JPH064540A - Conference scheduling system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a conference scheduling system which can select the date and time when the number of absent members is reduced with no omission of important members. CONSTITUTION:A work station 1 includes a user list acquiring means 4 which acquires a user list from a schedule data base 3 included in a host computer 2, an expected member selector means 7 which selects the important members based on the selection information on the expected members which is displayed on an output device 5 and inputted by an input device 6 based on the user list, a per-month vacant member number acquiring means 8 which calculates the total number of members for each unit time from the data on the vacant time obtained for each unit time of each date in one month for all expected members, a one-month vacant member number display means 9 which displays the total number of members acquired by the means 8 and then decides the date and the start time of a conference, a conference information input means 10 which receives the conference information, and a conference schedule register means 11 which registers the conference information into the data base 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a conference scheduling system, and more particularly to a conference scheduling system for scheduling a conference by prioritizing the schedule of important members when there is no free time zone.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional conference scheduling method has been performed according to the procedure described below.

When an operator gives an instruction to start conference scheduling from a workstation, a conference scheduling program (hereinafter referred to as a scheduler) acquires user list data stored on a host computer and stores the user in the workstation. Display the list screen.
The operator selects multiple attendees from the user list screen. The scheduler stores the selected prospective attendees and displays a screen for inputting a desired due date range and a desired required time on the workstation. When the operator inputs the desired due date range and the desired duration, the scheduler reads the schedule of the attendees stored on the host computer, and all the attendees who have the desired duration or more within the desired due date range are available. Search for the time zone and display the free time zone list screen on the workstation. (As documents relating to these prior arts, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-24
When the operator selects a time zone from a list screen of free time zones, the scheduler displays a conference information input screen on the workstation. On the meeting information input screen, the date, start time and end time of the vacant time zone selected by the user are set as prescribed values. When the operator finishes inputting the conference name and the like, the scheduler adds the conference schedule to the schedule of all attendees on the host computer.

[0004]

According to the conventional conference scheduling method described above, since the conference cannot be set when no vacant time is found for all of the required time within the desired due date range, the scheduling of the conference can be started from the beginning. There is the problem of having to start over. In addition, in this case, the reason why the free time cannot be found is unknown, so it is difficult to determine which attendees should be removed when the attendees other than the important members are removed and try again, so it is necessary to repeat trial and error. There is also the problem of this.

An object of the present invention is to provide a conference scheduling system which can select a date and time when there are few absent persons without removing important members.

[0006]

The meeting scheduling system of the present invention is a computer system comprising a host computer and a workstation connected via a network, and attendance registered in a schedule database on the host computer. In a conference scheduling method that determines the date and time of the conference based on the schedule of the user, a user list acquisition unit that acquires a list of users of the schedule management system from the schedule database in the workstation, and a user list acquisition unit A list of users is displayed on the output device based on the obtained data, the selection information of the attendees of the meeting is received from the input device, and the important members who must attend the meeting from the attendees are selected. Select the attendee selection method and the previous For the one-month schedules of all the attendees selected by the attendee selection means, the free time data for each unit hour for each month for one month obtained from the schedule database is compared to determine the availability for each unit time. Based on the data obtained by the one month vacant person acquisition means for obtaining the total number of persons and the one month vacant person acquisition means, the vacant state for each unit time for one month is displayed on the output device, and the input device is displayed. From the vacant number display means for one month for receiving selection information of desired due date and start time from the desired meeting, and the selection information for meeting date and disclosure time received by the vacant number display means for one month to the output device. Based on the information displayed by the conference information input means for receiving the conference information such as the conference end time and the agenda from the input device, and the information received by the conference information input means, By providing a meeting schedule registration means for registering the schedule of each of the attendees in the schedule database, it is possible to search for the date and time at which important members can attend even if the free time of all the attendees for the desired time is not found. This is a configuration for determining the date and time of the meeting.

[0007]

The present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

In the workstation 1, the user list acquisition means 4 for acquiring the user list of the schedule management system from the schedule database 3 provided in the host computer 2 and the data acquired by the user list acquisition means 4 are stored. Based on this, a list of users is displayed on the output device 5 of the workstation 1, and the selection information of the attendees of the conference input by the operator from the input device 6 is received. Attendant selection means 7 for selecting the important members who should attend, and the schedule of all the attendees selected by the attendee selection means 7 The unit time for each day for one month acquired from the schedule database 3 A method for acquiring the number of vacant persons for one month based on the total number of vacant persons per unit time, together with free time data for each Based on the data obtained by the vacant person acquisition means 8 for one month, the vacant state per unit time for one month is displayed on the output device 5 of the workstation 1, and the operator is notified from the input device 6 to the output device 5. On the screen of, the one-month vacant number display means 9 for receiving selection information for selecting the desired meeting due date and start time, and the selection of the meeting due date and disclosure time received by the one-month vacant number display means 9 Meeting information input means 10 for displaying information on the output device 5 of the workstation 1 and allowing the operator to input the meeting information such as the ending time of the meeting and the agenda item from the input device 6, and receiving the meeting information input means 10. The meeting schedule registration means 11 is provided for registering the meeting schedule of each attendee in the schedule database 3 based on the information.

The user list acquisition means 4, the one-month free person acquisition means 8, and the conference schedule registration means 11 are client programs on the workstation 1, respectively, and are linked with the server program on the host computer. It works. That is, the client program issues a request to the server program via the network, the server program receiving the request accesses the schedule database 3 storing the user's schedule data in response to the request, and the result is the client program. It operates in the form of returning to.

Next, the operation will be described.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of processing of this embodiment. However, for convenience of explanation, a diagram showing the recording state of the attendee storage table is added. The names and reference numerals shown in FIG. 1 are used for the description.

First, when the operation is started, the user list acquisition means 4 searches all users who store the schedule in the schedule database 3 in step (hereinafter referred to as S) 1 and acquires the user list data. And hand it over to the attendee selection means 7. The attendee selection means 7 displays the user list data acquired by the user list acquisition means 4 on the output device 5 in order to allow the operator to select the attendees and important members of the conference from the user list data in S2. And prompt the operator to select attendees. Subsequently, when the operator performs an input corresponding to the instruction to select or deselect the list item from the input device 6,
Invert the corresponding list item or cancel the inversion to display the selected state. Next, when the operator makes an input corresponding to an instruction to end the selection from the input device 6 such as a keyboard, a list of attendees who have already been selected is displayed on the display,
Prompt the operator to select the important members who must attend this meeting from the people who will attend. When the operator selects an important member and inputs an instruction to end the selection, the identification ID 21 of the prospective attendee and the flag 22 indicating whether or not the attendant is an important member are set in the prospective attendee memory table 23, and the month of the execution day is set to 1 Hand over to the vacant person acquisition means 8 for one month.

The vacant person acquisition means 8 for one month obtains the vacant person acquisition means for one month in order to find out how many of the attendees are vacant for each unit time of each day designated in S3. The client program 8 sends a request for obtaining the number of vacant persons via the network. This request includes
The target month, the identification IDs 21 of all attendees, and the flag 22 indicating whether or not they are important members are included.

Here, the processing of the server program of the vacant person acquisition means 8 for one month will be described.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory view for explaining the function of the vacant person acquisition means for one month.

First, for each prospective attendee, the schedule from the first day to the last day of the designated month is searched from the schedule database 3, the presence or absence of a schedule for each unit time of the designated month is judged from the search result 31, and the search result is obtained. 31
The schedule map 32 is created based on the data of.
The schedule map 32 is an array of dates and unit time zones, and the array elements corresponding to the dates and time zones in which the schedule exists are "100" for important members, "1" for non-important members, and others. "0" for the array element of
Set. Next, after creating the schedule maps 32 of all the attendees, the schedule maps 32 of all the attendees are added for each corresponding array element to create a total 33 of the schedule maps. (The remainder of dividing each of the 33 total array elements in the schedule map by 100 shows how many of the attendees who are not important members are not available at the corresponding date and time zone, and the quotient divided by 100 is It shows how many of the important members are not available.) The server program of the vacancy acquisition means 8 for one month returns a total of 33 data of the schedule map to the client program, and the client program receives this result and the target. The month is passed to the vacant number display means 9 for one month. Returning to FIG. 2, the one-month vacant person display means 9 displays the result obtained by the one-month vacant person acquisition means 8 in S4 on the output device 5 to prompt the operator to decide the meeting time. .

FIG. 4 is an explanatory view for explaining a screen image displayed by the vacant number display means for one month.

In this example, the vertical axis represents the date 41 and the horizontal axis represents the time zone 42, and each square corresponds to a total of 33 array elements in the schedule map. When everyone is free, that is, the value of the array element of total 33 of the schedule map is "0", it is blank 43, and when only one person is free, that is, the value of array element of total 33 of the schedule map is "△" 44 is displayed in the cell of "1", and "x" 45 is displayed in the cell of other than that, that is, the value of the total array element of the schedule map is "2 or more". Since the value of the total array element of the schedule map is 100 or more in the time zone when the important member is not empty, "x" is displayed. Here, returning the explanation to FIG. 2 again, the operator
When a suitable date and time is found by searching for a date and time zone in which blanks are continuous for the desired required time, this date and time is determined as the meeting date and time and the start time, and in S5, an instruction to select and determine the date and time is input from the input device 6. When the input is, the vacant number display means 9 for one month delivers the selected date and time to the meeting information input means 10. If the appropriate date and time cannot be found, the operator
You can specify the display of the next month or the previous month.
When the operator inputs to instruct the display of the next month or the previous month, the one-month vacant seat display means 9 seeks the next month or the previous month from the currently displayed month, and again for one month. The control is returned to the vacant person acquisition means 8 and the vacant number for one month is displayed in the same manner as described above. When the operator inputs an instruction to cancel the conference scheduling, the conference scheduling ends.

The meeting information inputting means 10 allows the operator to input the meeting due date, start time, ending time, meeting contents, meeting place, etc. in S6. The date and time delivered from the display means 9 is displayed as a default value. When the operator inputs necessary items and inputs an instruction to end the input, the conference schedule data input so far is delivered to the conference schedule registration means 11. Meeting schedule registration means 1
1 registers the same conference schedule in the schedule database 3 for all attendees based on the conference schedule data delivered from the conference information input means 10 in S7. When the registration is completed, the meeting schedule registration means 11 uses the month of the meeting due date as an argument, and S3 again.
Return to the acquisition of vacant seats for 1 month.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to visually display the vacant time for one month collectively by displaying the vacant number for each designated one-month date. Even if you can't find the available time for all of the required time, if you do not have to attend all of them, a clue to know at what time and how many people will be absent is displayed, so do not search again. , There is an effect that it is possible to select a date with the most attendees.
Further, at this time, since the time zone in which the schedule of the important members is filled is always "x", there is an effect that it is possible to avoid selecting the date and time when the essential members cannot attend this conference.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of processing of this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a function of a vacant person acquisition unit for one month.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram for explaining a screen image displayed by the number of vacant persons display means for one month.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 workstation 2 host computer 3 schedule database 4 user list acquisition means 5 output device 6 input device 7 attendance schedule selection means 8 1 month vacant number acquisition means 9 1 month vacant number display means 10 meeting information input means 11 meeting schedule Registration means 21 Identification ID 22 Flag 23 Expected attendee memory table 41 Date 42 Time zone 43 Blank 44 Value "1" 45 Value "2 or more"

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A computer system comprising a host computer and a workstation connected via a network, wherein a conference date and time is determined based on the schedule of attendees registered in a schedule database on the host computer. In the scheduling method, a user list acquisition unit that acquires a list of users of the schedule management system from the schedule database in the workstation, and a user list to an output device based on the data obtained by the user list acquisition unit. And an attendee selection means for receiving the selection information of the attendees of the meeting from the input device and selecting an important member who must attend the meeting from the attendees. One month for all attendees selected by the person selection method With regard to the schedule, a one-month vacant person acquisition unit that finds the total number of vacant persons per unit time by collating the data of the vacant time per unit time for each month for one month acquired from the schedule database, Based on the data obtained by the vacant number acquisition means for one month, the output device displays the vacant state for each unit time for one month, and receives the selection information of the desired meeting due date and start time from the input device. And the selection information of the meeting deadline and the disclosure time received by the one-month vacancy display means, which is received by the one-month vacancy display means, is displayed on the output device, and the end time and the agenda of the meeting are displayed from the input device. Meeting information input means for receiving the information of the meeting, and a meeting of each person who is going to attend the schedule database based on the information received by the meeting information input means. By providing a meeting schedule registration means for registering a schedule, the meeting date and time can be determined by searching for a date and time at which an important member can attend even if no vacant time is found for all attendees for the desired duration. Meeting scheduling method.