Integration of voice mail, email, fax and personal calendar systems to automatically update messages

Abstract

Voice mail, email, fax and personal calendar systems are integrated allowing for the automatic updating of voice mail and email responses to received telephone calls and emails indicating that the receiver of the telephone call/email is out of the office, temporarily unavailable, etc. For received telephone calls, a determination is made as to whether the call was received during or outside of normal working hours, and if the person receiving the call is still engaged beyond a previous entered time period for providing an appropriate message to the caller. The determination is also made as to whether the received call is an “inside” or “outside” call, e.g., originating within or outside of the office or organization being called, and a predetermined response is provided depending upon where the call originated. In response to an incoming fax, the number of the fax transmitter is stored and used to provide a return fax response with a predetermined message from the calendar server of the person receiving the call. Provision is made for updating the user status at any time and, thus, automatically changing the outgoing voice mail, email or fax message.