Activity recording of contact handling system agents

• US 9,111,239 B2
• Filed: 07/13/2011
• Issued: 08/18/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: inContact Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Original Assignee: inContact Incorporated (Nice Ltd)
• Inventors: Minert, Brian D., Peterson, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Richer, Aaron M
• Application Number:
  US13/182,328
• Publication Number:
  US 20130016115A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,497 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 1/0021 Image watermarking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/167 Systems rendering the television signal unintelligible and subsequently intelligible

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for recording agent activity and display information optionally redacting sensitive information from the recorded imagery prior to review by the agent'"'"'s supervisor in a contact handling system are disclosed. The method can include recording image data displayed to the agent on a visual display during interaction by the agent with the contact media. The method can include audio recordings of what the agent heard and spoke that are combined with the recorded image data to simultaneously display the video and audio to a supervisor for quality assurance in the contact handling system. The method can further include modifying one or more selected pixels of the recorded image data to automatically exclude information from the recorded image data thereby creating redacted image data.

Claims

1. In a contact handling system, a method for redacting selected image data that is later used for monitoring activity of an authorized agent responding to contact media, comprising:

displaying image data to the authorized agent on a visual display during an interaction between the authorized agent and a customer associated with the contact media, displaying the image data including;

displaying non-sensitive data associated with first pixels having a first color represented by a first set of color-component-intensity values; and

displaying sensitive data associated with second pixels having a near-color different from the first color, the near-color represented by a second set of color-component-intensity values, wherein;

each color-component-intensity value of the first set of color-component-intensity values and the second set of color-component-intensity values represents an intensity of an associated color component,

at least one of the color-component-intensity values of the first set of color-component-intensity values differs from an associated color-component-intensity value of the second set of color-component-intensity values by one, such that the first color cannot be the same as the near-color, and

none of the color-component-intensity values of the first set of color-component-intensity values differs from the associated color-component-intensity value of the second set of color-component-intensity values by more than one;

recording the image data displayed to the authorized agent on the visual display during the interaction between the authorized agent and the customer associated with the contact media;

selecting one or more pixels of the recorded image data associated with the sensitive data, the one or more selected pixels identified at least in part via determining that the selected pixels are associated with the near-color;

modifying the one or more selected pixels of the recorded image data to obscure the sensitive data in the recorded image data thereby creating redacted image data; and

displaying the redacted image data to an unauthorized supervisor to monitor the activity of the authorized agent.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the contact handling system includes:

a media server, which handles connection paths for contact media;

an automatic contact distributor, which tracks a state of each contact and agent, supplying idle agents with waiting contact media;

an interactive voice response unit, which provides pre-recorded audio prompts to incoming voice contact media;

storage for storing redacted data received from an agent workstation along with other electronic files; and

a contact handling network connected to telephony and/or outside packet-based network.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein each of the one or more selected pixels is automatically modified to have a designated color based at least in part on an adjacent pixel having a different color relative to the one or more selected pixels.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the first set of color-component-intensity values and the second set of color-component-intensity values each include a concatenation of three eight-bit bytes, a first of the eight-bit bytes representing a red color-component intensity, a second of the eight-bit bytes representing a green color-component intensity, and a third of the eight-bit bytes representing a blue color-component intensity, and wherein the second set of color-component-intensity values is equal to 0x000100 or 0x000001 in hexadecimal notation and the first set of color-component-intensity values is equal to 0x000000 in hexadecimal notation.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein each of the one or more selected pixels, as well as adjacent pixels that are positioned adjacent to each of the one or more selected pixels, are automatically modified to have a designated color.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the adjacent pixels are automatically modified to have the designated color in addition to each of the one or more selected pixels to compensate for anti-aliased fonts.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein a 3-pixel-by-3-pixel square surrounding each of the one or more selected pixels is automatically modified to have a designated color.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein pixel groups surrounding each of the one or more selected pixels are automatically modified to have a designated color, the pixel groups having a shape of a rectangle, a shape of a predetermined pattern, or a shape of a predefined shape.

9. A method according to claim 1, further comprising modifying pixels in an identified area to automatically exclude information within the identified area from the recorded image data thereby creating the redacted image data.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein the identified area includes a field where at least some of the sensitive data is displayed to the authorized agent while the authorized agent interacts with the customer associated with the contact media.

11. A method according to claim 1, wherein the one or more selected pixels are part of a character, the method further comprising recognizing the character.

12. A method according to claim 11, the method further comprising recognizing the character along with other adjacent characters, a line of characters, or a block of characters and modifying the one or more selected pixels includes replacing a text area based at least in part on the character and the other adjacent characters.

13. A method according to claim 1, wherein:

the recording of the image data is performed by a screen recorder at a workstation of the authorized agent, and

the modifying of the one or more selected pixels of the recorded image data to automatically exclude the sensitive data from the recorded image data is performed by the screen recorder as the image data is recorded.

14. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

compressing the redacted image data; and

encrypting the redacted image data.

15. A method according to claim 1, wherein the redacted image data is transmitted to a media server in the contact handling system as a redacted video stream, the media server receiving the redacted video stream and combining the redacted video stream with other audio streams based on dynamic events including on/off hold, conferencing, and transfers.

16. A method according to claim 15, wherein the other audio streams include telephony audio.

17. A method according to claim 1, wherein the one or more selected pixels of a first recorded image data for exclusion are used to identify one or more pixels of a second recorded image data for exclusion.

18. A method according to claim 1, wherein the sensitive data is associated with a background including the near-color and the one or more selected pixels are associated with a foreground color different from both the first color and the near-color.

19. A method according to claim 1, wherein the sensitive data is associated with characters including the near-color.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon for performing the method of claim 1.

21. A contact handling system comprising:

an agent workstation comprising;

an electronic processor;

a computer readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon for performing the following method;

displaying image data to an agent on a visual display during an interaction between the agent and a customer associated with contact media, displaying the image data including;

displaying non-sensitive data including first pixels having a first color represented by a first set of color-component-intensity byte values; and

displaying sensitive data including second pixels having a near-color different from the first color, the near-color represented by a second set of the color-component-intensity byte values, wherein;

each of the color-component-intensity byte values of the first set of the color-component-intensity byte values and the second set of the color-component-intensity byte values represents an intensity of an associated color component,

at least one of the color-component-intensity byte values of the first set of the color-component-intensity byte values differs from an associated color-component-intensity byte value of the second set of the color-component-intensity byte values by one, such that the first color cannot be the same as the near-color, and

none of the color-component-intensity byte values of the first set of color-component-intensity byte values differs from the associated color-component-intensity byte value of the second set of color-component-intensity byte values by more than one;

recording the image data displayed to the agent on the visual display during the interaction between the agent and the customer associated with the contact media;

selecting one or more pixels of the recorded image data associated with the sensitive data, the one or more selected pixels identified at least in part via determining that the selected pixels are associated with the near-color;

modifying the one or more selected pixels of the recorded image data to obscure the sensitive data in the recorded image data thereby creating redacted image data; and

displaying the redacted image data to a supervisor to monitor activity of the agent,

wherein the agent is authorized to view the sensitive data and the supervisor is not authorized to view the sensitive data.

22. A contact handling system according to claim 21, further comprising:

a media server, which handles connection paths for contact media;

an automatic contact distributor, which tracks a state of each contact and agent, supplying idle agents with waiting contact media;

an interactive voice response unit, which provides pre-recorded audio prompts to incoming voice contact media;

storage for storing redacted data received from the agent workstation along with other files; and

a contact handling network connected to telephony and/or outside packet-based network.

23. A contact handling system according to claim 22, wherein the at least one of the media server, automatic contact distributor and interactive voice response unit is hosted by a cloud network remote from the agent workstation.

24. In a media server of a contact handling system, a method for monitoring the activity of an agent responding to contact media, comprising:

tracking a contact status of a telephony contact in the contact handling system;

displaying image data to the agent on a visual display during an interaction between the agent and a customer associated with contact media, the image data associated with sensitive data and non-sensitive data, the non-sensitive data including first pixels having a first color represented by a first set of color-component-intensity values, and the sensitive data associated with second pixels having a near-color different from the first color, the near-color represented by a second set of color-component-intensity values, wherein at least one of the color-component-intensity values of the second set of color-component-intensity values differs from an associated one of the color-component-intensity values of the first set of color-component-intensity values by one, such that the first color cannot be the same as the near-color, and none of the color-component-intensity values of the second set of color-component-intensity values differs from the associated color-component-intensity value of the first set of color-component-intensity values by more than one;

recording the image data displayed to the agent on the visual display during the interaction between the agent and the customer associated with the contact media;

selecting one or more pixels of the recorded image data associated with the sensitive data, the one or more selected pixels identified at least in part via determining that the selected pixels are associated with the near-color;

modifying the one or more selected pixels of the recorded image data to automatically exclude the sensitive data from the recorded image data thereby creating redacted image data;

recording audio of the agent and the telephony contact during the interaction; and

combining the redacted image data and the recorded audio into a video stream file for review by a supervisor of the agent,

wherein the agent is authorized to view the sensitive data and the supervisor is not authorized to view the sensitive data.

25. A method according to claim 24, wherein the first set of color-component-intensity values and the second set of color-component-intensity values each include a concatenation of three eight-bit, a first of the eight-bit bytes representing a red color-component intensity, a second of the eight-bit bytes representing a green color-component intensity, and a third of the eight-bit bytes representing a blue color-component intensity, and wherein the second set of color-component-intensity values is equal to 0x000100 or 0x000001 in hexadecimal notation and the first set of color-component-intensity values is equal to 0x000000 in hexadecimal notation.