Integrating an IVR application within a standards based application server

• US 20070081520A1
• Filed: 10/11/2005
• Published: 04/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Mandalia, Baiju, Gavagni, Brett, Muschett, Brien, Nusbickel, Wendi, Da Palma, William
• Granted Patent: US 8,139,730 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4938 comprising a voice browser which renders and interprets, e.g. VoiceXML

Abstract

A method for providing Interactive Voice Response functionality within a multi-tiered telephony environment can identify an enterprise archive file that contains an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) application. The enterprise archive file can contain multiple interpreters for different markup languages. The enterprise archive file can also include a servlet that maps the interpreters to telephony sessions. The enterprise archive file can be deployed within a J2EE compliant application server having a SIP interface. The deployed IVR application can be utilized to provide IVR functions for SIP based telephony sessions.

Claims

1. An application server comprising:

an Interactive Voice Responses (IVR) application comprising a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servlet and a plurality of markup interpreters, each markup interpreter being based upon a common interpreter interface, wherein said servlet calls methods of the plurality of markup interpreters in accordance with the common interpreter interface; and

a SIP interface for handling operations for SIP telephony sessions in the application server, wherein for SIP based telephony sessions involving interactive voice response operations, said SIP interface is configured to convey a SIP incoming request for a SIP telephony session to said SIP servlet, wherein upon receiving said SIP incoming request, said SIP servlet determines at least one of said plurality of markup interpreters for interpreting markup during a SIP based telephony session associated with the incoming session request.

2. The application server of claim 1, wherein said application server utilizes modular components of a standardized runtime platform, wherein said platform provides functionality for developing distributed, multi-tier, Web-based applications, and wherein said platform includes a standard set of services, application programming interfaces, and protocols.

3. The application server of claim 1, wherein said application server is a JAVA 2 PLATFORM ENTERPRISE EDITION (J2EE) compliant application server and wherein said IVR application is packaged within a JAVA Enterprise Archive (EAR) file.

4. An enterprise archive file configured for deployment in a JAVA 2 PLATFORM ENTERPRISE EDITION (J2EE) compliant application server comprising:

a plurality of markup interpreters, each markup interpreter being based upon a common interpreter interface; and

a servlet configured to map incoming requests formatted in accordance with a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to one of said markup interpreters based upon a type of markup that is to be used during a telephony session as specified by the incoming request, wherein the application server utilizes the mapped markup interpreter for the telephony session to handle markup associated with an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) application executing upon the application server.

5. The enterprise archive file of claim 4, wherein said servlet accepts the incoming request from a SIP stack of the application server.

6. The enterprise archive file of claim 4, wherein said IVR application utilizes a media resource control protocol (MRCP) compliant speech server external to the application server to provide text-to-speech and speech-to-text operations.

7. The enterprise archive file of claim 4, wherein the plurality of markup interpreters include a Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML) based interpreter and a Call Control eXtensible Markup Language (CCXML) based interpreter.

8. The enterprise archive file of claim 4, wherein said application server is selected from at least one of a group consisting of a WEBSPHERE application server, a BEA WEBLOGIC application server, and a JBOSS application server.

9. A method for providing Interactive Voice Response functionality within a multi-tiered telephony environment comprising the steps of:

identifying an enterprise archive file that contains an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) application;

deploying the enterprise archive file within a JAVA 2 PLATFORM ENTERPRISE EDITION (J2EE) compliant application server having a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) interface; and

utilizing the deployed IVR application of the application server to provide IVR functions for SIP based telephony sessions.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said IVR application utilizes a speech server external to the application server to provide text-to-speech and speech-to-text operations for the SIP based telephony sessions.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the external speech server is a media resource control protocol (MRCP) compliant server.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the enterprise archive file contains a plurality of interpreters for different markup languages, and wherein the enterprise archive file contains a servlet, said utilizing step further comprising:

for each of said SIP based telephony sessions, said servlet receiving an incoming session request;

said servlet determining at least one of said plurality of interpreters for interpreting markup during a SIP based telephony session associated with the incoming session request; and

utilizing the determined interpreter for the associated SIP based telephony session.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said plurality of interpreters comprise at least one of a Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML) based interpreter and a Call Control extensible Markup Language (CCXML) based interpreter.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein each of said plurality of interpreters is implemented as a different object class, and wherein each of said different object classes inherits methods from an established interpreter class.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said methods comprise at least one method selected from a group consisting of a method to set a document to process, a method to set interpreter properties for one of said SIP based telephony sessions, a method to initialize primary interpreter processes, a method to set a listener, and a method to receive and handle events.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein a common interface is defined for each of the plurality of interpreters, wherein said servlet calls methods of the plurality of interpreters in accordance with the common interface.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein said application server is selected from at least one of a group consisting of a WEBSPHERE application server, a BEA WEBLOGIC application server, and a JBOSS application server.

18. The method of claim 9, said utilizing step further comprising:

receiving a request for a switch based telephony session from a caller;

identifying a gateway between the caller and the application server, said gateway converting signals between a switch based protocol and a SIP based protocol; and

establishing communications between said caller and said IVR application across gateway.

19. The method of claim 9, wherein the steps of claim 9 are performed by at least one service agent and a computing device manipulated by the service agent, the steps g performed in response to a service request.

20. The method of claim 9, wherein said steps of claim 9 are performed by at least machine in accordance with at least one computer program having a plurality of code ions that are executable by the at least one machine.