Abstract:
A method and a system for managing and retrieving data within an electronic mail editor and/or an application external of the electronic mail editor are provided. In conventional systems, a user needs to sieve through their e-mail messages to locate messages of a same subject and thereafter to identify a most current or his required information. In the present invention, a reference data tag is inserted in an e-mail message and is linked to tag values stored in an appropriate database. The data tag may have one or more instances inserted in other messages at different times and assigned a different data tag value at the time of insertion. The data tag may be represented by similar indicia. To retrieve a most current value among the different values, a user merely accesses any of the indicia in any of the messages.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of the Invention.  
           [0002]    The present invention relates to data retrieval systems. More particularly, it relates to a method and a system for managing and retrieving data within an electronic mail editor and/or an application external of the electronic mail editor.  
           [0003]    2. Description of Background Information.  
           [0004]    Business information is increasingly communicated by means of electronic mail (hereinafter “e-mail”). This communication of information may relate to business critical issues and may span over numerous e-mail messages over a time period. Generally, e-mail users retain most messages because the messages contain developments, updates, attachment files and history of responses pertaining to a subject.  
           [0005]    Often, an e-mail user would still refer to less recent messages on a same subject to locate specific information, or to follow developments on the subject, or to forward a most current information to another user. Such information may include timelines, meeting details, particulars of customers and change requests on software release. To locate certain information on a subject, a user may sort messages according to subject heading or sender. Thereafter, he identifies relevant messages and accesses the messages separately. Since e-mail messages usually comprise of free-form text, the user may have to read the message contents of several messages in detail before locating the information he requires. Further, since contents of e-mail messages are static, contents of less recent messages may reflect outdated information. Hence, the user may need to compare information between two or more messages to identify the most up-to-date information.  
           [0006]    In existing e-mail editors, a user generally locates information using the above-described method. Although most users have accustomed to using this method, it is tedious to repeat this time-consuming procedure each time a user wishes to locate a piece of information. Furthermore, a user may, due to oversight or urgency of time, incorrectly identify the required or most current information. Accordingly, a method and a system for managing and retrieving information are needed.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0007]    The present invention provides a method of managing and retrieving data within an electronic mail editor and/or an application external of the electronic mail editor.  
           [0008]    A user first inserts a reference data tag (hereinafter “data tag”) in a message body section when he is composing a message. The user also assigns a current value to the data tag and selects a database to store the data tag and its value (hereinafter “tag-value pair). The data tag may be reassigned new values when necessary. The data tag may be displayed as an indicium in the message. The data tag may have one or more instances inserted in other messages at different times. The other instances may be represented by similar indicia and assigned different data tag values at the time of insertion. A recipient user or a group of recipient users may access the indicium in any of the messages containing the data tag for retrieving a most current value among the different values.  
           [0009]    According to another aspect of the invention, the user may also retrieve two or more data tag values which have been assigned to the data tag over a period of time. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0010]    The present invention will be described with reference to drawings, in which:  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 1 is a flow sequence describing the operation of the present invention.  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 2A illustrates a pop-up window for creating a new data tag.  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 2B illustrates a pop-up window for inserting an existing data tag.  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 3 illustrates typical relationships among personal, local and global databases.  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 4 illustrates an e-mail message containing data tags  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 5 illustrates an e-mail message containing data tags, where a cursor is positioned over a data tag for displaying a most current tag value.  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 6 illustrates a pop-up window for retrieving information on a data tag. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0018]    The present invention provides a method and system for managing and retrieving information within an e-mail editor and/or an application external of the e-mail editor. It allows a user fast access to most current information on a subject without requiring him to read the entire contents of one or more messages before locating the required information. In order to do this, a sender of a message first inserts a reference data tag in a message when he is composing the message. He then assigns a current value to the data tag and may also select an appropriate database for storing the data tag-value pair. The data tag may be embedded in the body section of a message and displayed as an indicium. The data tag may be later assigned other more current values. The indicium may be accessed to retrieve a most current value of the data tag from the appropriate database. Hence, even if a user is reading a less recent message, he is able to retrieve up-to-date information quickly. The present invention also allows the user to retrieve a history of tag values should he require such information. Thus, with the invention, it is now not necessarily for the user to locate a most recent message on a subject or read several messages in order to locate up-to-date information on the subject. The insertion and update of data tags, and the retrieval of data tag values from the databases are enabled by making Application Program Interface (API) calls.  
         [0019]    Reference is now made to a flow sequence  100  in FIG. 1, which describes the operation of the present invention.  
         [0020]    The flow sequence  100  starts in a COMPOSE E-MAIL MESSAGE step  101 , where a sender composes a new message in an e-mail editor, such as Microsoft Outlook. In a manner known in the art, the sender also specifies the addresses of recipients and prepares a message body typically containing free form text, i.e., text sequences organized into paragraphs.  
         [0021]    According to the present invention, the user may insert a data tag at any desired position within the message body section in an INSERT DATA TAG step  102 . The user can insert a data tag using one of several ways, for example, by selecting a menu option from a pull-down menu or by right-clicking on a cursor positioning device for displaying menu options for the user&#39;s selection. Thereafter, the user may be prompted to define settings for the data tag in a DEFINE SETTINGS FOR DATA TAG step  103 . The user may create a new data tag and assign it a value, or insert an existing data tag and modify its value, or insert an existing data tag without modifying its value. According to whether the user chooses to insert an existing data tag or a new data tag, the user may be presented with an appropriate window, such as those illustrated in FIG. 2A and 2B. FIG. 2A shows a pop-up window for creating new data tags, where the user specifies a new data tag name, assigns a tag value and selects a database for storing the new data tag. FIG. 2B shows a pop-up window for selecting a data tag from existing data tags. It may also allow a user to modify the tag value of a selected data tag. When a data tag value has been modified, an API call is made to store the newly modified data tag-value pair in the appropriate database.  
         [0022]    In the present invention, the database is generally one of personal database, local organization database and global organization database. The relationships among these databases are illustrated in FIG. 3. A personal database  330   a ,  330   b ,  330   c ,  330   d  generally refers to a database that is accessible only by a user, though it may sometimes be accessed or shared with a few other users who have been granted such permissions. Local organization database  302  generally refers to a shared database that enables a small group of users typically in a same geography, to access it. Global organization database  310  generally refers to shared database that is accessible by a larger group of users typically from different geographies  302 ,  304 ,  306 , for example, employees of a multinational corporation.  
         [0023]    After the DEFINE SETTINGS FOR DATA TAG step  103 , the data tag is inserted in the message and displayed as an indicium in a DISPLAY INDICIUM FOR DATA TAG step  104 . The indicium is typically arranged at the cursor position where the user had initiated the insertion of the data tag, as shown in FIG. 4. The indicium may be in the form of an icon or highlighted text or the like. The current value of the data tag may also be retrieved from the database and displayed when a cursor is placed over it. When the sender has composed the message and initiated an action to send the message, the message is transmitted as known in the art in a TRANSMIT E-MAIL MESSAGE step  105  of FIG. 1. The data tag embedded in the message body is represented as Hyper Text Marked-up Language (HTML) tags to indicate that it is a tag-value pair instead of plain text.  
         [0024]    At the recipient&#39;s end, the message containing the data tag is received and read by the recipient in a RECEIVE AND READ MESSAGE step  106 . If the e-mail viewer of the recipient is data tag-value enabled, the data tag and value are displayed as an indicium  402 ,  404  as illustrated in FIG. 4. The indicium  402 ,  404  may be accessed to retrieve its respective most current value from the database. If the e-mail viewer of the recipient is not data tagvalue enabled, the user-specified value of the data tag is displayed as text which describes the value specified by the sender.  
         [0025]    If the sender has stored the data tag in his personal database, or if the sender has stored the data tag in a local organization database to which the recipient is not a member, the data tag is, at this point, not yet stored in any database accessible to the recipient. In order to retrieve the data tag-value pair at a later time, it is necessary for the recipient to store the data tag to his personal database or a local or global organization database in a STORE DATA TAG VALUE PAIR step  107 . If the data tag already exists in the selected database, the recipient may also be accorded permission to overwrite existing data tag value. Alternatively, the sender may select a different database for storing the data tag-value pair. However, if the sender has stored the data tag in a local organization or global organization database accessible to the recipient, it is not necessary for the recipient to store it again.  
         [0026]    The above-mentioned databases may be implemented in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) format as known in the art, for accessing the database in the organization network. The databases may contain information on data tag name, a history of data tag values, date of creating each data tag, creator of the data tag, date of last modification of data tag and permission information. The databases may be indexed in any standard indexing mechanism such as Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), binary tree, hash or the like for organizing and retrieving data.  
         [0027]    When a data tag-value pair is created, it is accessible to authorized users of the database in which the data tag-value pair is stored in an ACCESS DATA TAG VALUE PAIR step  108 . Preferably, the data tag-value pair is accessed from the e-mail editor, such as, (1) by placing a cursor over an indicium  402 ,  404  in the message body to retrieve a tag value (see FIG. 5) or (2) by providing a window to select and retrieve a tag value (see FIG. 6) or the like. The retrieval of data tag values are enabled by making API calls to access an appropriate database. The former method allows a user to retrieve a current data tag value while reading a less recent message in a series of messages relating to the subject of the data tag. Referring to FIG. 5, it is noted that the callout box  406  shows a most current value of a data tag “E-wallet meeting”  402  while the message of FIG. 5 is actually a less recent message. In the latter method, a user in the midst of any task unrelated to the subject of a data tag or in an application external of the e-mail editor may easily access a tag value or a most current value by invoking an appropriate window as shown in FIG. 6 to enter his search criteria for retrieving the data tag and its value therefrom. With this menu option, it is not necessary to locate a message relating to the subject matter of a data tag and opening the message to access the indicium for retrieving the tag value. It also not necessary to access a most recent message on a subject to retrieve a most current value of a data tag associated with the subject.  
         [0028]    The data tags may have several other instances inserted in other messages, where the data tags have been assigned different values in the messages. These instances may be represented by similar indicia. When each of these indicia is accessed, the most current value of the different values is retrieved from the database where the data tag values are stored. Alternatively, two of more of the different values may be retrieved from the database.  
         [0029]    [0029]FIG. 6 illustrates a window which allows a user to search for data tag-value pair by entering an appropriate search criteria in a “Enter tag name to search” field  602  or similar fields. Alternatively, the data tag may be accessed by first selecting an appropriate database and searching among existing data tags for the required tag.