Using a list management server for conferencing in an IMS environment

• US 7,921,158 B2
• Filed: 03/27/2007
• Issued: 04/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wallenborn, Susan R., Mandalia, Baiju D., Moore, Victor S., Nusbickel, Wendi L.
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, VIET DUY
• Application Number:
  US11/691,642
• Publication Number:
  US 20070185957A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,470 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/227, 709/228, 719/318
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference

Abstract

The present invention uses a list management server for specifying conference participants in an IMS environment. More specifically, a conference list can be established for a standard list management server. The conference list can be a group list that is identified with a unique public URI. The group list can include multiple members, where each member can be identified by a member URI. Members can be specific participants associated with a user specific URI and/or can be a group of participants. When the conference is initiated, a new communication session can be instantiated and a conferencing application execute. After session instantiation, participants included in the conference list can join the session.

Claims

1. A method for conferencing in an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) environment comprising:

establishing a conference group with a list management server, wherein the conference group includes a plurality of attributes, said attributes including a session identifier and an owner start attribute;

a plurality of conference participants subscribing to the session identifier, wherein one of the conference participants is a conference session owner, the conference session owner subscribing to the owner start attribute;

the owner start attribute automatically triggering an event at approximately a time that the conferencing session is to start;

the list management server conveying a notification to the conference session owner in response to the triggering;

responsive to notifying the conference session owner, invoking a conference application to initiate a conferencing session, which has an associated conferencing session identifier;

the conference application changing a value of the session identifier to the conferencing session identifier; and

responsive to the changing step, the list management server automatically conveying a notification of the change that includes the conferencing session identifier to the subscribed conference participants, wherein said conference participants are able to join in the conferencing session by responding to a received notification.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each subscribing participant subscribes using a SIP compliant SUBSCRIBE operation, and wherein the conveying of the notification uses a SIP compliant NOTIFY operation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each conference participant is associated with a participant specific Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), which is managed by the list management server.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein a record for each conference participant is maintained by the list management server, said records each having a modality attribute, said modality attribute indicating a modality through which the associated conference participant will participate in the conferencing session.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the conference is a contact center conference, wherein the conference participants include at least one call center agent and at least one caller, wherein the list management server is one of a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, providing conferencing capabilities, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents.

6. A system for real-time communications comprising:

a list management server which creates and manages network-based group definitions and associated lists of members of those groups, each group having a plurality of attributes including a session identifier and an owner start attribute, wherein said list management server manages communication groups comprising a plurality of communication participants each associated with a real-time communication device having a unique Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), which is used by the list management server to identify the associated communication participant; and

at least one composite services application configured to initialize a real-time communication session responsive to the owner start attribute triggering an event at approximately a time that the communication is to begin, the communication session having participants specified by the list management server, wherein the real-time communication system uses open standards to extend composite services to allow multi-user access;

wherein each communication participant subscribes to the session identifier for a communication group that the communication participant is a member of, and wherein when initialized the composite services application changes the session identifier to a value of an initialized communication session, which causes the list management server to notify each subscribing communication participant so that each is able to join the initialized communication session.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the communication groups are conference groups, wherein the communication participants are conference session participants, wherein the real-time communication session is a conference session, wherein each of the at least one composite services application is a conferencing application.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the list management server manages a communication participant selectable modality, which represents the modality that the communication participant uses during a communication session corresponding to a communication group of which the communication participant is a member.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the list management server is one of a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, providing conferencing capabilities, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents.

10. A method of conferencing communication participants in a conference session, comprising:

creating within a list management server conference group having a plurality of attributes including a session identifier and an owner start attribute, wherein the session identifier is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) unique within the list management server;

associating a plurality of participant identifiers with the conference session identifier, wherein each of the participant identifiers is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) unique within the list management server and wherein one of the participants is a conference session owner, the conference session owner is further associated with the owner start attribute;

the owner start attribute automatically triggering an event at approximately a time that the conferencing session is to start;

the list management server conveying a notification to the conference session owner in response to the triggering; and

executing a conference application and associating a conference session identifier with the conference session responsive to the triggering, wherein the conference application changes a value of the session identifier to the conference session identifier and initiates the conference session that includes a participant for each of the participant identifiers by conveying a notification of the change including the conference session identifier to the participants.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the conference is a contact center conference, wherein the conference participants include at least one call center agent and at least one caller, wherein the list management server is one of a plurality of contact center components conforming to open standards that intercommunicate utilizing open standards, said components together forming an open contact center, said open contact center providing automated interactive communications with callers, providing queue management for callers waiting to communicate with live agents, providing skills based routing for assigning live agents to callers based upon skills of the live agents and skills needed by the callers, providing conferencing capabilities, and providing tooling for provisioning and monitoring the live agents.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the conference application is a composite services application, and wherein each of the participants is able to join the conference using a participant selected modality.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

associating a group identifier with the conference session identifier, wherein the group identifier is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) unique within the list management server, and wherein the group identifier identifies a group of conference participants, each of which is identified with a participant identifier that is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) unique within the list management server.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the list management server exchanges messages with external computing components using an XML based standard, wherein the conference session identifier and the plurality of participant identifiers are initially specified within markup documents conforming to the XML based standard, and wherein the list management server extracts information that it manages for the conference from the markup documents.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the XML based standard is an XML Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP) based standard.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

providing said owner start attribute with an expiration corresponding to a start time of the conference, wherein the executing step is initiated by the expiration of the owner start attribute.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the conference is initiated within an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) communication environment.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein a Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) based SUBSCRIBE operation is performed to permit each participant to join the conference.