Patent ID: 8125659

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: a setting unit configured to set a plurality of disclosure boxes which is a predetermined area in a storage unit and to transmit image data stored in the predetermined area to a connected image forming apparatus; the storage unit configured to store table information including a start date of disclosure, an end date of the disclosure and a disclosure target as a destination of the disclosure for each of the plurality of disclosure boxes, wherein a disclosure condition is set in image data stored in the disclosure boxes and the storage unit stores a start date of disclosure as a disclosure condition for disclosing the image data; a transmission unit configured to transmit the table information stored by the storage unit to the connected image forming apparatus, wherein, in a case where the start date of disclosure for the image data is earlier than a start date of disclosure for a disclosure box in which the image data is stored, the transmission unit transmits information indicating that the image data is stored in the image forming apparatus to the connected image forming apparatus prior to transmitting the table information, and wherein range information of a disclosure date range for each of the plurality of the disclosure boxes based on the transmitted table information is displayed by the connected image forming apparatus and the information indicating that the image data is stored in the image forming apparatus transmitted prior to the transmitted table information is displayed before the transmitted table information is displayed; a determination unit configured to determine, when a transmission request for image data stored in a specific disclosure box is sent from the connected image forming apparatus displaying the range information, whether or not a transmission date in the transmission request is within a disclosure date range of the specific disclosure box based on the stored information of the start date and the end date of the disclosure, wherein the determination unit determines whether or not information on a source of the transmission request is in information on the disclosure target included in the table information; and a transmission control unit configured to control such that the image data stored in the specific disclosure box is transmitted to the connected image forming apparatus when the information on the source of the transmission request is in the information on the disclosure target included in the table information and the transmission date in the transmission request is determined to be within the disclosure date range of the specific disclosure box, and otherwise to control such that processing is ended without transmitting the requested image data to the connected image forming apparatus.