Switchless automatic call distribution system
First Claim
1. An automatic call distributing system for automatically distributing telephone calls placed over a telephone network to one of a plurality of agent stations, said system comprisinga call router device for directing incoming telephone calls to agent stations,a plurality of agent stations connected to communicate with said call router device, said agent stations having autonomous state machines defined by a plurality of agent states and state transitions that determine the operation of said agent stations, said agent stations providing agent state status messages to said call router, said agent state status messages including transition notifications indicating transitions from one state to another state that do not require approval from said call router and transition requests indicating requests for transition from one state to another state for transitions that do require approval from said call router, each said agent station being responsive to a forced response signal which causes said state machine to make a transition to one of its defined states,said call router device including an agent station state manager connected to receive said transition notifications and said transition requests and to provide said forced response signals to said agent stations.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An automatic call distributing system for automatically distributing telephone calls placed over a network to one of a plurality of agent stations connecting the network via network service interfaces and providing agent status messages to the network, the system including receiving circuit connected via a network service interface to the network for receiving the agent status messages and a call arrival message from the network indicating that an incoming call has been made on the network, and routing circuit responsive to the receiving means for generating a routing signal provided to the network to connect the incoming call to an agent station through the network. Also disclosed are handling transitions of agent stations using transition notifications, transition requests and forced response signals.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. An automatic call distributing system for automatically distributing telephone calls placed over a telephone network to one of a plurality of agent stations, said system comprising
a call router device for directing incoming telephone calls to agent stations, a plurality of agent stations connected to communicate with said call router device, said agent stations having autonomous state machines defined by a plurality of agent states and state transitions that determine the operation of said agent stations, said agent stations providing agent state status messages to said call router, said agent state status messages including transition notifications indicating transitions from one state to another state that do not require approval from said call router and transition requests indicating requests for transition from one state to another state for transitions that do require approval from said call router, each said agent station being responsive to a forced response signal which causes said state machine to make a transition to one of its defined states, said call router device including an agent station state manager connected to receive said transition notifications and said transition requests and to provide said forced response signals to said agent stations.
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14. An automatic call distributing system for automatically distributing telephone calls placed over a telephone network to one of a plurality of agent stations, said system comprising
a call router device for directing incoming telephone calls to agent stations, and a plurality of agent stations connected to communicate with said call router device, said agent stations having autonomous state machine defined by a plurality of agent states and state transitions that determine the operation of said agent stations, said agent stations providing agent state status messages to said call router indicating said agent states, said call router device including means for programmably changing said agent states and state transitions that define said autonomous state machines as a function of the number of incoming calls placed to the automatic call distributing system.
Specification