Method and system for enhancing collaboration

• US 20070004389A1
• Filed: 12/19/2005
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Chmara, Thomas, Graves, Alan, Jelaca, Maja, Wallace, Raymond
• Granted Patent: US 8,929,528 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/415
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems

Abstract

In order to enhance collaborations, the system responds to a trigger event to determine the nature of any collaboration which should be assembled in response to the trigger, and determines the requirements needed to respond to the event. These requirements set out the type of resources (personnel, equipment, information systems, etc) that are needed. The system then identifies a subset of specific resources based on a criteria, and invites the specified resources to collaborate to respond to the event. The criteria can include the availability of the specific resource. According to an embodiment, the system evaluates responses from the invited resources and then convenes the collaboration, for example by establishing one or more communication sessions. According to an embodiment, the system evaluates responses from the invited resources to ensure that the requirements are satisfied, and if not, determines other resources to invite.

Claims

1. A method for allocating resources as part of collaboration comprising:

a. receiving data relating to a triggering event;

b. evaluating said data;

c. responsive to said evaluating, identifying candidates for responding to said event;

d. inviting candidates;

e. evaluating responses by said candidates; and

f. convening a collaboration of accepting candidates.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said collaboration comprises a communication session.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein step c further identifies non-personnel resources for said collaboration, and said method further comprises allocating said non-personnel resources to said collaboration.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein step c further identifies the best method for communicating with each candidate and step d invites each candidate via a signaling mechanism appropriate for the candidate.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein step b further comprises determining contextual information related to said collaboration and step d further comprises providing said contextual information via said signaling mechanism.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein step d comprises sending the candidate, as part of said invitation, a set of options to be selected by said candidate as part of said response.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein step b comprises determining the requirements of the collaboration, and wherein step c comprises compiling a list of candidates who satisfy said requirements.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein step c further comprises evaluating the availability of the candidates.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein evaluating the availability of the candidates comprises determining their location and presence information.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein step e comprises determining an invited candidate has not accepted and in response inviting one or more uninvited candidates.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein at least one of said one or more uninvited candidates is identified in a response from an invited candidate.

12. The method of claim of claim 8 wherein step e comprises determining whether said requirements are met by the responding candidates, and if not, repeating steps c-e for at least a defined number of iterations until said requirements are met.

13. A method of establishing a collaboration comprising the steps of:

a. Evaluating a triggering event;

b. Responsive to said evaluation, defining collaboration requirements;

c. Identifying resources which satisfy said requirements;

d. Evaluating the availability of said resources;

e. Determine if the minimum requirements are satisfied;

f. And if the minimum requirements are not met, repeating steps c-f for some number of iterations.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein step c comprises identifying a prioritized list of resources.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein said prioritized list of potential resources includes alternates.

16. The method of claim 13 wherein said resources includes personnel candidates.

17. The method of 16 wherein step d comprises evaluating presence and location information to determine which candidates should be initially invited, inviting said candidates and evaluating the responses from the invited candidates.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said step of inviting said candidates includes providing contextual information relating to said event.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising, responsive to satisfying said requirements, establishing a collaboration of said resources.

20. A computer-readable storage medium comprising a program element for execution by a computing device to establish a collaboration, the program element including:

computer-readable program code for evaluating an event;

computer-readable program code for defining collaboration requirements to respond to said event;

computer-readable program code for identifying resources which collectively satisfy said requirements, said resources including personnel candidates;

computer-readable program code for evaluating the availability of said candidates;

computer-readable program code for sending an invitation to available candidates, said invitation including contextual information about said event; and

computer-readable program code for evaluating responses from the invited candidates.

21. A system for establishing a collaboration to respond to an event comprising:

a. means for evaluating data regarding a triggering event;

b. means for defining collaboration requirements responsive to said evaluation means;

c. means for identifying resources which satisfy said requirements;

d. means for prioritizing the identified resources to determine a subset of said resources which collectively satisfy said requirements; and

e. inviting said subset to collaborate to respond to said event.