Providing contextual information with a voicemail message

• US 8,483,368 B2
• Filed: 08/31/2012
• Issued: 07/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Milstein, David, Howell, David A., Criddle, Linda, Chou, Philip A., Moore, Timothy M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Anwah, Olisa
• Application Number:
  US13/601,791
• Publication Number:
  US 20130003948A1
• Time in Patent Office: 312 Days
• Field of Search: 379/67.1, 379/68, 379/88.12, 379/88.16, 379/88.19, 379/88.2, 379/88.21, 379/88.22, 379/88.23, 379/142.04
• US Class Current: 379/88.23
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/303 Marking
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/53366 Message disposing or creating aspects

Abstract

Aspects of the present invention are directed at obtaining contextual information with a voicemail message. In accordance with one embodiment, a method is provided that obtains additional contextual information that is not obtained automatically when a voicemail message is received. More specifically, the method includes automatically obtaining a first set of contextual information from a client associated with the caller when the caller is transferred to a voicemail system. Then a determination is made regarding whether the callee requests that additional contextual information be obtained. If the callee requests that additional contextual information be obtained, the requested information is obtained from a third-party service or by prompting the caller.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor and a computer-readable medium,

a voicemail account that stores voicemails for a callee;

accessing the voicemail account of the callee for accepting a voicemail message that includes callee specified rules for obtaining contextual information from the caller using the processor;

obtaining a first set of contextual information from a client associated with a caller that may vary depending on the capabilities of the client;

determining whether the voicemail account is configured to obtain additional contextual information; and

obtaining the additional contextual information requested by the callee including accessing a service that maintains the additional contextual information on behalf of the caller.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising including references to the additional contextual information obtained from the caller in the metadata of the voicemail message.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining the body of the voicemail message;

extracting contextual information from the body of the voicemail message including identifying statistically significant keywords in the body of the voicemail message using a voice recognition engine to convert audio to text.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the contextual information obtained from the caller includes the subject of the voicemail message.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein determining whether the voicemail account is configured to obtain additional contextual information requested by the callee, includes:

comparing the first set of contextual information obtained automatically with the contextual information requested by the callee, and when the callee requests contextual information that is not available from a third-party service or included in the first set of contextual information, determining that additional contextual information will be obtained from the caller.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein determining whether the voicemail account is configured to obtain additional contextual information requested by the callee, includes:

identifying the data formats that the client associated with the caller is capable of capturing; and

when the client associated with the caller is not capable of capturing contextual information in a required data format, determining that the caller will not be prompted for the additional contextual information.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein obtaining the additional contextual information requested by the callee includes prompting the caller for the additional contextual information.

8. A system, comprising:

a processor and a computer-readable medium,

a voicemail account that stores voicemails;

identifying capabilities of a client associated with a callee that accesses the voicemail account that is configured to attempt to obtain contextual information that may vary based on the capabilities of the client from a caller based on callee specified rules;

identifying contextual information that will be made available to the callee; and

providing the contextual information to the callee.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein identifying the capabilities of the client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account includes obtaining contextual information over a communication channel.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein identifying contextual information that will be made available to the callee with a voicemail message includes performing a lookup in a data structure that stores rules and preferences established by the callee.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein providing the user with access to the contextual information includes, converting contextual information into a format that is appropriate for the client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein converting contextual information into a format that is appropriate for the client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account includes, using a speech-to-text engine to convert contextual information from a text to audio format if contextual information in a text format will be provided to the callee in an audio format.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein converting contextual information into a format that is appropriate for the client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account includes, using a voice recognition engine to convert contextual information from an audio to text format if contextual information in a audio format will be provided to the callee in a text format.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein providing the callee with access to the contextual information includes adding contextual information obtained by prompting the caller to the body of an e-mail message if an e mail application is used to obtain the voicemail message.

15. A system for obtaining contextual information related to a voicemail message from a caller and providing the contextual information to a callee, comprising:

a collection component for obtaining contextual information from the caller that may vary depending on the capabilities of the client associated with the caller based on callee specified rules when a voicemail message is received;

a notification component that provides the contextual information obtained from the caller to a callee when the voicemail message is accessed; and

an account creation component for generating a voicemail account that store rules and preferences for obtaining contextual information with a voicemail message.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising an extraction component for mining contextual information from a body of the voicemail message.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the collection component automatically obtains contextual information from the caller and determines whether additional contextual information is requested by the callee.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the collection component identifies the capabilities of the client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account and obtains contextual information over a communication channel.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein the collection component performs a lookup in a data structure that stores rules and preferences established by the callee.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the notification component converts the contextual information into a format that is appropriate for a client associated with the callee that accesses the voicemail account.