Systems and methods for automated alerts

Abstract

An alert suggestion generator may automatically suggest alerts for a user based on user input. The user input may include natural language text and/or user actions that the suggestion generator can use to generate alerts that have a high likelihood of relevance, and therefore desirability, to the user. Each alert may have a trigger condition such as passage of time, measurement of a numeric metric, or other factors. Each alert may also have a notification setting defining how the user is to be notified. The alert suggestion generator may retrieve a user profile of the user to further determine what alerts would be most relevant to the user. The user may be queried to confirm the alerts, and the alerts may them be set. Partial alerts may be generated and then the user may be queried for the trigger condition and/or notification setting needed to complete the alerts.

I claim: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
 accessing a first data set comprising information regarding a user stored on computer-readable storage, the first data set comprising information regarding the user that is independent of interactions of the user with a graphical user interface of a notification application; and   using a processor to generate a suggested alert definition for the user based on the first data set, the suggested alert definition specifying data to monitor and a suggested trigger condition for use as an active alert of the notification application.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising presenting the suggested alert definition to the user on a computing device display. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising converting the suggested alert to an active alert of the notification application, the active alert to cause the notification application to monitor the specified data of the suggested alert definition and to selectively issue alerts to the user in response to monitoring the specified data. 
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising creating an active alert in the notification application, wherein creating the active alert comprises configuring the notification application to monitor the specified data of the suggested alert definition for the suggested trigger condition. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , further comprising accessing data of the first data set from a user profile library. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 5 , wherein accessing data from the user profile library comprises one or more of accessing user preferences of the user from the user profile library, accessing user relationships of the user from the user profile library, and accessing user demographics of the user from the user profile library. 
     
     
         7 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the first data set comprises data pertaining to user interactions with a client computing device. 
     
     
         8 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 1 , wherein the first data set comprises one or more of a query issued by the user on the client computing device, a message transmitted from the client computing device, a document authored by the user on the client computing device, a document accessed by the user on the client computing device, and a comment authored by the user on the client computing device in connection with the document accessed by the user on the computing device. 
     
     
         9 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 8 , further comprising acquiring the first data set by monitoring user actions on the client computing device. 
     
     
         10 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for execution by a processor, execution of the instructions to cause the processor to perform operations, comprising:
 identifying data to be to monitored for a user by a notification application based on a data set comprising information pertaining to the user, wherein the information pertaining to the user is independent of interactions of the user with a user interface of the notification application; and   generating a suggested alert definition for the user, the suggested alert definition specified the identified data and suggesting a trigger condition pertaining to the identified data to cause the notification application to generate an alert for the user.   
     
     
         11 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 10 , the operations further comprising displaying the suggested alert definition to the user on a computing device display. 
     
     
         12 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 11 , wherein displaying the suggested alert definition to the user on the computing device display comprises one or more of generating electronic markup data for rendering on the computing device display, and providing computer-executable code to present the suggested alert definition on the computing device display. 
     
     
         13 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of  claim 10 , the operations further comprising creating an active alert in the notification application corresponding to the suggested alert definition, the active alert to cause the notification application to generate alerts for the user in response monitoring the identified data of the suggested alert definition. 
     
     
         14 . A system, comprising:
 a data store comprising a first data set, the first data set comprising information pertaining to a user that is independent of interactions of the user with a graphical user interface of a notification application; and   an alert suggestion generator for operation on a computing device, the alert suggestion generator configured to determine a suggested alert definition for the user based on the first data set, the suggested alert definition specifying data to be monitored for a trigger condition by the notification application to selectively issue alerts to the user.   
     
     
         15 . The system of  claim 14 , further comprising a natural language processor configured to analyze natural language elements of the first data set for use in generating the suggested alert definition, wherein the natural language elements comprise one or more of a message authored by the user on a client computing device, a comment authored by the user on the client computing device, electronic data authored by the user by use of an application operating on the computing device, a search query authored by the user on the client computing device. 
     
     
         16 . The system of  claim 15 , wherein the natural language processor is configured to analyze the one or more natural language elements to determine one or more of the specified data to be monitored by the notification application and the trigger condition of the suggested alert definition. 
     
     
         17 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the first data set comprises one or more of captured actions of the user on a client computing device and data pertaining to the user acquired from a user profile library. 
     
     
         18 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the trigger condition of the suggested alert definition comprises one or more of a quantitative value and a quantitative condition pertaining to the specified data of the suggested alert definition. 
     
     
         19 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the alert suggestion generator is configured to set an active alert in the notification application corresponding to the suggested alert definition, the active alert configured to cause the notification application to selectively issue alerts to the user in response to monitoring the data specified in the suggested alert definition 
     
     
         20 . The system of  claim 14 , wherein the alert suggestion generator is configured to prompt the user to accept the suggested alert definition as an active alert of the notification application, the active alert to cause the notification application to selectively issue alert notifications to the user in response to detecting the trigger condition of the suggested alert condition.