Method and System for Email Messaging

Abstract

A method and system for preventing sending of messages to incorrect email recipients are provided. The method includes determining ( 120 ) the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending and comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups ( 126, 122 ). Potential errors in the intended recipients are identified and a prompt ( 125 ) is provided to amend the intended recipients. The prompt ( 125 ) provides a suggestion to replace, add or remove an intended recipient. The defined recipient groups include one or more of groups of recipients formed from an organization data structure ( 122 ), groups of recipients defined by a user, and groups of recipients ( 126 ) mined from one or more user's previous email correspondence.

1 . A method for email messaging, comprising:
 determining the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;   comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups; and   providing a prompt to amend the intended recipients.   
   
   
       2 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , including:
 identifying a potential error in the intended recipients compared to the defined recipient groups.   
   
   
       3 . The method as claimed in  claim 2 , wherein comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups uses a similarity measure to identify a potential error. 
   
   
       4 . The method as claimed in  claim 2 , including comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups defined for a sender of the email message. 
   
   
       5 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , including:
 identifying one or more of the defined groups which include the intended recipients, and providing a prompt to complete the list of intended recipients in accordance with an identified defined group.   
   
   
       6 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein providing a prompt to amend the intended recipients provides a suggestion to replace, add or remove an intended recipient. 
   
   
       7 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein the defined recipient groups include one or more of groups of recipients formed from an organization data structure, groups of recipients defined by a user, and groups of recipients mined from one or more user's previous email correspondence. 
   
   
       8 . The method as claimed in  claim 7 , wherein an organization data structure defines a Boolean value for each pair of an individual in an organization and a group indicating the likelihood of the individual sending a message to the group. 
   
   
       9 . The method as claimed in  claim 8 , including comparing the pair of the sender of the email message and the group of intended recipients with the Boolean value for the pair to identify a potential error. 
   
   
       10 . The method as claimed in  claim 7 , wherein groups of recipients are mined from one or more user's previous email correspondence and ranked by the strength of the group. 
   
   
       11 . The method as claimed in  claim 10 , wherein a group is defined as the set of the sender of a previous email message and the recipients of the message, and a ranking is applied to the defined groups according to the number of messages and/or the date of the messages. 
   
   
       12 . The method as claimed in  claim 10 , wherein groups are defined by: building a graph with vertices of individuals who are senders and/or recipients of previous email messages joined by edges between individuals who correspond; and determining groups with many edges connecting vertices of a group and few edges between groups. 
   
   
       13 . The method as claimed in  claim 2 , wherein identifying a potential error in the intended recipients includes identifying a mismatch between the sender and the intended recipients according to an organization data structure. 
   
   
       14 . The method as claimed in  claim 2 , wherein identifying a potential error in the intended recipients includes identifying a mismatch between the intended recipients and a defined recipient group. 
   
   
       15 . The method as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein providing a prompt to amend the intended recipients suggests moving intended recipients from a “to” addressee list to a blind carbon copy (“bcc”) addressee list. 
   
   
       16 . A computer program product stored on a computer readable storage medium, comprising computer readable program code means for performing the steps of:
 determining the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;   comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups; and   providing a prompt to amend the intended recipients.   
   
   
       17 . A system for email messaging comprising:
 a data structure of defined recipient groups;   an agent including:
 means for determining the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients; and 
 means for comparing the intended recipients to the defined recipient groups; and 
   a prompt means on a graphical user interface to generate a prompt to amend the intended recipients.   
   
   
       18 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the agent includes means for identifying a potential error in the intended recipients. 
   
   
       19 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the agent includes means for identifying one or more of the defined groups which includes the intended recipients, and the prompt means generates a prompt to complete the list of intended recipients in accordance with an identified defined group. 
   
   
       20 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the agent is provided as part of an email client application in which the email message is created. 
   
   
       21 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the agent is provided by a server over a network to an email client application in which the email message is created. 
   
   
       22 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the data structure of predefined recipient groups is an organization data structure. 
   
   
       23 . The system as claimed in  claim 17 , wherein the data structure of predefined recipient groups stores recipient groups mined from one or more user's previous email correspondence. 
   
   
       24 . A method of providing a service to a customer over a network, the service comprising the method steps of:
 determining the intended recipients of an email message prior to sending, wherein there are two or more intended recipients;   comparing the intended recipients to defined recipient groups; and   providing a prompt to amend the intended recipients.   
   
   
       25 . A method for email messaging, comprising:
 determining the number of intended recipients of an email message prior to sending;   determining if the number of intended recipients exceeds a predefined threshold number;   if the number of intended recipients exceeds the threshold number, providing a prompt to transfer the intended recipients to blind carbon copy (“bcc”) addressees.   
   
   
       26 . The method as claimed in  claim 25 , wherein the intended recipients are separate “to” or carbon copy (“cc”) addressees. 
   
   
       27 . The method as claimed in  claim 25 , including automatically transferring addressees from “to” and/or carbon copy (“cc”) addressees following a user response to the prompt.