HOSPITALITY PRIVATE BRANCH EXCHANGE (PBX) SYSTEM WITH DYNAMIC RULES FOR COMPLEMENTING MOBILE PHONES OF CURRENTLY CHECKED IN GUESTS

• US 20180034964A1
• Filed: 10/11/2017
• Published: 02/01/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Guest-tek Interactive Entertainment Ltd., Innacloud Technologies LLC
• Original Assignee: Guest-tek Interactive Entertainment Ltd., Innacloud Technologies LLC
• Inventors: McComb, Russell D., Abnett, Christopher, MacMillan, Andrew T.
• Granted Patent: US 10,645,223 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0004 characterised by the type of physiological signal transmitted
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/747 in case of emergency, i.e. alerting emergency services
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2455 Query execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/12 Hotels or restaurants
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42068 where the identifier is used to access a profile
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42144 by service provider
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0024 Services and arrangements where telephone services are combined with data services arrangements which combine a telephonic equipment and a computer H04M7/0012
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/16 Communication-related supplementary services, e.g. call-transfer or call-hold

Abstract

A PBX system complements the mobile phones of users. Custom incoming and outgoing call rules are dynamically activated for users when the users begin utilizing a facility having at least one phone number and a number of internal phones. A custom rule causes outgoing calls made from an internal phone used by a user to have a caller ID phone number of the user'"'"'s personal mobile phone rather than the facility'"'"'s phone number. Another custom rule causes incoming calls made to the facility'"'"'s phone number that have a source caller ID phone number matching a phone number in the user'"'"'s mobile phone address book to be automatically forwarded directly to an internal phone currently utilized by the user. The user may install an application on their mobile phone, and another custom rule causes incoming calls at the user'"'"'s mobile phone to be twinned while the user is at the facility.

Claims

1. A mobile device comprising one or more processors configured to:

track whether a user associated with the mobile device is checked in to one of a plurality of guest rooms at a hospitality establishment;

establish a forwarding rule so that incoming calls directed to the mobile device are forwarded to a predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment when the user is checked in to the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment;

establish a incoming call rule based at least in part on the user selecting whether to allow twin incoming calls to both a phone in the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment and the mobile device; and

remove the forwarding rule when the user is no longer checked in to the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment.

2. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are configured by a predetermined application running on the mobile device.

3. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to establish the forwarding rule at the mobile device.

4. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to establish the forwarding rule at a telecom provider for the mobile device.

5. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

in response to a determination that an incoming call is not being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, forward the incoming call to the predetermined phone number according to the forwarding rule and notify a hospitality phone system of information associated with the incoming call.

6. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

in response to a determination that the incoming call is being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, cause the mobile device to ring so as to allow the user to answer the incoming call at the mobile device.

7. The mobile device of claim 6, wherein the one or more processers are further configured to:

determine whether the incoming call is answered by the user at the mobile device; and

send a corresponding notification to a hospitality phone system.

8. The mobile device of claim 7, wherein the one or more processers are further configured to:

in response to a determination that the incoming call is not answered, re-forward the incoming call to the predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment, and send the incoming call to a voice mail number by the hospitality phone system.

9. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein the one or more processers are further configured to:

in response to receiving a notification that the user has checked out of the hospitality establishment, deactivate the custom incoming call rule.

10. A method of processing incoming calls to a mobile device, the method comprising:

tracking whether a user associated with the mobile device is checked in to one of a plurality of guest rooms at a hospitality establishment;

establishing a forwarding rule so that incoming calls directed to the mobile device are forwarded to a predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment when the user is checked in to the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment;

establishing a custom incoming call rule based at least in part on the user selecting whether to allow twin incoming calls to both a phone in the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment and the mobile device; and

removing the forwarding rule when the user is no longer checked in to the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising establishing the forwarding rule at the mobile device.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising establishing the forwarding rule at a telecom provider for the mobile device.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

in response to a determination that an incoming call is not being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, forwarding the incoming call to the predetermined phone number according to the forwarding rule and notifying a hospitality phone system of information associated with the incoming call.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

in response to a determination that an incoming call is being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, causing the mobile device to ring so as to allow the user to answer the incoming call at the mobile device.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

in response to a determination that the incoming call is not answered, re-forwarding the incoming call to the predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment, and sending the incoming call to a voice mail number by a hospitality phone system.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

in response to receiving a notification that the user has checked out of the hospitality establishment, deactivating the custom incoming call rule.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable instructions that upon execution on a computing device cause the computing device at least to:

track whether a user associated with a mobile device is checked in to one of a plurality of guest rooms at a hospitality establishment;

establish a forwarding rule so that incoming calls directed to the mobile device are forwarded to a predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment when the user is checked in to the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment;

establish a custom incoming call rule based at least in part on the user selecting whether to allow twin incoming calls to both a phone in the one of the plurality of guest rooms at the hospitality establishment and the mobile device; and

remove the forwarding rule when the user is no longer checked in to the one of the different guest rooms at the hospitality establishment.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising computer-readable instructions that upon execution on the computing device cause the computing device at least to:

in response to a determination that an incoming call is not being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, forward the incoming call to the predetermined phone number according to the forwarding rule and notifying a hospitality phone system of information associated with the incoming call.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising computer-readable instructions that upon execution on the computing device cause the computing device at least to:

in response to a first determination that an incoming call is being forwarded to the mobile device by a call twinning feature at the hospitality establishment, cause the mobile device to ring so as to allow the user to answer the incoming call at the mobile device; and

in response to a second determination that the incoming call is not answered by the user, re-forward the incoming call to the predetermined phone number corresponding to the hospitality establishment, and send the incoming call to a voice mail number by a hospitality phone system.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising computer-readable instructions that upon execution on the computing device cause the computing device at least to:

in response to receiving a notification that the user has checked out of the hospitality establishment, deactivate the custom incoming call rule.