Method and apparatus for providing fair access to agents in a communication center
First Claim
1. A method for providing impartial caller access to agents of a communication center in response to electronic routing event requests from network-level routing systems to connect to one or more agent stations of the comniunication center, comprising steps of:
- (a) receiving a first routing request from a first network-level routing system for connection to an agent of the communication center;
(b) starting a fairness timer for a timed period;
(c) receiving, during the period of the fairness timer, a second request for the connection to the same agent station from a second network-level routing system; and
(d) determining to grant, through execution of a fairness algorithm at expiration of the period of the fairness timer, one of the first and second routing requests from the network level routing systems.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system for granting access to agents at a communication center in response to requests for connection from network-level entities starts a fairness timer having a fairness time period when a first request is received for and agent, monitors any other requests for the same agent during the fairness time, and executes an algorithm at the end of the fairness time to select the network-level entity to which the request should be granted. In a preferred embodiment the fairness time is set to be equal to or greater than twice the difference between network round-trip latency for the longest latency and shortest latency routers requesting service from the communication center. In some embodiments an agent reservation timer is set at the same point as the fairness timer to prevent calls to the same agent, and has a period longer than the fairness timer by a time sufficient for a connection to be made to the agent station once access is granted, and for notification of the connection to be made to network-level entities.
241 Citations
18 Claims
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1. A method for providing impartial caller access to agents of a communication center in response to electronic routing event requests from network-level routing systems to connect to one or more agent stations of the comniunication center, comprising steps of:
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(a) receiving a first routing request from a first network-level routing system for connection to an agent of the communication center; (b) starting a fairness timer for a timed period; (c) receiving, during the period of the fairness timer, a second request for the connection to the same agent station from a second network-level routing system; and (d) determining to grant, through execution of a fairness algorithm at expiration of the period of the fairness timer, one of the first and second routing requests from the network level routing systems. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A communication center, comprising:
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a call switching device connected to agent stations of the communication center for switching calls to individual ones of the agent stations; a computer-telephony integration (CTI) processor coupled to the switching device; and a digital link between the CTI processor and one or more network-level routing systems for receiving routing requests from network-level routing systems for call connection to one or more of the agent stations; wherein the CTI processor, on receiving a first routing request for call connection to an agent station, starts a fairness timer having a time-out period, and in the event of receiving a second or more routing requests for connection to the same agent station during the fairness time period, executes a fairness algorithm at the end of the time-out period to determine which routing request to grant. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A machine-readable medium having stored thereon a software routine providing a method for impartial caller access to one or more agents of a communication center, the method comprising steps of:
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(a) monitoring incoming routing requests for call connection to agents of the communication center; (b) starting a fairness timer having a fairness time-out period at the time of receiving a first routing request for connection to an agent; and (c) determining by a fairness algorithm which of multiple routing requests received after the first request for call connection to a same agent to grant. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification