METHOD, SYSTEM AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR ENABLING ELECTRONIC CHAT WITH ONLINE CALENDAR INVITEES

摘要

A Meeting Attendee Instant Messaging (MAIM) utility is provided and embeds Instant Messaging (IM) functionality in a calendaring software. When a meeting request is sent out from the calendaring application, the request receives invitee responses, which automatically populates a Meeting Invitee Status Display (MISD). The MISD graphically illustrates which invitees have accepted the request to the meeting (i.e., attendees), and also provides an indication of a current IM status of each attendee to the meeting. The meeting facilitator may optionally select specific attendees or all attendees and initiate a one-to-one or group IM chat session with the selected attendees to begin a chat. The group IM session chat is initiated from within the MISD without providing the meeting facilitator with anything other than the e-mail addresses or e-mail IDs of the attendees.