Systems and methods for handling a plurality of communications for different companies

• US 8,549,107 B2
• Filed: 05/06/2011
• Issued: 10/01/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Ezerzer, Ran, Aljane, Ali, St-Cyr, Pierre, Yahmadi, Imed, Borodow, Eli B., Margulies, Edwin Kenneth, Rodriguez, Pablo M.
• Primary Examiner(s): RECEK, JASON D
• Application Number:
  US13/102,970
• Publication Number:
  US 20110213860A1
• Time in Patent Office: 879 Days
• Field of Search: 709/218
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/4234 Remote access to features of PBX or home telephone systems-teleworking in a PBX
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5125 with remote located operators
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/12 for working between exchanges having different types of switching equipment, e.g. power-driven and step by step or decimal and non-decimal

Abstract

A distributed communication center configured to handle a plurality of communications includes a user zone, a web zone, and a network zone. The user zone includes a plurality of remote terminals that enable communication center personnel and end users to remotely interface with the distributed communication center through the web zone. The web zone includes one or more web servers configured and one or more mail servers to interface the remote terminals in the user zone with the network zone. The network zone includes one or more telephony servers and one or more application servers.

Claims

1. A system for providing a distributed call center configured to host a plurality of companies, comprising:

a web server provided as part of a web zone, wherein the web server includes a manager application and is configured to receive and route incoming communications to a network zone;

a plurality of nodes provided as part of the network zone, including an application server configured to receive the incoming communications from the web server, and route the incoming communications to a remote terminal that handles the incoming communications, wherein at least one of the plurality of nodes in the network zone comprises a plurality of applications and at least some of the plurality of applications are dedicated to certain different ones of said plurality of companies;

a plurality of bus server applications, including

a bus server application at the web server and

at each of the plurality of nodes in the network zone an additional bus server application,

wherein each of the bus server application at the web server and the additional bus server applications provides the manager application with real-time status information of applications at their respective nodes;

wherein, in response to receiving the real-time status information, the manager application manages the applications in the network zone including stopping and modifying the applications as appropriate.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a user session manager configured to authenticate attempts to remotely access call center resources using the remote terminal.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein authenticating the remote access attempts comprises receiving a remote login message and initiating a user session in response to receiving the remote login message.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein authenticating the remote access attempts further comprises extracting login information from the received remote login message and storing the extracted login information.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein authenticating the remote access attempts further comprises tracking information related to the initiated user session.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the user session manager is further configured to receive a logout message and end the initiated user session in response to the received logout message.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a real-time user state transmission application configured to relay status information related to the remote terminal to the network zone.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein relaying the status information comprises receiving an action request from the remote terminal and forwarding the action request to the network zone.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the real-time user state transmission application is further configured to extract action request information from the received action request and store the extracted information in a queue.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein forwarding the action request comprises retrieving the action request information from the queue and forwarding it to the network zone.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a real-time user state reception application configured to relay status information related to the network zone to the remote terminal.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein relaying status information comprises receiving a message from the network zone generated in response to an action request from the remote terminal and transmitting the received message to the remote terminal.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the real-time user state reception application is further configured to receive a query from the remote terminal and to transmit a received message to the remote terminal in response to the received query.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the real-time user state reception application is further configured to:

receive a query from the remote terminal;

in response to the received query, determine if there are any messages to be transmitted to the remote terminal;

if there are no messages to be transmitted, then wait for a configurable period to receive any messages from the network zone to be transmitted to the remote terminal; and

transmit any received messages when they are received.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes non-real-time system state transmission/reception application configured to relay status for non-real-time communications between the remote terminal and the network zone.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a database interface application configured to interface the remote terminal with a database.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a FTP interface application configured to interface the remote terminal with a file server.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the web server includes a remote database/file handler application configured to handle database and file requests from the remote terminal.

19. A method for providing a distributed call center configured to host a plurality of companies, comprising:

providing a web server as part of a web zone, wherein the web server includes a manager application and is configured to receive and route incoming communications to a network zone;

providing a plurality of nodes as part of the network zone, including an application server configured to receive the incoming communications from the web server, and route the incoming communications to a remote terminal that handles the incoming communications, wherein at least one of the plurality of nodes in the network zone comprises a plurality of applications and at least some of the plurality of applications are dedicated to certain different ones of said plurality of companies;

providing a plurality of bus server applications, including

a bus server application at the web server and

at each of the plurality of nodes in the network zone an additional bus server application,

wherein each of the bus server application at the web server and the additional bus server applications provides the manager application with real-time status information of applications at their respective nodes;

wherein, in response to receiving the real-time status information, the manager application manages the applications in the network zone including stopping and modifying the applications as appropriate.