Multi-party information analysis in a VoIP system

• US 20070265990A1
• Filed: 05/10/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Miscrosoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Kuansan, Sidhu, Gursharan, Forbes, Scott, Malueg, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,135,125 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/418
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0284 Time or distance, e.g. usage of parking meters or taximeters
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42

Abstract

A system and method for collecting contextual information from several parties and generating an analyzed response to the contextual information is provided. Multiple sets of contextual information may be received from one or more clients. Relevant contextual information may be identified and pushed into a module which is configured to aggregate the relevant contextual information until it meets its threshold within a predetermined period. A set of events relating to the relevant contextual information may be generated to execute appropriate actions. The appropriate actions may include notifying a potential problem or an issue, providing a known solution, and so on. In this manner, contextual data from multiple parties can be analyzed to identify potential issues/problems that are frequently reported.

Claims

1. A method of collecting and analyzing contextual information relating to a plurality of clients of a call center coupled to an aggregator agent, comprising:

receiving contextual information relating to at least one client;

identifying relevant contextual information from the received contextual information;

providing the identified contextual information to the aggregator agent;

receiving a set of events from the aggregator agent; and

executing actions corresponding to the set of events.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of events is received from the aggregator agent when a threshold associated with the relevant contextual information has been met.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the executed actions include identifying issues in the contextual information related to the several clients.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

collecting additional contextual information relating to at least one client.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving multiple sets of contextual information relating to several clients, the multiple sets of contextual information sharing at least some common information.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the relevant contextual information is identified from the common information.

7. A method of aggregating contextual information relating to several clients and analyzing the aggregation, comprising:

receiving multiple sets of contextual information;

aggregating the received contextual information;

identifying a threshold corresponding to the aggregated contextual information;

monitoring the level of aggregation until the aggregated contextual information meets its corresponding threshold;

upon detecting that the aggregated contextual information meets its corresponding threshold, generating an event; and

providing the generated event.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

upon generating the event, storing and logging information relating to the aggregated contextual information and the threshold.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

clearing, storing, or caching the aggregated contextual information and the threshold for a new analysis.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the threshold is changed for another analysis.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein an appropriate set of criteria is determined to find similarity in the received contextual information.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the received contextual information with the similarity is aggregated and, if the aggregation meets a corresponding threshold, an event is generated.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein the threshold corresponds to a predetermined period.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components for collecting contextual information relating to several clients and generating an analyzed response to the contextual information, comprising:

an interface component for receiving multiple sets of contextual information;

a filtering component for identifying relevant contextual information based on predefined factors;

an aggregator component for aggregating the identified contextual information until it meets a threshold, monitoring the level of aggregation, and upon detecting the level of aggregation meets the threshold, generating a event in accordance with predefined logic; and

wherein the interface component pushes the identified contextual information to the aggregator component.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14 further comprising:

a storage component for storing information relating to the predefined factors, the aggregation, the received contextual information, the event, the value of the threshold and time/date stamps.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the storage component stores contextual information relating to each client.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the interface component collects additional contextual information relating to the several clients.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the filtering component selects an appropriate set of criteria to identify relevant contextual information from the multiple sets of contextual information.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the appropriate set of criteria and the threshold are dynamically defined.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein upon receipt of a dynamically defined threshold, the aggregator component reevaluates the aggregated contextual information and generates a second event based on the aggregated contextual information.