System and method for collaborative call management

• US 7,617,457 B2
• Filed: 01/07/2004
• Issued: 11/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sbc Knowledge Ventures, L.P.
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: White, P. David, Kortum, Philip T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lo; Weilun
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hassan; Rashedul
• Application Number:
  US10/753,097
• Publication Number:
  US 20050149876A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,134 Days
• Field of Search: 715/753, 715/751, 715/755, 715/756, 715/757, 715/758, 715/759, 715/733, 709/204, 370/260, 370/261, 370/262
• US Class Current: 715/753
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/38 Displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/42 Graphical user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42059 Making use of the calling party identifier
• 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 3/42374 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/56 Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities video conference systems H04N7/15

Abstract

A system and method for collaborative call management are disclosed. In one embodiment of a method incorporating teachings of the present disclosure, a graphical user interface (GUI) element may be presented in connection with a collaborative call. The GUI element may display a listing of call participants and a status of each participant. Example participant states may include an on-call state, an off-call state, a currently speaking state, a waiting to speak state, and a paused-call state. In operation, information presented in the GUI element may change in response to a status change of a call participant. The method may also involve recognizing that a caller has joined the collaborative call and updating the GUI element to add the joining caller to the list of participants.

Claims

1. A collaborative call method comprising:

initiating presentation of a graphical user interface (GUI) element by a presentation engine to a device associated with a caller joining in a collaborative call, after the caller has been identified via voice recognition, the GUI element operable to display a listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call;

determining whether the caller is a call host having administrative rights not available to other call participants, said GUI element being a host GUI including advanced call controls when the caller is the call host, the host GUI different than a participant GUI presented to other call participants; and

updating the GUI element in response to a change in a status of one or more of the call participants, the updating including indicating a desire of a call participant to sneak by displaying an indicator next to the name of the call participant desiring to speak in the listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recognizing that the caller has joined the collaborative call as a call participant; and

presenting a name associated with the caller within the GUI element.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a participant that is speaking during the collaborative call via voice recognition; and

updating information presented in the GUI element to include the identified participant that is speaking.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising prompting the caller joining the collaborative call as a call participant to speak in connection with identifying the caller.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the status of each call participant is selected from a group consisting of an on-call state, an off-call state, a currently speaking state, a waiting to speak state;

and a paused-call state.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising tracking a caller metric for at least one of the call participants, wherein the caller metric is selected from a group consisting of a call joining time, a call exiting time, an on-call duration time, an accepted to-do list, and a participation level indicator.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a collaborative call report.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the collaborative call report comprises a list of the call participants and a caller metric for at least one of the call participants.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the collaborative call report further comprises a transcript of the collaborative call.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

recognizing a subsequent communication by the call participant desiring to speak; and

updating the GUI element to remove the indicator.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting at least a portion of a transcript of the collaborative call in a textual format within a near real time chat window associated with the GUI element.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a blog of the collaborative call, wherein the blog comprises at least a portion of a transcript of the collaborative call.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a collaborative call report comprising a list of participants and a transcript of at least a portion of the collaborative call; and

distributing the collaborative call report to at least one call participant.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein distributing the collaborative call report comprises sending a message selected from a group consisting of an electronic mail message, an Instant Message, a facsimile message, and a physical paper message.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the GUI element comprises an administrative feature icon, the method further comprising:

recognizing that the caller has joined the collaborative call;

determining that the caller is the call host by authenticating credentials received from the caller;

initiating presentation of the GUI element on a display associated with the call host, after the caller is determined to be the call host;

recognizing that a second caller has joined the collaborative call; and

initiating presentation of a second GUI element on a display associated with the second caller by the presentation engine, after the second caller is recognized, wherein the second GUI element does not include the administrative feature icon.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the GUI element comprises an administrative feature icon operable to trigger termination of a web session associated with the collaborative call, the method further comprising:

recognizing that the caller has joined the collaborative call;

determining that the caller is a call host; and

initiating presentation of the GUI element on a display associated with the call host, after the caller is determined to be the call host.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a signal indicating activation of the administrative feature icon; and

terminating the web session.

18. A computer-readable medium comprising computer-readable data executable by a processor to:

initiate presentation of a host graphical user interface (GUI) in connection with a collaborative call, the host GUI comprising an administrator icon and a listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call, the host GUI providing advanced call controls not available to other call participants;

initiate presentation of a participant GUI having an appearance different than the host GUI by a presentation engine to a device associated with a caller joining in the collaborative call, after the caller has been identified via voice recognition; and

update information presented in the host GUI in response to a change of status of a call participant, the updating including indicating a desire of a call participant to speak next by displaying an indicator next to the name of the call participant desiring to speak in the listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, further comprising additional computer-readable data executable by the processor to update participant GUI information presented in response to the change of status of the call participant.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, further comprising additional computer-readable data executable by the processor to:

generate a transcript of the collaborative call; and

initiate communication of the transcript to at least one call participant.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the status of each call participant is selected from a group consisting of an on-call state, an off-call state, a currently speaking state, a waiting to speak state, and a paused-call state.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 18, further comprising additional computer-readable data executable by the processor to initiate presentation of a GUI element within the host GUI, the GUI element comprising at least a portion of a transcript of the collaborative call in a textual format.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the transcript is presented in near real time.

24. A collaborative call system, comprising:

a computing device operable to be communicatively coupled to a remote host station and a remote participant station;

a participant status engine operable to execute on a computing platform and to track a status associated with a corresponding participant of a collaborative call;

a presentation engine associated with the participant status engine, the presentation engine operable to initiate presentation of a first graphical user interface (GUI) on the remote host station associated with a host having administrative rights not available to other call participants, after the host is identified, and a second GUI on the remote participant station associated with a caller, after the caller joining the collaborative call is identified, the first GUI presenting advanced call controls that are not presented by the second GUI and a listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call, the caller identified via voice recognition; and

a next to speak engine associated with the presentation engine, the next to sneak engine operable to recognize a desire of a call participant to sneak and to initiate presentation of an indicator next to the name of the call participant desiring to sneak in the listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call in the first GUI.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the first GUI comprises a list of call participants and a status icon for each of the participants.

26. The system of claim 24, further comprising a communication engine operable to initiate communication of a call report to the remote host station in response to completion of the collaborative call.

27. The system of claim 24, further comprising an update engine associated with the presentation engine, the update operable to initiate an updating of the first GUI and the second GUI in response to a change in the status of a particular participant.

28. The system of claim 24, further comprising a thin client operable to execute at the remote host station.

29. The system of claim 24, wherein the collaborative call comprises a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call.

30. The system of claim 24, further comprising an interactive voice response (IVR) unit communicatively coupled to the computing platform, the IVR unit operable to allow at least one participant to access information associated with the collaborative call via a voice telephone call.

37. The collaborative call system of claim 24, wherein the presentation engine is operable to display one of an image and a portion of a document on at least one of the first GUI and the second GUI during the collaborative call.

31. A method comprising:

presenting a host graphical user interface (GUI) element automatically from a presentation engine to a device associated with a caller joining a collaborative call comprising call participants, after the caller has been identified as a host having administrative rights not available to other call participants via voice recognition, the host GUI element operable to display a listing of names of the call participants, the listing including a participant status associated with each of the call participant names, wherein the host GUI element includes advanced call controls that are not presented by a participant GUI presented from the presentation engine to other call participants; and

updating the host GUI element in response to a change in the participant status of one of the call participants, the updating including indicating a desire of one of the call participants to sneak by displaying an indicator next to the name of the one of the call participants desiring to speak in the listing of names of call participants associated with the collaborative call;

wherein the participant status is related to activity by the corresponding call participant during the collaborative call.

32. The method of claim 31, further comprising communicating data to a calendar program associated with one of the call participants, wherein the data is communicated via a software package.

33. The method of claim 31, further comprising automatically delivering an audible indication to the call participants when the host begins speaking.

34. The method of claim 31, further comprising automatically delivering an audible announcement to the call participants when one or more of the call participants has left the collaborative call.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein a first call participant participates in the collaborative call via a wireless device and a second participant participates in the collaborative call via Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

36. The method of claim 31, wherein a first call participant participates in the collaborative call via a computer and a second participant participates in the collaborative call via a wireless device or Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).