Method for providing feedback about the likelihood of a scheduling request being accepted (19-Aug-2009)
People?s diaries are often congested with meetings and appointments. When arranging additional meetings it can be difficult to find a mutually convenient time and often there isn?t enough time available to be able to attend every meeting; consequently, meetings - by necessity - are sometimes double booked. Described here is a mechanism for providing better information about whether double-booking invitations "will be" or "should be" accepted: "will be" for people inviting others and "should be" for people receiving invitations.
Method for providing feedback about the likelihood of a scheduling request being accepted
Disclosed is an enhanced mechanism for identifying the priority of electronic calendar invitations, both to the sender and the receiver.
Meetings have a level of importance/relevance specific to the individuals associated with the meeting, and that importance can vary between the organizer and the attendees. Scheduling programs often provide functionality to see when people are booked (free time/busy time etc.), but, typically, don't provide a way of understanding how important a particular meeting is to the other party. Therefore, if a meeting clash is likely the other party's precedence can not be taken into account and, consequently, the likelihood of a new booking being accepted is not known.
There are two sides to this situation, that of the person arranging a meeting - the inviter, and that of the person receiving an invitation - the invitee. When creating a meeting which is important to the person creating the invitation choices may have to be made between which invitees will be able to attend. When an invitation is received it can be difficult to understand the impact of declining a meeting. A meeting that is considered important by a valuable client, for example, may well take precedence over many meetings the attendee would otherwise value highly.
This disclosure deals with the precedence associated with calendaring entries, both when scheduling a meeting - acting as the owner of a meeting - and when considering accepting a meeting - acting as the invitee.
When scheduling a meeting, the meeting owner may state the importance of the meeting from their perspective of the meeting. For example
Firm
Meaning "I'd really prefer this meeting happen as described ", indicating to the receiver the heightened significance to the sender.
Casual
/Flexible
Meaning "I'm, relatively, happy for aspects of this meeting to change ", indicating to the receiver the lowered significance to the sender.
Some points to note:
When receiving a meeting notice, the invitee may use the owner's stated level of importance to determine how to respond appropriately.
When an invitee accepts a meeting notice (irrespective of whether the owner specified a stated level of importance or not) the invitee may allocate their own stated level of importance .
The "stated level of importance" actually associated with the accepted invitation is the signal used by other (future
/
meeting owners as to the likelihood of the proposed invitee accepting a subsequent overlapping meeting.
A meeting schedule entry can be extended to include an importance rating. Visual feedback of an importance rating could be colour coded - e.g.: blue as Firm and to orange as Flexible. The rating is displayed to the potential attendee when they open the meeting invite (as determined b...
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