COST BASED AUTO-NEGOTIATION OF SUITABLE MEETING TIMES

摘要

A meeting service with cost based meeting time and location optimization is provided. In some examples, costs may be assigned to time fragments in individual users' calendars based on time of day, day of week, other events in the schedules, user behavior, and external factors. In case of a single meeting scheduling, a deadline for the meeting may also be factored into the cost. A scheduling agent may auto-negotiate among attendees of a meeting to determine a lowest cost time for the meeting. In other examples, calendars of multiple users may be optimized on a regular basis or on-demand by re-negotiating existing meetings. User preferences and organizational policies may be used to provide constraints or adjust cost values. Historic data and acceptance of suggested meeting times may be used to learn and adjust a meeting scheduling model. In further examples, similar approaches may be applied to determine suitable meeting locations.