Method and system for determining and using multiple object states in a computer telephony integration system
First Claim
1. In a communication center having plural agent stations, each agent station comprising at least a personal computer with a video display unit (PC/VDU), a communication switching apparatus for routing incoming communications to individual ones of the agent stations, a status software application for monitoring status of agent stations by software-defined states, wherein one of the agent stations may simultaneously be active in two or more of the defined states, and a routing software application, a method for reporting status of agent stations by the status application to the routing application comprising the steps of:
- (a) monitoring by the status application the active states of agent stations according to the defined states;
(b) requesting the state of an individual agent station from the status application by the routing application, and providing with the request a status priority indication (SPI) of active defined states of interest; and
(c) providing to the routing application, by the status application, the active state of the individual agent station having the highest priority in the SPI provided by the requesting application.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method for a reporting application to flexibly report the status of an entity in a call center to a requesting application is provided. The entity could be in one or more states. Examples of an entity are a directory number, an agent, a group, a routing point, and an agent place. The requesting application sets the priority of these states belonging to the entity by sending a status priority table to the reporting application. The reporting application reports the status based on the active states of the entity and the priority table. As an example, the reported status could be the active state having the highest priority in the table. This state is reported back to the requesting application. Because different requesting applications could present different priority tables, the reporting application could report different states for the same entity.
196 Citations
12 Claims
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1. In a communication center having plural agent stations, each agent station comprising at least a personal computer with a video display unit (PC/VDU), a communication switching apparatus for routing incoming communications to individual ones of the agent stations, a status software application for monitoring status of agent stations by software-defined states, wherein one of the agent stations may simultaneously be active in two or more of the defined states, and a routing software application, a method for reporting status of agent stations by the status application to the routing application comprising the steps of:
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(a) monitoring by the status application the active states of agent stations according to the defined states; (b) requesting the state of an individual agent station from the status application by the routing application, and providing with the request a status priority indication (SPI) of active defined states of interest; and (c) providing to the routing application, by the status application, the active state of the individual agent station having the highest priority in the SPI provided by the requesting application. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A communication center comprising:
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plural agent stations, each agent station comprising at least a personal computer with a video display unit (PC/VDU); a communication switching apparatus for routing incoming communications to individual ones of the agent stations; a status software application for monitoring status of agent stations by software-defined states, wherein one of the agent stations may simultaneously be active in two or more of the defined states; and and a routing software application; characterized in that the status application monitors the agent stations for active states according to the defined states, and returns to a routing application requesting state information on an individual one of the agent stations that active state which is current for the agent station and also highest in priority on a status priority indication furnished by the routing application at the time of the request. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification