Folders that employ dynamic user training rules to organize content
View Patent ↗Dynamic user training rules can be employed to organize content within a folder. Each folder can be associated with a dynamic rule that defines a number of attribute and weighting factor associations and a folder threshold. Each attribute and weighting factor association can identify an attribute that is common among the contents of the smart folder and associate a weighting factor with the common attribute. Whenever a user manually moves content into or out of the smart folder, the attribute and weighting factor associations and possibly the folder threshold can be updated accordingly, such as by adjusting a value of one or more weighting factors to better reflect how common they are after the content has been manually moved into or out of the folder. In this way, the dynamic rule is automatically updated in response to the user's interaction with the smart folder.
1. A method, implemented by an email system, for providing a dynamic rule that is used to identify whether an email should be stored in a folder, the method comprising:
accessing a folder that stores a number of emails;
analyzing attributes of each of the number of emails to identify a plurality of common attributes;
for each common attribute, associating a weighting factor with the common attribute, the weighting factor representing how common the common attribute is among the number of emails in the folder, each weighting factor being employed to determine whether an email should automatically be stored in the folder;
in response to a user manually adding a first email to the folder, determining that the first email matches a first attribute of the common attributes but does not match a second attribute of the common attributes; and
automatically adjusting the weighting factor associated with the first and second attributes by increasing the weighting factor associated with the first attribute and decreasing the weighting factor associated with the second attribute.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to the user manually removing a second email from the folder, determining that the second email matches the first attribute but does not match the second attribute; and
automatically decreasing the weighting factor associated with the first attribute and automatically increasing the weighting factor associated with the second attribute.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
prior to accessing the folder, receiving user input that requests that the folder be created, the user input including a hint; and
employing the hint to identify the number of emails to be stored in the folder.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating an email index for each of the number of emails, each email index being generated using the weighting factor of any common attribute that the email matches; and
generating a folder threshold from the email indexes.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
generating an email index for an email that is not stored in the folder;
comparing the email index for the email that is not stored in the folder to the folder threshold to determine whether the email that is not stored in the folder should be stored in the folder.
6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the folder threshold has a value that is less than or equal to a lowest email index generated for the number of emails stored in the folder.
7. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
after automatically adjusting the weighting factor associated with the first and second attributes, updating the folder threshold.
8. A method for automatically adjusting a dynamic rule in response to a user manually adding an email to a folder or manually removing an email from the folder, the method comprising:
maintaining a folder that stores a number of emails, the folder being associated with a dynamic rule that is employed to determine whether an email should be automatically added to the folder, the dynamic rule including a plurality of associations and a folder threshold, each association identifying an attribute and a weighting factor associated with the attribute;
receiving user input that manually adds a first email to the folder, and in response, determining that the second email matches an attribute identified in one or more of the associations but does not match an attribute identified in another one or more of the associations and updating the dynamic rule by increasing the weighting factor associated with each identified attribute that the first email is determined to match and decreasing the weighting factor associated with each identified attribute that the first email is determined to not match; and
receiving user input that manually removes a second email from the folder, and in response, determining that the second email matches an attribute identified in one or more of the associations but does not match an attribute identified in another one or more of the associations and updating the dynamic rule by decreasing the weighting factor associated with each identified attribute that the second email is determined to match and increasing the weighting factor associated with each identified attribute that the second email is determined to not match.
9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
determining whether to automatically move a third email into the folder by:
for each attribute of the third email that matches an attribute identified in one of the associations, identifying the weighting factor associated with the attribute;
creating an email index by combining each identified weighting factor;
comparing the email index to the folder threshold such that when the email index exceeds the folder threshold, the third email is automatically moved into the folder.
10. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
in response to updating the dynamic rule, adjusting the folder threshold by:
generating an email index, using the updated dynamic rule, for each email stored in the folder; and
setting a value of the folder threshold based on the generated email indexes.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the value of the folder threshold is set equal to or lower than any of the generated email indexes.
12. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
in response to user input, applying the dynamic rule to emails not stored in the smart folder to identify whether any of the emails should be moved into the smart folder.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein applying the dynamic rule to emails not stored in the smart folder to identify whether any of the emails should be moved into the smart folder comprises, for each email:
identifying attributes of the email;
for each attribute of the email that matches an attribute identified in one of the associations, identifying the weighting factor associated with the attribute;
creating an email index for the email by combining each identified weighting factor;
comparing the email index of the email to the folder threshold such that when the email index exceeds the folder threshold, the email is automatically moved into the folder.
14. One or more computer storage media storing computer executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors implement a method for creating and updating a dynamic rule for a folder, the method comprising:
accessing a folder that stores a number of documents;
analyzing attributes of each of the number of documents to identify one or more common attributes;
for each common attribute, associating a weighting factor with the common attribute, the weighting factor representing how common the common attribute is among the number of documents in the folder, each weighting factor being employed to determine whether a document should automatically be stored in the folder;
receiving user input that manually adds a first document to the folder, and in response, determining that the first document matches one or more of the common attributes but does not match another one or more of the common attributes and updating the dynamic rule by increasing the weighting factor associated with each common attribute that the first document matches and decreasing the weighting factor associated with each common attribute that the first document does not match; and
receiving user input that manually removes a second document from the folder, and in response, determining that the second document matches one or more of the common attributes but does not match another one or more of the common attributes and updating the dynamic rule by decreasing the weighting factor associated with each common attribute that the second document matches and increasing the weighting factor associated with each common attribute that the second document does not match.
15. The computer storage media of claim 14 , wherein the number of documents, the first document, and the second document comprise emails.
16. The computer storage media of claim 14 , further comprising:
automatically adding a third document to the folder based on an index generated for the third document, the index being generated based on the weighting factors.
17. The computer storage media of claim 16 , wherein the index is generated by combining the weighting factors associated with any common attributes that the third document matches.
18. The computer storage media of claim 17 , wherein automatically adding a third document to the folder based on an index generated for the third document comprises automatically adding the third document when the index exceeds a folder threshold defined for the folder.
19. The computer storage media of claim 18 , wherein the folder threshold is based on indexes generated for the number of documents stored in the folder.