Method and System for Integrating an Interaction Management System with a Business Rules Management System

• US 20100158239A1
• Filed: 12/19/2008
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Incorporated (Genesys Cloud Services Incorporated)
• Inventors: Anisimov, Nikolay, Scott, Mark, Petrovykh, Yevgeniy
• Granted Patent: US 8,654,963 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/266.70
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2201/16 Sequence circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/51 Centralised call answering arrangements requiring operator intervention , e.g. call or contact centers for telemarketing
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5175 Call or contact centers supervision arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5183 Call or contact centers with computer-telephony arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5191 interacting with the Internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5232 Call distribution algorithms

Abstract

In a contact center, a system for processing communication events has an interaction server for managing events waiting to be routed, a routing server for routing the events, a rules engine, and a gateway server executing rules invocation logic and interacting with the rules engine. The interaction server tracks incoming events, initiates and sends a routing request to the routing server, including a special routing object, for each event that requires conformance to business rules, the routing server, executing the routing object, sends an execution request to the gateway server, which upon receipt of the request prepares a business object model (BOM), being a set of facts upon which the rules engine executes rules appropriate to the facts, resulting in routing direction for the routing server to route the event.

Claims

1. In a contact center, a system for processing communication events, comprising:

an interaction server for managing events waiting to be routed;

a routing server for routing the events;

a rules engine; and

a gateway server executing rules invocation logic and interacting with the rules engine;

characterized in that the interaction server tracks incoming events, initiates and sends a routing request to the routing server, including a special routing object, for each event that requires conformance to business rules, the routing server, executing the routing object, sends an execution request to the gateway server, which upon receipt of the request prepares a business object model (BOM), being a set of facts upon which the rules engine executes rules appropriate to the facts, resulting in routing direction for the routing server to route the event.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the network is a local area network (LAN) integrated by a computer telephone integration processor to a telephone switching facility.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the LAN is connected to a wide area network (WAN).

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the WAN is the Internet network.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction events are represented in the interaction server using an abstract markup language.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction events represent one or a mix of telephone calls, voice over Internet protocol calls, emails, text messages, or interactive chat requests.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the gateway server has network access to a contact center configuration server and a contact center statistics server for gathering facts for building the business object model.

8. In a contact center, a method for routing an interaction event, comprising the steps of:

(a) representing the interaction event in an interaction server using an abstract markup language;

(b) requesting a routing strategy for handling the event;

(c) sending a routing object to a routing server, which when it executes the routing object sends a request to a gateway server;

(d) at the gateway server, in response to the request, creating a business object model representing a set of facts relevant to the interaction event and contact center state information;

(e) starting a business rule engine to execute one or more business rules using the business object model as data for rule execution; and

(f) returning the results of rule execution to the routing strategy.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein in step (a) the interaction type is one of a telephone call, voice over Internet protocol call, email, text message, or interactive chat request.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein in step (d) the model is assembled as a set of Java-based object from data included in the request of step (c) and data that is obtained from at least one other data source.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein in step (e) the business rules are dynamically generated and executed based on the business object model attributes.

12. The method of claim 8 wherein in step (f) the results include one or more modifications to the business object model resulting in one or more status changes applied to the interaction routing strategy.