Managing multiple and/or repeated out of office notification periods

摘要

An out of office auto-response system that generates a calendaring user interface through which multiple out of office periods can be managed. The calendaring user interface enables a user to define, simultaneously view, and/or modify, multiple out of office periods during which auto-response messages will be generated. The out of office periods of the disclosed system are manageable as a specific type of calendar entries, and/or as a settable attribute of various types of calendar entries (e.g. vacation type calendar entries, meeting type calendar entries, etc.). The system generates user interface objects that allow a user to define an out of office period as repeated. The repeated office action may be defined as repeated a user-specified number of times, and over a user-specified interval, e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc.

主权项

1. A method of providing out of office auto-response messages, comprising:
monitoring, by a busy time task, a plurality of out of office electronic calendar entries stored in a database, said out of office calendar entries defining multiple out of office periods, each of said out of office periods having a start time and date and an end time and date, wherein said monitoring includes periodically scanning said database; responsive to subsequently detecting, by said busy time task, that one of said out of office periods defined by said out of office calendar entries in said database begins on a respective day, calling an out of office server application programming interface on said respective day; starting, by said out of office server application programming interface, an out of office auto-responder for said one of said multiple out of office periods that begins on said respective day, said out of office responder automatically generating response messages to electronic mail messages received during said one of said multiple out of office periods that begins on said respective day; and turning off, by an electronic mail system, said out of office auto-responder at the end of said one of said multiple out of office periods that begins on said respective day without intervention by said busy time task.