JPH0249583B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a mailbox management system, and more particularly to a mailbox management system for temporarily storing messages in a data communication system.

A mailbox in a data communication system is a storage device that can temporarily store a large number of messages at once in correspondence with the receiving terminal.
Messages that arrive at a terminal that has a mailbox usage contract are stored, and according to a request from the terminal, messages stored in the mailbox can be read out and sent to the terminal. It is something.

In the conventional mailbox management method,
It was possible to know the terminal that sent a message written in a mailbox. However, when multiple terminals are instructed to send messages, if some terminals are not writing to the mailbox, a write request is made to that terminal, that is, the message is sent to the mailbox. In such cases, it is impossible to encourage the transmission of
At the mailbox usage contract terminal, read out the terminals that have written messages to the mailbox from the mailbox and check them, compare this with the list of terminals that have been instructed to write messages to the mailbox in advance, and check whether messages have been written to the mailbox or not. It was necessary to identify the terminals and call each of these unwritten terminals to send a reminder message.

For example, if many branch offices report their sales to the head office at a certain time every day, a message (sales revenue high)
Messages from all branch offices are read out from the mailbox at a certain time at the head office, allowing the head office to understand the sales figures for the entire company. However, according to the conventional mailbox management method, if one of the branch offices does not write to the mailbox at a certain time, the operator at the head office, as described above, identifies the branch office that has not written to the mailbox. Therefore, these devices must be called up one by one to send reminder messages, making the operation extremely complicated.

Conventional mailbox management systems have the disadvantage that operations are extremely complicated in response to reminders when a scheduled message from a terminal is not written to the mailbox.

The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional mailbox management system, identifies unwritten terminals from among the terminals that are instructed or scheduled to write to the mailbox, and prompts these terminals to write to the mailbox. The purpose of the present invention is to provide a mailbox management system capable of automatically sending messages and reducing the workload of an operator of a mailbox usage contract terminal.

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

The figure is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a mailbox, and 10 is a mailbox management device. The storage device 7 of the mailbox management device 10 sets an address (terminal number corresponding to a telephone number) table of the terminal that is scheduled to write to the mailbox 1 in the area 8 of the part 2, and It has a display area 3 for displaying that writing to the mailbox 1 has been completed corresponding to the address. Note that 6 is a control circuit, and 5 is a starting circuit for the control circuit 6, which is configured as a timer in this embodiment.

The mailbox use contract terminal is stored in storage device 7 in advance.
Write the address of the terminal that is instructed or scheduled to write to mailbox 1 (in the above case, the terminal at each branch office) in the address table (area 8 of part 2). Configure the scheduled terminal address table.

On the other hand, the starting circuit 5 configured as a timer
The time at which the control circuit 6 should be activated is set in advance, and the control circuit 6 is activated at this time. This startup time can be set, for example, as the scheduled end time for writing messages from each branch office to the mailbox 1 informing the daily sales amount, as described above.

When writing to mailbox 1, the message sent from the terminal and the address (terminal number) of the terminal are sent to the write message M _W and the write address via a write circuit (not shown).
A _W reaches mailbox 1 and comparison circuit 4, respectively. The write message M _W is written into an empty area of mailbox 1. The write address A _W is temporarily stored in the comparator circuit 4.
The comparison circuit 4 sequentially reads out the addresses written in the write address table (area 8, part 2) of the storage device 7 and compares them with the write address A _W currently stored in the comparison circuit 4, and if they match. , writes a write completion indication in the display area 3 corresponding to the address. For example, set the corresponding cell in display area 3 to “0”
Rewrite from “1” to “1”.

Note that if the write address A _W currently stored in the comparator circuit 4 does not match the address in the address table, it can also be written to another part 9 of the storage device 7.

By the time the starting circuit 5 (timer) starts the control circuit 6, it is considered that writing has normally been completed from most of the mailbox writing terminals. When the control circuit 6 is activated by the activation circuit 5 (timer), it reads an address from the address table of the storage device 7 and a write completion indication from the cell corresponding to the address in the display area 3.

If there is no writing completion indication in display area 3, it is determined that no writing has been done to mailbox 1 from the terminal of the corresponding address, the address is set as the sending address A _S , mailbox 1 is started, and mailbox 1 is started. Read out the reminder message M _S already stored in area M ₁ and send the corresponding sending address A _S
The dunning message _MS is sent to the terminals that have not yet been written to mailbox 1.

In the above, if the display area 3 already indicates the completion of writing, the control circuit 6 determines that writing has already been done to the mailbox 1 from the terminal of the corresponding address, and does not read from the mailbox 1. The next address in the address table of the storage device 7 is read and the same determination process as described above is performed.

It goes without saying that the contracted terminal for the mailbox 1 can control the messages stored in the mailbox 1 to be read out and received at the terminal when desired.

Although one embodiment of the present invention has been described above,
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments,
Various modifications are possible within the technical scope.

In the above embodiment, the determination to start sending the reminder message is made at the time set in the starting circuit 5 configured as a timer, but the starting circuit 5 is configured as a counting circuit and the number of writing completion indications in the display area 3 is determined. When a certain number of terminals that are scheduled to write to mailbox 1 have completed writing, for example, when 7 out of the planned number of 10 have completed writing (the counting circuit counts 7) ) You can start sending reminder messages.

The reminder message can be prepared in another part of the data communication system, instead of being written in advance in the mailbox by the terminal subscriber who is contracted to use the mailbox.

The reminder message can be sent not only once, but can be sent many times, and the content of the reminder message can be changed each time, for example, to make the message progressively more severe.

Since the present invention is configured as described above, according to the present invention, a mailbox usage contract subscriber can:
For example, if you set the start time for sending a reminder message in the startup circuit (timer) and set the reminder message in the communication system, you can automatically select a terminal that has not written to a large number of terminals that are scheduled to write to a mailbox. Since the reminder message can be sent out by the mailbox user, complicated operations by the operator of the mailbox usage contract terminal are not required, which has the effect of reducing work.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The figure is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. 1
...Mailbox, 2...Address table portion of terminal to be written to, 3...Display area, 4...Comparison circuit, 5...Start circuit, 6...Control circuit, 7...
Storage device, 8... Address area, 9... General storage part, 10... Mailbox management device, M _W
...Write message, M _S ...Send message,
A _W ...Address of the writing terminal, A _S ...Address of the destination terminal.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A data communication system accommodating a plurality of terminals, comprising a mailbox for storing messages to the terminals in a corresponding manner to the terminals, and a management device for the mailbox, and the management device is configured to manage terminals under a contract to use the mailbox. a storage device having an address table for storing addresses of a plurality of terminals instructed by the terminal to write a message to the mailbox in the mailbox; and a display area for writing a mailbox writing completion indication in correspondence with the addresses; a comparison circuit that compares the address of the terminal that has written to the address with an address in the address table of the storage device and writes a write completion indication in the display area to the address that matches; and a display area of the storage device. The present invention is characterized in that it is comprised of a control circuit that reads out the display from and sends a reminder message prepared in advance to a terminal whose address does not have a write completion display, and a starting circuit that starts the control circuit. Mailbox management method.