Software Update: Microsoft SNARF 1.7.004

With the SNARF program, Microsoft offers a complement to e-mail programs to display unread e-mail messages based on priority. According to Microsoft, SNARF, short for Social Network and Relationship Finder, can be configured after installation in such a way that the display of new messages better corresponds to the urgency that the messages deserve. The program uses various filters for this, which together determine how important the messages are to the recipient. Criteria used for this are currently the frequency of contact between the sender and the recipient, whether the recipient is the addressee or only receives a copy of the message and whether it concerns a personal or a group mail. For more information about SNARF, please read this news item.

A few days ago, the Redmond software company released a new version of SNARF in the form of 1.7.004. It has not been disclosed what the exact changes are of the new-fangled release. However, the following release notes can be found on the program’s site:

Microsoft Research’s Community Technology presents SNARF, the Social Network and Relationship Finder.

SNARF was built around the notion that social network information that is already available to the computer system can be usefully reflected to the user: a message from a manager might be seen differently than a message from a stranger, for example. SNARF applies this idea to email triage: handling the flow of messages when time is short and mail is long.

The SNARF UI is designed to provide a quick overview of unread mail, organized by its importance. The UI shows a series of different panes with unread mail in them; each pane shows a list of authors of messages. Clicking on a name shows all messages involving that person.

People use a variety of strategies to handle triage; there is no single “best” ordering of email messages to produce an optimal outcome.

SNARF gives the user the freedom to build their own ordering. Each person in their inbox is assigned a set of meta-information: “number of emails sent in the last month,” for example. These metrics can, in turn, be combined to create an ordering across all contacts. For more information, check out the CEAS paper on SNARF.

System Requirements
SNARF requires Microsoft Outlook (2003, 2002) as a MAPI source. It has been tested with Exchange and MAPI servers, Hotmail, POP, IMAP, and the OL Connector for Lotus Notes.

Installation Instructions
Run snarf.msi. It will install the .Net framework if needed and then install SNARF. [break]