Scheduling presentation broadcasts in an integrated network environment

Abstract

An integrated environment for scheduling a presentation broadcast that allows a user to seamlessly schedule, make changes, replace, and reschedule a presentation broadcast from within a presentation design application program. The system leverages many of the features of Microsoft's OUTLOOK™ program to schedule a network presentation broadcast of a presentation broadcast from within the presentation design application program that is used to create or open the presentation. The user enters information concerning the presentation broadcast while within the presentation design application program, which is then automatically inserted into a meeting request message automatically sent to a list of prospective attendees of the presentation broadcast that the user has identified. The meeting request message also contains user-entered scheduling information, which is employed to automatically schedule a presentation broadcast meeting in the electronic calendars of those message recipients who choose to attend the presentation broadcast. The system also automatically schedules the presentation broadcast in the user's electronic calendar, which provides a reminder to the user to start the presentation broadcast a predefined interval before the scheduled time. Additionally, the automated scheduling is implemented for a presentation broadcast that is to originate from an Internet web server.