Logical routing specification in office information systems
Murray S. Mazer, Frederick H. Lochovsky · ACM Transactions on Information Systems · 1984
A message management system is an office information system for managing structured messages, integrating the facilities of computer-based message systems and database management systems, and adding to them the capability of "intelligent" handling of messages.This allows the office information system to support messages that can use information about themselves (such as structure and content) or about the system to effect their own processing.Logical routing of messages in an office information system is a function that can benefit from such intelligent processing.A framework and language are introduced for the specification of logical routing for messages in an office information system.By associating routing specifications with message types, the system assumes the responsibility both for evaluating the current message instance state to yield the next destination for the instance and for forwarding the instance.The user is freed from the need to direct explicitly each instance of a message type.The routing specifications are based on a variety of criteria, including message instance state and system characteristics.A routing specification language is described, with examples, and an implementation for a distributed workstation environment is outlined.