Electronic device and method of controlling out-of-office notifications

1. A method of controlling an electronic device, the method comprising:

detecting, at the electronic device, occurrence of an event for turning on out-of-office notifications;

identifying accounts operable to turn on and off out-of-office notifications, each account of the identified accounts associated with a respective personal information manager (PIM) service and operational on the electronic device;

for each account of the identified accounts,

determining if the respective PIM service is operable to receive an update from the electronic device to turn on an out-of-office notification and if so, sending the update from the electronic device to the respective PIM service to cause the respective PIM service to send an out-of-office notification in response to receipt of an email message at the respective PIM service;

when the respective PIM service is not operable to receive the update from the electronic device, sending an out-of-office notification, from the electronic device, in response to receipt of an email message at the electronic device, via the respective PIM service.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said detecting comprises

retrieving, from at least one database comprising a plurality of calendared events, at least one current calendared event; and

determining if the current calendared event is an event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the at least one current calendared event has a start time equal to a current time.

4. The method of claim 2 , comprising, after determining if the current calendared event is an event for turning on out-of-office notifications, determining an end time for the current calendared event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein sending the update includes sending the end time.

6. The method of claim 4 , comprising sending a further update when the current time is equal to the end time of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

7. The method of claim 4 , comprising, determining a duration of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications based on the start time and the end time.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein sending the update includes sending the duration of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

9. An electronic device comprising:

a display device;

a memory;

a processor operably connected to the display device and the memory, the processor being configured to execute computer-readable code stored in the memory to cause the electronic device to detect occurrence of an event for turning on out-of-office notifications;

identifying accounts operable to turn on and off out-of-office notifications, each account of the identified accounts associated with a respective personal information manager (PIM) service and operational on the electronic device;

for each account of the identified accounts,

determine if the respective PIM service is operable to receive an update from the electronic device to turn on an out-of-office notification and if so, send the update from the electronic device to the respective PIM service to cause the respective PIM service to send an out-of-office notification in response to receipt of an email message at the respective PIM service;

when the respective PIM service is not operable to receive the update from the electronic device, send an out-of-office notification, from the electronic device, in response to receipt of an email message at the electronic device, via the respective PIM service.

10. The electronic device of claim 9 , wherein, to detect occurrence of an event for turning on out-of-office notifications, the processor is operable to retrieve, from at least one database comprising a plurality of calendared events, at least one current calendared event, and determine if the current calendared event is an event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

11. The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the at least one current calendared event has a start time equal to a current time.

12. The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein, if the current calendared event is determined to be an event for turning on out-of-office notifications, the processor is operable to determine an end time for the event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

13. The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the update includes the end time.

14. The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the processor is operable to send a further update when the current time is equal to the end time of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

15. The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein the processor is operable to determine a duration of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications based on the start time and the end time.

16. The electronic device of claim 15 , wherein the update includes the duration of the event for turning on out-of-office notifications.

17. A computer program product for rendering calendared events on a display of an electronic device, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable code embodied therein executable by a processor of the electronic device to cause the electronic device to

detect occurrence of an event for turning on out-of-office notifications;

identifying accounts operable to turn on and off out-of-office notifications, each account of the identified accounts associated with a respective personal information manager (PIM) service and operational on the electronic device;

for each account of the identified accounts,

determine if the respective PIM service is operable to receive an update from the electronic device to turn on an out-of-office notification and if so, send the update from the electronic device to the respective PIM service to cause the respective PIM service to send an out-of-office notification in response to receipt of an email message at the respective PIM service;

when the respective PIM service is not operable to receive the update from the electronic device, send an out-of-office notification, from the electronic device, in response to receipt of an email message at the electronic device, via the respective PIM service.