WO2008135408A1 - Method for the automatic integration of at least one item of information related to a scheduled event into a personal information manager - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for the automatic integration of at least one item of information related to a scheduled event into a personal information manager, in which: a profile of the manager user is established by analysing information contained in the manager; the profile and the information contained in the scheduled event are combined; information is required for at least one database depending on the aforementioned combination; and the information found is integrated as information related to the scheduled event.

Description

 METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY INTEGRATING INTO PIM MANAGER AT LEAST ONE INFORMATION RELATED TO AN EVENT.

The invention relates to a method for automatically integrating in a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager, and this according to a profile of the user.

The invention also relates to an application for automatically integrating in a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager.

Users of computer terminals typically use a PIM (Personal Information Manager) manager to organize their activities using the electronic calendar function that said manager integrates in a user-friendly manner.

When these users wish to obtain information corresponding to their personal tastes and / or the activities they wish to carry out, they must proceed to a voluntary approach of consulting databases, especially on the Internet.

In addition, some Internet sites offer PIM manager update services by integrating into these PIM managers information relating to a defined domain (for example, the concert dates of a specific group).

The shortcoming of this service lies in the fact that the PIM manager is completed only by a specific request from the user and is only within the limits of this particular request, since no related information is integrated into the application. 'electronic agenda. The user who wishes to obtain other information must make a special request to this service or carry out a search on its own initiative.

At the same time, companies wishing to communicate about their activities, products and / or services send information and advertising information to current or potential customers. To do this, these companies must set up databases of contact persons on the basis of approximate and / or limited criteria.

These companies, which do not have access to users' personal information, such as those included in their PIM managers, can not therefore be in optimal alignment with the personal tastes and activities of these users.

Thus, there is no solution allowing users as well as businesses to use PIM managers to receive in a user-friendly and dynamic general information or commercial in line with their interests.

The invention aims to overcome the problems of the prior art by proposing a method for automatically integrating in a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager.

For this purpose, and according to a first aspect, the invention proposes a method for automatically integrating into a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager, said method providing:

to establish a profile of the user of the manager by analyzing information contained in said manager;

- to establish a combination between this profile and information contained in the planned event; to require, in at least one database, information according to the combination established;

- to integrate the information found as related information of the planned event.

According to a second aspect, the invention proposes an application for integrating automatically into a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager, said application comprising: means for establishing a profile of the manager's user by analyzing information contained in said manager;

means for requesting, in at least one database, information according to the combination established;

means for integrating the information found as related information of the planned event.

Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent in the description which follows.

The invention relates to a method for automatically integrating in a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager. The integration in the manager can be carried out either directly or via a module communicating with the manager.

In a PIM manager, the scheduled events are typically represented in a calendar indicating a set of textual information relating to said event. Therefore, the PIM manager includes information relating to the activities, both personal and professional, that the user has arranged in said PIM manager, and therefore for which the user has an interest. According to the method, the information relating to past events that are arranged in the PIM manager is analyzed in order to determine the interests of the user and thus create his profile (so-called profiling step in English).

This profile is automatically updated periodically in relation to the textual information of events arranged in the past. Thus, by analyzing past events, the profile remains dynamic and in line with the new elements that the user could integrate into his PIM manager.

In a conventional manner, the user organizes in his PIM manager a present or future event. The method provides for a combination to be established between the user's profile and the information elements contained in the scheduled event. The crossing of these data aims to find information related to these different elements, information that is of interest to the user with respect to the event planned while corresponding to his general tastes.

The combination provides a result that combines these different elements. A request is then transmitted to an external database, in particular available via the Internet, in order to obtain information relating to at least one event corresponding to the result of the combination.

For example, if the planned event is a planned trip to Italy and the user's profile indicates that the user likes to visit museums, the related event detected by the database, following the request, could to be the references of an exhibition on Italy.

Information about the related event obtained at the database level is transmitted to the PIM manager. This information is integrated into the PIM so as to appear automatically within a window of said PIM manager. Thus, the user has a PIM manager automatically completed and can view at the corresponding date the event related to the scheduled event.

Regarding the application according to the invention, it can incorporate means allowing the user to accept or refuse the implementation of the method to make suggestions in his manager.

Claims

A method for automatically integrating into a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager, said method providing:

to establish a profile of the user of the manager by analyzing information contained in said manager;

- to establish a combination between this profile and information contained in the planned event;

to require, in at least one database, information according to the combination established;

- to integrate the information found as related information of the planned event.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information to establish the profile of the user is textual information relating to both personal and professional activities.

The method of claim 2, wherein the textual information relates to events arranged in the past to establish a general profile of said user.

4. The method of claim 1 to 3, wherein the established profile is updated periodically to obtain a dynamic profile in line with the events integrated by the user in the manager.

The method of claim 1 to 4, wherein the combining is performed by crossing data from the profile with information contained in the scheduled event.

The method of claim 1 to 5, wherein the scheduled event is a present or future event integrated into the manager by the user.

The method of claim 1 to 6, wherein the request is transmitted to an external database to obtain at least one event corresponding to the result of the combination.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the event obtained is transmitted to the manager, said event appearing in a window of the manager as related information of the event arranged.

9. Application for automatically integrating in a personal information manager at least one information related to an event arranged in said manager, said application comprising:

means for establishing a profile of the user of the manager by analyzing information contained in said manager; means for requesting, in at least one database, information according to the combination established;

means for integrating the information found as related information of the planned event.