Abstract: Rules registered in the electronic secretary system are defined by separating each of them into a trigger descriptor part, a condition part for object data retrieval, and an action part, and a flag indicating whether or not to fire a rule and a flag indicating whether or not to suppress firing of a rule after it is fired once are installed in each rule, and a flag for selecting whether to automatically activate the action when object data is retrieved or to activate the action after the user confirms it is installed, and an area for storing the period and timing for judging success or failure of the condition when necessary is referred to so as to change the corresponding flag to ON or OFF or to change the period and, whether to automatically execute the electronic secretary system or to execute it after a human confirms it, can be selected freely.