding the data held as the transmission history, the same data is stored in one file, and the file name is held in the mail transmission history management table 221 to increase the reference number of the file. Can be considered. As a result, even if the same data is transmitted to an arbitrary user a plurality of times, only one piece of data needs to be retained in the transmission history management on the source mail server.
You can save a lot of memory.

As described above, not only when one sender sends a mail to one destination, but when one sender sends mail to a plurality of destinations by using the same information as, for example, a broadcast, If the sender of sends an email to one recipient,
Further, it is possible to detect a case where a plurality of senders independently send the same mail to a plurality of destinations, and a more efficient mail system can be provided.

[0041]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the same information is transmitted a plurality of times, the memory consumption of the mail server on the transmitting side can be saved. Further, it is possible to know that the user has surely transmitted the information.
It also saves internal memory consumption in the transceiver,
Not only can more information be communicated and stored, but one user can reduce the transmission of the same information to the same user multiple times, so the amount of useless information at work can be suppressed. It is possible to obtain an improvement in the overall business processing.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block conceptual configuration diagram of an electronic mail system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a software conceptual configuration diagram of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of outgoing mail / generation data (transmission management information).

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of outgoing mail and distribution data.

FIG. 5 is a user management table diagram.

FIG. 6 is a mail transmission history management table diagram.

FIG. 7 is a mail reception history management table diagram.

FIG. 8 is an internal document management table diagram.

FIG. 9 is a conceptual flowchart of mail transmission processing according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a conceptual flowchart of mail transmission processing according to the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a screen display example diagram.

FIG. 12 is a screen display example diagram.

[Explanation of symbols]

11 to 17 ... User terminal, 18A, 18B, 18C ... Mail server, 19 ... LAN, 20 ... News server, 1
11 ... Mail server access control unit, 112 ... Mail creating unit, 113 ... Transmission envelope table, 114 ... Terminal database, 25 ... Mail server internal document management unit, 251 ...
Received mail data memory, 221 ... Mail transmission history table, 222 ... Mail reception history table.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An electronic mail system having an electronic device having a mail transmission / reception function, wherein the electronic device determines whether or not information having the same content as that of a mail to be transmitted exists at a transmission destination. It is provided with a means for confirming, a means for sending the management information indicating the contents of the mail to be sent to the destination when the mail is at the destination, and a means for sending the mail when the mail is not at the destination. And an e-mail system. 2. An electronic mail system having at least first and second electronic devices each having a mail transmission / reception function, wherein the first and second electronic devices respectively include a received mail storage means and a mail. A transmission management unit that manages a transmission history, a reception management unit that manages a mail reception history, a unit that generates transmission management information that represents the contents of an email to be transmitted, and a transmission management unit that manages the transmission management information and the transmission management unit. A method for checking whether there is an email transmission history for an email to be sent by checking the email transmission history that is being sent, and, if there is an email transmission history, transmission management information that indicates the content of the email that is being sent To the destination, the means for sending the mail when there is no mail transmission history, and the content of the mail to be sent sent from the sender. A means for checking whether or not there is a mail reception history by collating the transmission management information and the mail reception history managed by the reception management means, and when there is a mail reception history, the received mail storage means responds. An electronic mail system comprising: a means for retrieving a mail to be sent. 3. An electronic mail system having at least first and second electronic devices each having a mail transmitting / receiving function, wherein the first and second electronic devices are a mail server and a mail server, respectively. The mail server includes at least one user terminal connected to the mail server, and the mail server manages a received mail storage unit related to the user terminal connected to the mail server, a transmission management unit managing a mail transmission history, and a mail reception history. Regarding the mail to be sent by comparing the receiving management means, the means for generating the sending management information indicating the contents of the mail to be sent, and the sending management information and the mail sending history managed by the sending managing means A means for confirming whether or not at least a part of the mail has a mail transmission history, and at least a part of the mail to be transmitted has a transmission history. If there is, a means for sending the transmission management information indicating the contents of a part of the mail to the destination mail server, a means for sending the mail to the destination mail server if there is no mail transmission history, and a sender Means for checking whether or not there is a mail reception history by collating the transmission management information indicating the content of the above-mentioned mail to be transmitted from the mail reception history managed by the reception management means, and the mail reception If there is a history, a means to retrieve the corresponding mail from the received mail storage means and send it to the specified destination user terminal, and if there is no mail reception history, receive the mail from the sender and specify it. And an electronic mail system comprising means for sending to a destination user terminal.