Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
  • G06Q10/10—Office automation; Time management
  • G06Q10/109—Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Definitions

• the present invention describes an intelligent electronic personal assistant making it possible to assist a user in the management of his daily tasks from a plurality of places, for example, his personal accommodation, his office and his portable device.
• This assistant is particularly interested in the problems posed by making appointments and managing the tasks of a user accessing heterogeneous information systems.
• This assistant allows, among other things, to process professional and personal user data by using intelligent modules / agents to manage this data, with the aim of confidentiality and ease of management. So far, these different data exist in heterogeneous worlds that do not communicate with each other.
• the university area interested in artificial intelligence is the most active concerning the automation of appointment scheduling without human intervention.
• intelligent agents are used in order to make decisions in place of the actors or their representative.
• the system in question here is not intended for making appointments without the user's prior consent, although this system may do so. It automates the process of making appointments with other players with their final agreement.
• This assistant One of the goals of this assistant is to establish better management of the timetable and in particular of appointments. It also improves the quality of work and especially meetings. People today are often overworked and do not have enough time to do their jobs. Meetings are organized but often unfortunately remain insufficiently prepared to allow effective work. People therefore have to meet again to discuss the same subjects. These subjects are most of the time badly prepared for lack of information and time. This assistant also aims to increase the quality of the meetings by helping to organize the work. This assistant makes it possible to establish real economies of scale in a company.
• Another purpose of this wizard is to create a hinge to allow users to manage their private and professional lives from a single system. The user therefore no longer needs to worry about managing private and professional data in parallel, fearing conflicts or trying to optimize the management of several work environments.
• the system innovates with the use of an interface where it is possible to manage parameters of the type relative importance of the invitation, relative importance of the guest, start of meeting, duration, time slot using fuzzy logic, constraints and preferences on dates and times, subject, comment, authorization to be disturbed during the meeting, delegate in case of non-assistance and finally of the type of strategy to apply to get an appointment.
• the material working environment • the communication environment (Internet, Intranet, GSM, UMTS, Bluetooth (registered trademark), various media such as computers permanently connected to an Intranet, the Internet, laptops, telephones, personal assistants, pagers occasionally connected to the networks mentioned above)
• an intelligent agent is in fact a computer program transporting data and is capable of "reasoning" insofar as it was created for this purpose.
• PASHA JJ Personal Assistant for Scheduling appointments, DF I diploma thesis, September 5, 1996, available on the Internet http://www.schmeier.de/work.htm
• PASHA II Personal Assistant for Scheduling Appointments
• This system allows to make appointments between participants taking into account their different constraints and preferences.
• PASHA II offers an option to choose the strategy to be applied when requesting an appointment.
• Each user has an agent communicating with his calendar, a manager of material resources and with other agents. no separation between professional and personal data. There is no coordinating agent managing a set of agents dedicated to other tasks.
• PASHA II no user profile taking into account the different locations of other data. They do not consider the query principle with fuzzy logic, or even a global system allowing agents to search the Internet for information concerning a meeting.
• Another parameter not taken into account by PASHA II is that only the CM Calendar Manager database developed by Sun Microsystems (registered trademark) is taken into account, there is no multi-source system and therefore no agents serving bridge between the different systems. The users must all have the same system and are therefore limited.
• PASHA H does not work on portable systems and does not take into account the different heterogeneous worlds in which users evolve.
• Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes do not offer ways to prioritize certain tasks. Nor do they have intelligent agents who automate the tasks done today manually.
• Microsoft Outlook software it is possible to publish data on an Internet page and make it accessible by communicating the address of the server on which the publication of users' availability is located. It is thus possible to know the schedule of a user if this one carried out the steps for. This software is therefore not suitable for assisting the user, but it does provide the basic building blocks on which our system is based.
• the aim of intelligent agents is to suppress intermediaries such as secretaries, and this is undoubtedly the main obstacle to the development of the systems using them.
• the present invention is based on other uses of agents because we believe that intelligent agents are intended to assist men i.e. to do all the work that can be automated and to leave decision-making to man.
• a standard is being developed by the Internet Society for using data from one application to another.
• iCalendar Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) (RFC 2445), iCalendar Transport Independent Interoperability Protocol (iTIP): Scheduling Events, Busy Time, To-dos and Journal Entries (RFC 2446) , iCalendar Message based interoperability Protocol (iMEP) (RFC 2447), Calendar attributes for vCard and LDAP (RFC 2739), Calendar Access Protocol (CAP) (draft-ietf-calsch-cap), Implementors' Guide to Internet Calendaring (draft- ietf- calsch-imp-guide), Fixing the iCalendar Registration Process (draft-stracke-calsch-ical-reviewer), CAP Realtime iTIP based Scheduling Profile (CRISP) (draft-stracke-calsch-crisp).
• CRISP Realtime iT
• Patent application EP0917077 entitled “Wireless remote synchronization of data between PC and PDA”, offers a solution to connect devices to each other and to the network so that intelligent agents can obtain information to implement the system.
• Patent application EP0921670 entitled “Electronic Scheduling devices”, allows you to make appointments remotely using your phone. This system uses voicemail and e-mail.
• Patent application EP0697671 entitled “Electronic secretary System” can also be used to show that a telephone interface representing a secretary is an element that the telephone call management agent will use in our system.
• Patent application WO99 / 21101 allowing to connect or disconnect a portable telephone according to the importance of the caller during a meeting and this by using a graphical user interface.
• the patent US6065138 presents a system listening to the user and the patent US5579238 presents a system for studying the force with which a user hits the keyboard.
• the intelligent agents responsible for managing the user's work environment to find out if he has a camera for video conferencing, a microphone to interface with a voice recognition module and other devices, it will be possible to find information in the document entitled "Intelligent multi-modal Systems" written by KC Tsui et al, published in BT technical journal vol 16 No3 July 1998.
• agents for making appointments some information is available on the following site: http://www.es.
• Multimodal user interfaces in the open agent architecture written by Douglas B Moran et al, and published on January 6, 1997 proposes the global principle of using intelligent agents with PDAs to manage its calendar.
• the user can interact with other users but in fact he keeps his own data in a single database.
• JJ does not distinguish between his personal database and his professional database. JJ therefore has no confidentiality from the point of view of an external user.
• a user profile is never taken into account to specify where to get the data and the type of agent to use to accomplish the task.
• Figure 1 shows the system as a whole, the different modules or agents that make up the entire system as well as the different environments in which the system is designed to operate.
• FIG. 2 represents more particularly examples of environments in which the system assists the users.
• Figure 3 shows the different steps used to make an appointment.
• Figure 4 shows the approach taken by the intelligent electronic personal assistant to solve the task of making appointments.
• Figure 5 shows the interface for making appointments.
• Figure 6 shows the graphical user interface of the intelligent electronic personal assistant.
• Figure 1 shows the concept of the invention highlighted. The following concept is based on the interaction between intelligent agents dedicated to solving the tasks of users working in heterogeneous environments.
• the modules or intelligent agents are represented by the elements 1000 to 1017.
• the different 1000-1017 modules can interact with different networks: intranet 1600, GSM 1500 RTC 1400, UMTS 1300 in future years, Internet 1200 and other 1100 networks like palmnet (registered trademark) or pager network or the ISDN network which is not mentioned in FIG.
• XML is not yet implemented for data exchanges between the various systems mentioned above.
• Microsoft uses OLE for example.
• the data registered in a proprietary database is not directly accessible.
• a user can have several differentiated databases on several different types of platforms as we have just presented. For example, the user can have a professional base 1611 on his workstation 1610, and a personal base 1621 on his PDA 1620.
• the professional base can be synchronized on the network (Intranet or Internet) automatically, and accessible to all.
• the personal database on the other hand, is simply replicated regularly on the network and will only be accessible to him alone and to his personal agent. It may also not be replicated at all. It is of course necessary that the system can access the information contained in both professional and personal databases, or at least indications relating to the content of these databases.
• a user profile 1005 is created. This profile 1005 is different from the profile 1004 which aims to learn the behavior of the user.
• This first profile 1005 contains at least the data essential for the functioning of the system:
• profile 1004 may also include other information which may be of interest for improving the performance, efficiency, flexibility and ergonomics of the system. For example, we can very well consider integrating the information on the user's working time slots. The system can therefore dispense with consulting the personal database during working hours, if the user has defined his personal database as being only accessible for appointments outside working hours. We can also integrate a list of people (contacts) and a series of weights as to the relative importance of these people and the behavior of the system when faced with an urgent request for an appointment. you from one of these. You can also program the system to respond to appointment requests automatically based on the requester. All this information is shared between the two types of profiles 1004 and 1005.
• an agent is a process in a multitasking environment. This agent has different states. These states change based on interaction with other agents.
• the agent is programmed to have a goal based on the profile of its user. It is not possible from the outside to know the behavior of an agent.
• the agents exchange messages with each other.
• the agents representative of each user are attentive to any change in the databases to which modifications take place.
• the main program runs on a 1230 and / or 1640 server.
• the system can also run on each workstation 1210, 1220, 1610, 1630. Some modules can run on servers and others on workstations.
• the coordinating agent 1000 From the resource profile, it is possible for the coordinating agent 1000 to know the places where he must fetch the data and possibly the resources such as intelligent agents to perform the various tasks which he has to solve.
• the coordinating agent 1000 is located on the internal server of a company 1640, on an Internet server 1230 or even on a mobile device of the PDA 1620 type. This coordinating agent 1000 communicates with a set of intelligent agents and a user profile 1005 previously mentioned.
• This coordinating agent 1000 exchanges with other agents 1001-1017 information in a standard data exchange format, for example of XML type, coordinating and managing: The detection and the type of connection that the user uses, module 1001 calendars and making appointments, module 1002 contacts, module 1003 e-mails, module 1012 telephone calls, module 1013 faxes, module 1011 tasks to be carried out, module 1008 memos, implemented in the agenda module 1002 information retrieval on the Internet, module 1016 information retrieval on the intranet, module 1010 user performance level , module 1009 material resources of the type of rooms to be allocated for a meeting, module 1006 material resources of the type of office equipment required (projector or other), module 1006 non-material resources such as ordering refreshments from a specialized establishment , module 1018 (not shown in FIG.
• module 1017 the purchases of the user in the event of online purchases on the Internet. work environment peripherals
• module 1007 (this can also be a separate module) the communication environment (Internet, Intranet, GSM, UMTS, Palmnet, Bluetooth, pagers and others), module 1007 user profiles for behavior and preferences, module 1004 technical profiles for resource uses such as databases or previously mentioned modules, module 1005 user knowledge management, module 1014 the appearance of the graphical user window, module 1015
• connection detection agent and its type
• An agent is used to detect if a user is connected to the system, thereby communicating to the coordinating agent the authorization to transmit messages intended for the latter.
• This module also makes it possible to detect the type of connection such as the connection from a PDA, a workstation on the Intranet or the Internet, his personal workstation connected to the Intranet or to the Internet or from a phone. Knowing the type of connection allows the coordinating agent to transmit the messages in an appropriate form optimizing the reception of data depending on the medium. This is very useful when you are connected with a PDA for example and the capacities of the machine are limited. Naturally, it is not very useful to transmit information which cannot be well interpreted by the user. This therefore makes it possible to communicate with the user in an appropriate manner.
• This agent is used to manage the activations of other agents to obtain responses to the requests requested. Its role is very special. It is programmed in Java (registered trademark) although it is not a unique solution from the moment when another programming language manages processes in parallel. Today the various agents are programmed in Java because Java is portable and allows the execution of processes in parallel.
• This agent uses a database which stores user profiles such as the location of data on possible calendars and other resources seen previously. The coordinating agent is the one who calls other agents to obtain the data enabling him to manage the entire system.
• XI is the bridge between all the modules and the different architectures. This agent also accesses data on the user and informs other modules such as the one managing e-mails.
• the coordinating agent requests requests of the style: searches for information on this appointment ..., then the search agent executes the search, having as parameter what the coordinating agent passed him. The response of this search agent is then given and the coordinating agent determines whether it is necessary to initiate an appointment for an interval of time sufficient to allow the user time to read the information collected.
• this agent will employ another agent who will determine according to the least significant stress moments calculated in relation to the activity of the user the right time to reserve time for reading and possibly responding to emails. This function will be defined later. The same goes for telephone calls that must be listened to and that are in the voice mailbox. This agent also allows you to manage the level of interruption that the user is ready to accept during an appointment or during a task. that it performs on a predefined time slot. This agent also makes it possible to manage in the background the interactions with memos themselves managed in the agenda management and appointment scheduling module. These memos can relate to user-defined durations and concern certain working environments and not others.
• the coordinating agent also calls on a database containing the actions to be carried out to carry out the tasks requested by the user. For example if a user wants to organize a meal with another user then the list will contain the following information, for example:
• the agent managing the activities of the user will take care of performing the tasks related to the list provided by the coordinating agent. It will be possible to organize a reservation by Internet the day when the infrastructure will allow it.
• the same suggestion can be taken into account for a user wishing to go on vacation or weekend somewhere and require information on a certain destination, on certain travel agencies, on their offers. It is also necessary to be able to contact the agendas of people who may be interested, such as the partner's agenda in the life of the user or that of the school to find out if there are outings already offered for children during these periods.
• the user profile is indeed one of the only solutions for knowing where to get personal data relating to the user.
• the coordinating agent can also be used to send requests to interact with the agent managing the user's activities, for example, the reservation of means of transport. It can also give for example the state of traffic at a given time and at a given location.
• the main role of the coordinating agent is to issue requests and evaluate the responses to make decisions on the actions to be taken.
• the coordinating agent can also be used to compare offers. It can be used to program videoconferences and to configure them.
• This agent also serves to specify to a secretary that 200 photocopies of a special document must be made for the scheduled appointment at a given time. This officer is responsible for updating the secretary's to-do list. Automatically, refreshments can be ordered for this meeting according to the tastes of the participants. • Using the agent to manage the scheduling of appointments
• the intelligent electronic personal assistant will negotiate with other personal agents or other agents representative of other personal assistants intelligent electronics of the people in question and will initiate a negotiation process taking into account various constraints such as the relative importance of the appointment taker compared to the different people contacted, relative priorities of the time slot, place, object of the meeting, relative priorities of material resources such as the availability of rooms to organize the meeting, the availability of the material to be assigned to this meeting.
• the agents questioned for making appointments have certain characteristics, such as managing entries using fuzzy logic.
• Another interesting parameter of the system is that it keeps all data concerning users private. It is the agents among themselves who, after negotiation, will arrive at an arrangement.
• agents can interface with different systems accessing different databases.
• the agents are chosen from an agent database having agents intended to operate under different operating systems.
• intelligent agents as an aid to users or as an aid to secretaries representing people like managers of companies or people with an overloaded timetable in which a optimization based on different criteria such as the importance of the people with whom an appointment must be made, the time slot, the place, the subject, the importance of the subject of the appointment will make everyone happy.
• the agent system is interactive with data on the user and his behavior in order to find the agent who will give him the answers to his requests.
• the agents do not currently make a decision about making an appointment. They exchange data then when all the data is compatible with the agenda of the people, that the priorities and importance are respected, a choice is proposed to the users at the end of the process negotiation. They must validate the result of negotiation between agents so that the agents update the different databases specific to each person who has been contacted.
• Agents are also used to manage the contact database. Contacts can be divided into a plurality of areas including the professional area and the personal area. The role of these agents is to get all the contact information of people to keep the contact lists up to date. If necessary, this agent will go to a database located on the internet to go and ask for the business card of the people to meet. Again, contacts are not necessarily saved in the same places. Also these places are not necessarily homogeneous in their storage format. For example, updating your contacts from a contact list stored on the Internet can be automated using these agents. This list could contain all the elements relating to contacts, for example a list of Ncard (electronic business card of a person in electronic format). This list could be located on the Internet or on a company's internal network. This list does not exist today when it would be necessary.
• Ncard electronic business card of a person in electronic format
• These agents are used to manage e-mails for filtering according to the importance of the e-mail in relation to its content in order to be able to specify for example to the user whether an e-mail should be read urgently or whether he can wait.
• Mail can come from several addresses. It is the agents who take care of reading messages and sorting them. If an email arrives and it is related to a close appointment then it is noted to read soon, when there are several "soon" to read then the system reserves a time slot of a few minutes to read these e-mails through the coordinating agent. A color code distinguishes the origin and importance of the mail processed.
• This email management agent uses the data of the header, the addresses of the recipients if there are several and the subject of the email to define priorities to be given.
• agents manage the user's mailbox and telephone calls.
• the calls can come from the personal environment or the professional environment. Certain calls according to their origin are judged important or not and according to this importance are intercepted to be sent either on the user station or on their voice mailbox.
• An agent of this agent type makes use of the information contained in the other databases relating to the types of appointment in which the user is currently present or in relation to his possibility of being interrupted. If the incoming call is screened, the agent answers for example to the caller that the person cannot be disturbed. This type of agents has the role of handling all objects relating to telephone calls.
• This agent makes it possible to perform filtering functions on faxes according to the environment in which they must be considered.
• This agent makes it possible to divert certain private faxes from a main machine to print them, so that the user can keep the confidentiality of the data of these faxes.
• the faxes are temporarily stored in a memory and are sent for printing when the user wishes.
• the agents can examine the content of the faxes and warn the coordinating agent that the user must be given a certain amount of time to read these faxes, perhaps before an appointment.
• This agent is an agent which makes it possible to manage tasks by going to interact with a list of operations to be carried out to accomplish a task. Depending on these various operations, the system will allocate time to the user to perform the actions to be performed. A list of actions to be carried out depending on the task is found in one of the databases that the user can access because the address of this database is found in the resource database 1021.
• This agent is used to manage user memos in relation to these activities.
• Memos are information valid for a period predefined by the user. They must help him during the validation phase of making an appointment. These memos can be posted periodically to prevent the user from forgetting. However, the frequency of recall of these memos will vary depending on the actions that the user performs. The user can define the period of validity of these memos and also the context in which they must appear, for example the personal environment or the professional environment.
• agents to search for information on the Internet or the Intranet Agents are used to fetch information on the Internet or on the Intranet when a user needs information on the subject of a Appointment. An agent is launched in search of information on the Intranet site or on the Internet.
• the various information found is stored in a file and a time slot preceding the meeting will be reserved for reading this file.
• the search agents take into account the history of the searches carried out previously in order to be able to obtain the information desired by the user. These search agents are used to manage the classification of certain documents necessary for users.
• Tasks requiring very little stress are, for example, reading unimportant emails, telephone interviews with people with whom the importance of not missing their interview is paramount.
• the appointment scheduling agent will advise against making certain appointments at known time periods representing a moment of stress where the user is less efficient, all of course taking into account all of the constraints recorded in the system. This agent communicates fully with the agent managing the multi-mode interface.
• agents for the management of equipment
• Other agents are considered to manage equipment profiles such as the timetable of the equipment or the allocation of rooms or even their condition, if they require repairs. , maintenance, cleaning, upkeep or specific preparation before a particular appointment.
• agents The purpose of these agents is to order refreshments from a specialized establishment and to reserve a person to serve during a meeting with many participants, for example. • Using agents to manage user activity
• This agent is responsible for taking all data relating to online purchases, paying for transport tickets for a user according to the ruser profile, ie a user may want to buy a business class ticket if it is for his work and an economy class ticket if it is for his personal use. Once the booking process has been established, the agent will ask the user to confirm their purchase by entering the information to authorize payment. This agent is responsible for managing your purchases and notifies the user of the status of his purchases. This agent also manages the secure payment of purchases by making it possible for the merchant to view the buyer's data and by exchanging confidential information with his agent in encrypted form.
• This agent has the role of examining the working and communication environment. It is in a way a module interacting with a multi-mode interface. If a user has a camera, the agent will ask the user to be able to view it to determine his state of fatigue using other agents or if the user has a microphone then he will be offered to interface with the intelligent electronic personal assistant by entering voice commands.
• a voice recognition or manual character recognition module using the stylus of a portable device for example or with an electronic slate connected to the computer and having the user interface above, can be used for the entering information.
• the module managing the peripheral environment includes a multi-mode interface making it possible to manage the data when it is entered using the voice or through images when a camera is used.
• the camera is used to convert data in the form of images into digital data that can be processed by the user state module 1009.
• this agent manages the various peripherals adapted to interact with the system. Some printers will surely be more suited than others to do a job for example, depending on their speed. If a document is to be printed confidentially then this agent will initiate the print job to a local printer. • Use of agents for the management of the communication environment
• the user will not be offered the same services as regards the capacities and speed of execution of the processing of certain tasks. If the bandwidth is low and the central system has a lot of interactions to establish with a personal database then the system will ask the user to connect preferably with a system with more data exchange capacities.
• the database 1021 gives indications on the addresses of the various servers making it possible to respond to requests.
• FIG. 2 represents different examples of use of the invention.
• a user can connect from a workstation 201 or 202 or even a laptop 203 via the Intranet 220 to the system.
• the 241 agents are located on a server internal to the company. It is possible to connect from laptop 262, 263 or from PDA palrn pilot for example 261, 264.
• the difference between versions 261,262 on the one hand and 263, 264 on the other hand is the fact that link modules reside on remote machines to access the system.
• the downloading of a user interface is shown in the case where it is not possible to install a personal link module on the supports.
• a WAP interface is quite possible in this case.
• Figure 3 shows the steps for making an appointment.
• a lot of constraints have to be managed and that is why agents are very useful.
• the essential advantage of the multi-agent system is that the data is only accessible by intermediary agents, ie if an agent asks a person if an appointment is programmable then the agent of the person in question will answer only yes or no but will not provide any data on the calendar of the person in question as to whether a time slot is taken for personal reasons or for any other reasons.
• the agent can also suggest another solution for holding the meeting.
• Regarding the constraints provided to the request we note that it is very interesting to manage the constraints on material or real estate resources in parallel with the constraints from the participants.
• the people contacted will each have agents who will respond to requests from the initiating agent. At a certain point, a solution suitable for all participants will be found and then the result of the search will be sent to everyone for validation. Since the agents will have to fetch data sometimes located on another device such as a personal computer or a mobile phone or a PDA presented in Figure 2, the agents must have a module allowing them to communicate with these devices . For the moment the TCP / TP module implemented in the agents allows the transport of information.
• an actor 301 initiates an appointment request by specifying the fields defined in FIG. 5. Once the request has been made, the coordinating agent will interrogate the various databases 312, 313 and 3 14 of each invited and inviting participant. Once the metadata has been acquired, the coordinating agent will negotiate with the intelligent agents of the guests in order to find time slots available for each and satisfying everyone's preferences and constraints. Once the time slots have been selected, a validation request is sent to all participants asking for their agreement, knowing that the time slot (s) offered by the system are already satisfactory. If all respond positively then an update order for user databases is placed. If a negative answer, then the system resumes a negotiation or cancels everything according to the strategy which had been selected initially.
• FIG 4 shows what the coordinator module does to acquire data on resources.
• This coordinator module informs the appointment management module 401 of the addresses of the databases to which to send the requests.
• the profiles database 402 returns these addresses.
• the appointment scheduling module then sends requests 423 to the various servers 407 and 408 to obtain information concerning the users involved.
• This abstraction module generally allows access to heterogeneous sleep systems such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes.
• FIG. 5 represents a view of the user interface 500 concerning the scheduling of appointments.
• a user has a user interface in front of him on his mobile or fixed terminal.
• H is defined with the system as master or slave user. Master means that he has all the rights on his personal electronic assistant and slave means that the rights of the user of the agent system are reduced, in the case of a secretary representing a person for example.
• the user initiates an appointment booking request for example by defining the name of the people to contact 508, 509 or a type of person to meet 510, for example “quality manager”, their possible importance in relation to the requester 511, a date 514, 515 or a date range 518, 519, 520 defined according to the principle of fuzzy logic (approximately around 10 h, duration of approximately 1 hour) using mathematical functions.
• the user enters through the same time the start of the appointment 523, 524 as well as its duration 527, 528.
• the user also defines the place 532, 533 with a relative priority in relation to the criteria 534 and a relative precision 535 also defined by the principle of fuzzy logic. Constraints and preferences regarding time data are of the same type as other preferences and constraints.
• the user does the same for information on rooms and equipment.
• the user also defines a subject 541 for the appointment as well as parameters which seem important to him 544.
• the user interface can be modified to take into account what the user wishes to appear as parameters. This interface can therefore be simpler or more complex, it is up to the users. Users can choose from four 545 strategies for requesting an appointment:
• FIG. 6 represents a graphical user interface 600 operating on the platforms on which the user works.
• the user interface is adapted to the medium. It can either be implemented on the medium, or downloaded from a server, or be a dynamic Internet page.
• the use of mobile intelligent agents is not excluded in order to be able to execute code on the remote machine which connects and which must serve as support for the user to use his intelligent personal electronic assistant.
• This interface has different windows where the results of certain agents are visible, such as the fax 609, telephone 610 and e-mail 611 agents.
• This interface can be completely personalized. Users can choose the windows they decide to get quickly within sight.
• This interface offers to visualize the different environments in which the users are likely to evolve. In this interface, through the file menu it is planned to give an option allowing you to visualize your own work rate, to visualize what you do to better manage your actions.
• This functionality increases in value when it is possible to visualize the work carried out over a long period and to compare with what the system would have proposed to optimize productivity. The principle is based somewhat on the same foundations as software allowing you to visualize your expenses to control your budget. Here, the budget is not only financial but much more temporal. The time and the quality of the management of its working environment are the values on which this system finds all its power.
• a final remark characterizing the system concerns the contact of users.
• Some systems use email to send messages between agents.
• the agents of the present system it is possible to ensure that when a user of a portable device connects to the network, a process makes it possible initially to exchange information concerning various possibilities of taking Appointment.
• the process brings up a window on the user's screen asking him to validate a proposed appointment resulting from a negotiation between the agents taking into account the information collected. by the agent during the first connection.
• a concrete case of our system gives all the power of the intelligent electronic personal assistant.
• a boss who has small children he uses a nanny to babysit every day because his / her life partner also works every day.
• JJ receives the information from the nanny that she will be unavailable the next day when he already has an appointment scheduled. In this case it is necessary to arrange the agendas to warn everyone and find a solution.
• the intelligent electronic personal assistant will take into account the request for absence of the nanny initiated by the boss from either a phone, his PDA or his PC connected to Internet
• a liaison officer works who will contact the coordinating agent on the Intranet. This first searches for resource data.
• a telephone call management agent located on the Intranet will contact his own coordinating agent through his telephone agent. Once the coordinating agent is contacted, he is responsible for contacting the agent managing the contacts to find the data relating to the user with whom the boss wants to cancel an appointment. The latter will return data such as telephone number, e-mail address to the coordinating agent. Then this agent will ask a call management agent to send a message to the person or will ask an email management agent to send an appointment cancellation message. The person will thus avoid traveling the next day for nothing which could not have been the case if it had been necessary to wait the next morning for the presence of a secretary to contact the person in question.
• the agents will negotiate a future meeting opportunity with each other.
• several agents involved in the canceled appointment will be summoned to update any data relating to the appointment that was in question, to modify the timetable for the equipment or the rooms, etc.
• Another advantage of the general system is that it provokes meetings which until then did not take place for lack of good organization. Take the case of people working on several sites but around the same project. If a person X belonging to site 1 comes once a week to site 2 and must meet several people Y and Z belonging to site 2, and people do not have a secretary to make their appointment for them and that they are not often available to make an appointment, so it is likely that it will take several weeks for people to meet. The case is even more obvious when a group meeting is attempted. With the system, everyone's respective schedules are optimized, and the final gain for people and for the product that requires validation by different people will see its delivery times shortened.

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