Method and system for enhancing collaboration

• US 8,929,528 B2
• Filed: 12/19/2005
• Issued: 01/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/11/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Rockstar Consortium US LP (Rockstar Consortium Inc.)
• Inventors: Wallace, Raymond, Chmara, Thomas, Graves, Alan F., Jelaca, Maja
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoque, Nafiz E
• Application Number:
  US11/303,989
• Publication Number:
  US 20070004389A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,305 Days
• Field of Search: 37920201-2041, 370/260, 370/261
• US Class Current: 379/202.01
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users
• 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 3/563 User guidance or feature selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems

Abstract

In order to enhance collaborations, the system responds to a trigger event to determine the nature of any collaboration which should be assembled in response to the trigger, and determines the requirements needed to respond to the event. These requirements set out the type of resources (personnel, equipment, information systems, etc) that are needed. The system then identifies a subset of specific resources based on a criteria, and invites the specified resources to collaborate to respond to the event. The criteria can include the availability of the specific resource. According to an embodiment, the system evaluates responses from the invited resources and then convenes the collaboration, for example by establishing one or more communication sessions. According to an embodiment, the system evaluates responses from the invited resources to ensure that the requirements are satisfied, and if not, determines other resources to invite.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a collaboration, said method comprising:

receiving, by a processing entity, event information identifying an occurrence of an event having an event type;

determining, by the processing entity, a collaboration qualification set that identifies qualifications of desired participants for the collaboration based on the event type by accessing a resource qualifications repository, the resource qualifications repository identifying a different respective collaboration qualification set for each of a plurality of different event types, each different respective collaboration qualification set identifying a desired qualification for each of a plurality of participants for a respective event type;

identifying, by the processing entity, from a plurality of individuals, a group of participants each of whom is identified as having at least one of the desired qualifications identified in the collaboration qualification set;

determining, by the processing entity, that at least one participant of the group of participants that has a particular Qualification of the desired Qualifications is unavailable for the collaboration;

in response to determining that the at least one participant is unavailable for the collaboration, identifying another participant from the plurality of individuals that has the particular qualification; and

determining that the another participant is available for the collaboration.

2. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the collaboration Qualification set further identifies the desired qualification for a non-personnel resource.

3. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

convening the collaboration of the group of participants.

4. A method as defined in claim 3, wherein identifying the another participant from the plurality of individuals that has the particular qualification comprises:

receiving, from the at least one participant, information identifying the another participant.

5. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the collaboration comprises a communication session.

6. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein determining, by the processing entity, that the at least one participant of the group of participants that has the particular qualification of the desired qualifications is unavailable for the collaboration comprises:

obtaining location information and presence information associated with the at least one participant; and

based on one of the location information and the presence information, determining that the at least one participant is unavailable.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the event information is received from a monitoring device via a network.

8. A system, comprising:

an input for receiving event information identifying an occurrence of an event, the event having an event type; and

a processing entity operative for;

determining a collaboration qualification set that identifies qualifications of desired participants for a collaboration based on the event type by accessing a resource qualifications repository, the resource qualifications repository identifying a different respective collaboration qualification set for each of a plurality of different event types, each different respective collaboration qualification set identifying a desired qualification for each of a plurality of participants for a respective event type;

identifying from a plurality of individuals, a group of participants each of whom is identified as having at least one of the desired qualifications identified in the collaboration qualification set;

determining that at least one participant of the group of participants that has a particular qualification of the desired qualifications is unavailable for the collaboration;

in response to determining that the at least one participant is unavailable for the collaboration, identifying another participant from the plurality of individuals that has the particular qualification; and

determining that the another participant is available for the collaboration.

9. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising a program element for execution by a processing entity, said program element comprising:

program code for receiving event information identifying an occurrence of an event having an event type;

program code for determining collaboration qualification set that identifies qualifications of desired participants for a collaboration based on the event type by accessing a resource qualifications repository, the resource qualifications repository identifying a different respective collaboration qualification set for each of a plurality of different event types, each different respective collaboration qualification set identifying a desired qualification for each of a plurality of participants for a respective event type;

program code for identifying from a plurality of individuals, a group of participants each of whom is identified as having at least one of the desired qualifications identified in the collaboration qualification set;

program code for determining that at least one participant of the group of participants that has a particular qualification of the desired qualifications is unavailable for the collaboration;

program code for in response to determining that the at least one participant is unavailable for the collaboration, identifying another participant from the plurality of individuals that has the particular qualification; and

program code for determining that the another participant is available for the collaboration.