Method and Apparatus for Optimizing Response Time to Events in Queue

• US 20110286444A1
• Filed: 04/19/2011
• Published: 11/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Petrovykh, Yevgeniy
• Granted Patent: US 9,031,087 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/18 Delegation of network management function, e.g. customer network management [CNM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/201 Multicast operation; Broadcast operation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/226 Delivery according to priorities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1045 Proxies, e.g. for session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1073 Registration or de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1104 Session initiation protocol [SIP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1106 Call signalling protocols; H.323 and related
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• 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 2203/2011 Service processing based on information specified by a party before or during a call, e.g. information, tone or routing selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2218 Call detail recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/36 : Statistical metering, e.g. recording occasions when traffic exceeds capacity of trunks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42093 : Notifying the calling party of information on the called or connected party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42365 : Presence services providing information on the willingness to communicate or the ability to communicate in terms of media capability or network connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5166 : in combination with interactive voice response systems or voice portals, e.g. as front-ends
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 : Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 : interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/523 : with call distribution or queueing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5231 : with call back arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 : Call distribution algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5238 : with waiting time or load prediction arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/003 : Click to dial services
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/12 : for working between exchanges having different types of switching equipment, e.g. power-driven and step by step or decimal and non-decimal
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1305 : Software aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13072 : Sequence circuits for call signaling, ACD systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13103 : Memory
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13164 : Traffic (registration, measurement,...)
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13335 : Simulation, emulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13349 : Network management
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/64 : Distributing or queueing

Abstract

A system for optimizing response time to events or representations thereof waiting in a queue has a first server having access to the queue; a software application running on the first server; and a second server accessible from the first server, the second server containing rules governing the optimization. In a preferred embodiment, the software application at least periodically accesses the queue and parses certain ones of events or tokens in the queue and compares the parsed results against rules accessed from the second server in order to determine a measure of disposal time for each parsed event wherein if the determined measure is sufficiently low for one or more of the parsed events, those one or more events are modified to a reflect a higher priority state than originally assigned enabling faster treatment of those events resulting in relief from those events to the queue system load.

Claims

1. A system for optimizing response time to events or representations thereof waiting in a queue by predicting an estimated disposal time for certain ones of those events comprising:

a first server having access to the queue;

a software application running on the first server; and

a second server accessible from the first server, the second server containing rules governing the optimization;

characterized in that the software application at least periodically accesses the queue and parses certain ones of events or tokens thereof contained therein at the time of access and compares the parsed results against rules accessed from the second server in order to determine a measure of disposal time for each parsed event and wherein if the determined measure is sufficiently low for one or more of the parsed events, those one or more events are modified to a reflect a higher priority state than originally assigned, or promoted directly out of queue, enabling faster treatment of those events resulting in relief from those events to the queue system load.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the first server is a work force management and planning server enhanced with the addition of the software application.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the queue is a virtual message queue for a communication center.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the queue is a telephony queue.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the software application includes at least one parsing engine for parsing events.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the software application includes at least one additional interface to a historical data repository.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the rules governing the optimization process include rules for generation of token events that represent real events.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the data parsed includes event type, event status in queue, event routing information, and event origination information.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the data parsed includes event type, event status in queue, event routing information, event origination information, and event purpose information.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the data parsed further includes event content or a portion thereof.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the data parsed further includes event content or a portion thereof.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein an original priority status assignment of low below a certain threshold to a event or representation thereof causes the event to be parsed.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the measure of disposal time determined is an estimate based on known procedure for handling the event.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the measure of disposal time determined is an estimate based on historical averaging of previous measurements for the same originator of an event of a same type.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein events that are modified to reflect a higher priority state are immediately promoted from the queue to an appropriate final destination queue.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein events that are modified to reflect a higher priority state are immediately routed to their final destinations.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein a measure of disposal time is taken collectively for a number of events of a same media type and summed as one disposal time for the sum of events or representations thereof considered, the sum compared to available resource load before priority state modification to determine if those resources will be unreasonable taxed.

18. A software application for optimizing response time to events or representations thereof waiting in a queue by predicting an estimated disposal time for certain ones of those events comprising:

at least one module for determining event type and event state of events or representations thereof;

at least one parsing engine for parsing event or represented event data;

a calculator for weighing parsed results against pre-set rules; and

an event modification module for changing event or represented event state;

characterized in that selected events or representations thereof are modified to reflect a higher priority state and, in some cases, different routing rules, including direct promotion from queue, than those originally assigned to those events due to a determination made that those selected events have a sufficiently high probability of efficient disposal in the system according to an estimated time of disposal for each event or representation thereof.

19. The software application of claim 18 wherein the queue is a virtual message queue for a communication center.

20. The software application of claim 18 wherein the queue is a telephony queue.

21. The system of claim 18 wherein the at least one parsing engine parses event type, event state, and event content.

22. The software application of claim 18 further including at least one interface to a historical data repository.

23. The software application of claim 21 wherein the data parsed includes event routing information, and event origination information.

24. The software application of claim 21 wherein the data parsed includes event purpose information and event content or a portion thereof

25. The software application of claim 18 wherein the criteria for event selection is all events or representations thereof having a low priority assignment valued below a certain priority threshold.

26. The software application of claim 18 wherein the measure of disposal time determined is an estimate based on known procedure for handling the event.

27. The software application of claim 18 wherein the measure of disposal time determined is an estimate based on historical averaging of previous measurements for the same originator of an event of a same type.

28. The software application of claim 18 wherein events modified to reflect a higher priority state are immediately promoted from the queue to an appropriate final destination queue.

29. The software application of claim 18 wherein events that are modified to reflect a higher priority state are immediately routed to their final destinations.

30. The software application of claim 18 wherein a measure of estimated time of disposal is taken collectively for a number of events of a same media type and summed as one estimated disposal time for the sum of events or representations thereof considered, the sum compared to available resource load before priority state modification to determine if those resources will be unreasonable taxed.

31. The software application of claim 18 wherein the pre-set rules contain rules sets that are different for different media types.

32. The software application of claim 18 wherein some of the rules for optimization govern content to be included when generating token representation of real events.

33. A method for predicting an estimated disposal time for an event waiting in a queue system comprising steps of:

(a) gaining software access to an event;

(b) identifying the type of event and state information of the event;

(c) weighing state information against a set of rules; and

(d) establishing a measure of disposal time from the results.

34. The method of claim 33 wherein the queue is a virtual multimedia message queue of a communication center.

35. The method of claim 33 wherein the queue is a real multimedia message queue of a communication center.

36. The method of claim 33 wherein the queue is a telephony queue.

37. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (a) queue access is made from an external machine connected thereto by network cable.

38. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (b) the state information includes priority assignment status, time waiting in queue, event origination information, event destination information, event purpose information, and event routing information.

39. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (c) a scoring system is used to derive values, scoring achieved using an algorithm.

40. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (d) the established measure is a derived value equating to an amount of time.

41. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (d) the measure is derived from known processes times.

42. The method of claim 33 wherein in step (d) the measure is derived from current state information after rules comparison and augmented with a historical averaging of estimated disposal times compiled for the same media type and originator.