Patent ID: 7725549

Claim:
A method to be executed on a sender side of a mail management application, said method comprising: a processor of a data processing system at the sender side receiving an identification of selected recipients of an electronic mail (e-mail) to whom the e-mail is to be sent and from whom a response to the e-mail is expected within a predetermined period of time; said processor sending the e-mail to the selected recipients; said processor identifying among the selected recipients, a plurality of non-responsive recipients who have not yet responded to the e-mail at expiration of the predetermined period of time; said processor sending a hunt out message by e-mail to each non-responsive recipient of the selected recipients, each non-responsive recipient having not yet responded to the e-mail at expiration of the predetermined period of time; and said processor recording, in tables stored in a storage device of the data processing system, mail information relating to the e-mail and the hunt out message sent to each non-responsive recipient; said method further comprising: setting for each selected recipient of the e-mail, a response status indicating that a response is expected from each of the selected recipients, said recorded mail information comprising said response status; updating a response status indicating that a first response to the e-mail has been received from a first recipient of the selected recipients, said first response having content therein; determining whether or not the content of the received first response is content expected by a sender of the e-mail at the sender side; and if said determining determines that the content of the received first response is not the content expected by the sender of the e-mail, then updating a response status indicating that a response has not been received from the first recipient; if said determining determines that the content of the received response is the content expected by the sender of the e-mail, then updating a response status indicating that a response has been received from the first recipient.