Networked contact center

• US 9,307,088 B1
• Filed: 05/27/2015
• Issued: 04/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 8X8, Inc.
• Original Assignee: 8X8, Inc.
• Inventors: Southwick, Richard, Townsend, Robert, Salame, Mansour
• Primary Examiner(s): Aubaidi, Rasha Al
• Application Number:
  US14/722,802
• Time in Patent Office: 314 Days
• Field of Search: 379/265.09, 379/266.09
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5141 Details of processing calls and other types of contacts in an unified manner unified messaging in packet-switching networks H04L51/56
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet

Abstract

This document discusses, among other things, a networked contact center that includes multiple platforms to host multiple tenants. Example embodiments include receiving a message associated with one of the tenants and identifying one or more of the platforms associated with the message. For some example embodiments, the networked contact center may allow the platform to access a data location that is both associated with the tenant and shared by two or more of the multiple tenants.

Claims

1. A method for use with a networked contact center that includes data-communicative computers operable by respective agents of a plurality of tenants and includes a plurality of platforms configured to host the plurality of tenants, wherein the platforms are communication layers of one or more server computers, the method comprising:

receiving, at a computer of the networked contact center, a data message associated with a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants;

identifying, using the computer and based upon the particular tenant, a primary platform of the plurality of platforms and a secondary platform of the plurality of tenants;

identifying, based upon the particular tenant, at least one data location;

providing, for the primary platform and in response to identifying the at least one data location, access to a computer server storing data at the at least one data location;

providing, using the primary platform, communications between a data-communicative computer operated by an agent associated with the particular tenant and an entity targeted by a telephone number;

determining that the primary platform is unavailable;

providing, for the secondary platform and in response to determining that the primary platform is unavailable, access to the data stored at the at least one data location; and

providing, using the secondary platform, communications between the data-communicative computer operated by the agent associated with the particular tenant and the entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications between the data-communicative computer operated by the agent associated with the particular tenant and the entity are provided using a broadband communications network that includes at least one network selected from an Internet network and a public switched telephone system network, and wherein receiving the message includes receiving the message via the broadband communications network, and the identifying of the primary platform includes accessing a database that associates the message with the primary platform.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the primary platform is unavailable includes determining that the primary platform is receiving a software upgrade.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising switching operations, for the particular tenant, from the secondary platform to the primary platform in response to the software upgrade completing.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the primary platform of the plurality of platforms includes looking up the primary platform in a table according to a dialed number identification service (DNIS).

6. The method of claim 5, wherein multiple tenants of the plurality of tenants are associated with a common platform in the table.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the table specifies at least one primary platform and at least one secondary platform for a respective DNIS of each of the plurality of tenants.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising changing, in response to determining that a particular primary platform is unavailable, the table to indicate that a particular secondary platform is to be used instead of the particular primary platform.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the primary platform of the plurality of platforms includes looking up the primary platform in a table according to an identifier of an agent for the particular tenant.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the data stored at the at least one data location includes providing the data stored at the at least one data location to an interactive response module.

11. An apparatus for use with a plurality of platforms that host a plurality of tenants, the apparatus comprising:

at least one computer that includes a processing circuit and memory circuit, and that is configured to;

receive a message associated with a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants;

identify, based upon the particular tenant, a primary platform of the plurality of platforms and a secondary platform of the plurality of tenants;

identify, based upon the particular tenant, at least one data location;

provide, for the primary platform and in response to identifying the at least one data location, access to data stored at the at least one data location;

provide, using the primary platform, communications between a data-communicative computer operated by an agent associated with the particular tenant and an entity targeted by a telephone number;

determine that the primary platform is unavailable;

provide, for the secondary platform and in response determining that the primary platform is unavailable, access to the data stored at the at least one data location; and

provide, using the secondary platform, communications between the data-communicative computer operated by the agent associated with the particular tenant and the entity.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the communications between the data-communicative computer operated by the agent associated with the particular tenant and the entity targeted by the telephone number include VoIP communications.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the communications between the data-communicative computer operated by the agent associated with the particular tenant and the entity targeted by the telephone number include cellular telephone communications.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the at least one computer is part of a server computer, a PC, a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) device.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the data stored at the at least one data location include data selected from the group consisting of tenant-specific call configuration, agents'"'"' identification, supervisors'"'"' identification, call recordings, and call statistics.