GB2369525A

GB2369525A - Contact data indexing

Info

Publication number: GB2369525A
Application number: GB0028649A
Authority: GB
Inventors: David J Smith
Original assignee: Siemens PLC
Current assignee: Siemens PLC
Priority date: 2000-11-24
Filing date: 2000-11-24
Publication date: 2002-05-29
Anticipated expiration: 2020-11-24
Also published as: GB2369525B; GB0028649D0

Abstract

A method for extracting contact data, comprises the steps of: providing a list of contacts, each containing contact data including an index field and at least one other field; identifying each contact with a pointer reference; receiving data from an external source; comparing the received data with the index fields; and extracting at least some of the contact data from the corresponding contact.

Description

CONTACT DATA INDEXING

The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for retrieving contact data from a data source for use by an application. In a particular embodiment, the invention allows retrieval of data associated in the data source with a free-format indexing field, which indexing field corresponds to externally retrieved data in free format.

Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI) systems have computer hardware associated with a telephony system. In known CTI systems, when an incoming telephone call is received, an indication is often provided to the user identifying the calling party. Such indication may simply be the telephone number of the calling party as provided by a calling line information (CLI) or automatic number identification (ANI) properties of the incoming telephone call. Alternatively, the CTI system may contain a list of contact data records each associated with a corresponding telephone number.

In this case, the telephone number information provided by the CLI or ANI property is matched with a telephone number of one of the contact data records, and the associated contact data may then be utilised (e. g. displayed to a screen).

Many personal computers and portable computers have Personal Information Manager (PIM) software. This allows details of contacts to be stored: Typically a name, associated with other information such as postal and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers and possibly personal information such as birthdays.

Therefore, the user of a computer having both PIM software and CTI system must enter contact data into the records used by the CTI system, and into the Personal Information manager. This is tedious for the user, as it will mean repeating entries for each contact likely to be encountered in either

system. It also means that the user may forget to update one of the entries when a contact changes telephone number or address, for example. There is also the likelihood that some contacts will only be entered into one of the applications, whereas they should really be available from both.

For these numerous reasons, it would be advantageous to have a single source of contact data, accessible by each application (PIM and CTI). Since the PIM software is likely to be best adapted for recording and storing contact data, it would be advantageous for the CTI software to be able to access the data records stored in the PIM. Many current PIM software applications enable external access to their stored data, to retrieve requested items.

However, PIM software is inefficient at looking up contact details based on a known telephone number. That is, although many PIM applications have an Application Programme Interface (API), allowing external access to the contact details stored in the PIM, a CTI application supplying a telephone number and requesting a contact name would have to wait an unacceptably long time before the PIM system made the required data available. A CTI application needs to make the contact data available to the user in a very short time, so that the user can decide whether to take the call, before the caller tires of waiting for a response and abandons the call attempt.

Finally, data entries into a PIM are typically free-format. That is, telephone numbers and similar data fields may be entered in various different formats, and it would therefore be difficult for the CTI application to locate a contact in the PIM by telephone number, as it may be searching for a different number format. The variety of telephone number formats may be compounded by the use of PIM software to receive contact information from external sources, such as cut and paste from other applications, infra-red beaming from portable personal organisers, or Vcards (electronic calling cards that can be attached to mail messages).

The present invention therefore provides a method and device for exchanging data fields between different applications. An indexing table contains records each having a pointer pointing to one of the stored contacts and an index field used to select one record by comparison with data supplied by an external source.

The present invention accordingly provides a method for extracting contact data, comprising the steps of : providing a set of contacts, each containing contact data including an index field and at least one other field; identifying each contact with a pointer reference; extracting the index field and the pointer reference from each contact; generating an index table, comprising a number of records, each containing an index field associated with a corresponding pointer reference; receiving external data from an external source; comparing the external data with the index field of each record until a record is found having an index field matching the external data; reading the pointer reference from the found record; and extracting at least some of the contact data from the contact having the read pointer reference.

The method may comprise the step of normalising the index field data into a standard format before storing it in the index table.

The method may comprise the step of normalising the received data into a standard format before using to compare with the index fields of the

index table.

The step of comparing may comprise individually, successively comparing successive records in a predetermined order.

The method may further comprise the step of displaying at least some of the extracted contact data to a user.

The external data may be calling line information or automatic number identification supplied by an incoming telephone call.

The present invention also provides a data extraction device comprising: a number of contacts, each including data fields including an index field and at least one other field, and each having an associated pointer reference; an indexing table comprising a list of records, each containing an index field associated with a corresponding pointer reference; an external data source for providing external data to a compare means for comparing the external data with the index field of each record until a record is found having an index field matching the external data; an extracting device for reading the pointer reference from the found record and extracting at least some of the contact data from the contact having an associated pointer reference corresponding to the read pointer reference.

The data extraction device may further comprise a normalising device to normalise the index field data into a standard format before storage in the index fields of the indexing table.

The data extraction device may further comprise a normalising device to normalise the received data into a standard format before comparing it with index fields of the indexing table.

The data extraction device may further comprise a display device for displaying at least some of the extracted contact data to a user.

The external data source may be calling line information or automatic number identification supplied by an incoming telephone call.

The index field may comprise telephone number information. The at least one other field may comprise name information.

One or more of the contacts may include a plurality of index fields. In this case, a corresponding plurality of records may be created in the indexing table, one for each index field, each containing a corresponding one of the index fields with the pointer reference of the contact.

The external data and/or the index data may comprise telephone numbers.

The normalising device (s) may convert telephony data into standard international dialling format.

The step (s) of normalising may comprise converting the data into standard international telephone dialling format.

The present invention also provides a sequence of instructions configured to perform a method according to the invention.

The present invention also provides a computer program comprising a sequence of instructions according to the invention.

The data extraction device may be embodied within a programmable computer. The computer may be programmed with a program according to the invention.

The present invention also provides a data carrier, for example an optical disc, magnetic disc, magnetic tape, a programmed memory circuit, a signal transmitted over a network, or a paper listing, carrying a computer program according to the invention.

The present invention also provides a computer programmed with a computer program according to the invention.

The above, and further, objects, characteristics and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent with reference to the following detailed description of certain embodiments, given by way of examples only, with reference to the accompanying drawing, which schematically represents apparatus and method steps according to an embodiment of the invention.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a standard indexing concept is introduced. A list of PIM contact pointers are indexed by standard fields in the PIM contact data to provide fast access to the PIM data. The standard field may be a normalised telephone number, as discussed below.

In the illustrated embodiment, the method of the invention begins with an initialisation process 50, during which an indexing table 40 is generated. The indexing table comprises a set of records, each comprising an indexing field 40a, such as a telephone number, and a pointer field 40b, which identifies the associated contact within the PIM.

During the initialisation process, the CTI or a dedicated software or hardware module may access each contact within the PIM. The indexing field is then read from the contact, and stored together with the contact number, in the index and pointer fields 40a, 40b, respectively, of the indexing table. For example, contact number 1 (John Smith) may be accessed, its telephone number read and then stored as the index field of the first record of the indexing table, together with the contact number ('1') in the pointer field of the same record.

The next contacts (number 2 et seq. ) may then be accessed and the index and pointer fields of subsequent records of the indexing table filled in the same way, until all contacts are included in the indexing table. When new contacts are added to the PIM, the initialisation process may have to be repeated again, to ensure that the new record is added to the indexing table. Similarly, the initialisation process may need to be repeated if one or more of the contacts changes telephone number. It may be convenient to arrange for the initialisation step to be run each time the host computer is turned on. The initialisation process may utilise only changed contacts within the PIM (added, amended or removed) to avoid recreating the complete indexing table each time. Other methods for deriving the indexing table may be used and can easily be designed.

If any contact has more than one telephone number (e. g. home, work and mobile telephone numbers), a separate record in the indexing table should be generated for each telephone number. In the embodiment shown in the

drawing, John Smith has home, mobile and work telephone numbers. Each of the first three records in the indexing table has a pointer field pointing to John Smith, but with a different one of the telephone numbers in the index field.

The telephone numbers entered in the PIM contacts are stored in free format. That is, various numbers may be stored in different formats, and the application requesting contact data will have no knowledge of which format has been used for the relevant number. Therefore, when the standard indexing table 40 is built, the telephone numbers (or other access field) are preferably converted into a standard format, known to the requesting application.

A normaliser 56 should preferably be used to standardise the format of the telephone numbers. The normaliser will typically be a software routine in the host computer, but could also be implemented in hardware. The normaliser will convert each telephone number found in the PIM into a standard format. For example, the standard format could be the full international dialling number.

For example, the following are typical telephone number formats that may be encountered in the contact record of a PIM, together with the example standard indexing format equivalent, generated by the normaliser in this example. Free Format Standard Format 0115 9263574 +441159263574 9263574 +441159263574 +441159263574 +441159263574 0044 (0) 115 9263574 +441159263574 1 800 FLOWERS +18003569377 00 33 1.45. 85.99. 89 +33145859989.

These are merely examples, and other forms of separators (such as"-", ",","f') may need to be recognised and treated appropriately. The first two examples above require additional information not included within the number itself. The first example requires the information that the country code is 44. The second example additionally requires the information that the area code is 115. These pieces of information may be set as defaults, or the normaliser may access other fields of the contact data stored with the telephone number, in search of country or town names, for use with a look up table for deriving the required codes.

It may be necessary to normalise the externally supplied data. For example, the CLI or ANI number may be provided in a national format not compatible with the standardised format used in the indexing table.

Therefore, a normaliser 60 may be required for putting the incoming data in to the standard format, to enable comparison with the index field of the indexing table 40.

The drawing illustrates a certain embodiment of the present invention.

The PIM 10 contains a number of contacts, here labelled 1-4. Each contact contains a name (e. g. "John Smith") and an index field (e. g. telephone number 0207 457 2816). The contact may contain various further fields such a postal address, an e-mail address and further telephone numbers. The further telephone numbers may for example be work, home and/or mobile telephone numbers. More personal information such as date of birth or other notes may also be stored in the data fields of each contact. These are all typical functions of a PIM application.

The CTI 20 receives incoming telephone calls on a telephone line 22 and passes as received calls to the appropriate telephone set 24. The CTI also sends 32 data identifying the originator of the incoming call on a display 30 to

a user. Typically, in known systems, the CTI either displays the caller line identification number as transmitted with the incoming call, or uses the CLI number to look up a name or other identifier in a dedicated CTI list, for display on the screen 30. These are all typical functions of a CTI system.

According to certain aspects of the present invention, the CTI is able to access 28 contact data stored in the PIM 10, and to read 12 this accessed data and display 32 at least some of it on the screen 30 to identify the originator of an incoming call 22. An indexing table 40 is established, to enable the incoming CLI numbers to be matched with one of the contacts in the PIM 10. An initialisation process 50 may be provided for generating and/or updating the indexing table from the CLI. Alternatively, the indexing table may be regenerated or updated by the PIM each time it is itself updated.

Operation of the embodiment of Fig. 1 is as follows. An initialisation process 50 commences either upon specific instructions from the user, or automatically on start up of the computer, or on modification of data in the PIM. A pointer to the first contact (here, number 1) is obtained. This pointer may be a record count 52 or an explicit pointer as appropriate for the PIM application. This pointer is sent to the indexing table 40a, for entry into the pointer field 40b of the first record. The PIM supplies 54 the content of the index field of the PIM entry selected by the pointer, in this case a home telephone number. This may be supplied directly to the indexing table for writing into the index field 40a of the first record. If, however, the PIM allows telephone number entry in free format, it may be preferable to pass the index field (e. g. 0207 457 2816) from the PIM through a normaliser 56, as described earlier. The normalised index field data (e. g. international format home telephone number +442074572816) is then recorded in the index field of the indexing table.

Optionally, a further routine 58 within the initialisation process will search for further suitable index fields within the current contact. For example, contact number 1 contains a mobile telephone number, a work telephone number and a home telephone number. The routine 58 may locate these simply from their location within dedicated fields of the PIM contact data, or may locate them by detecting a suitable string of numerical characters. Each of these further telephone numbers may generate a further record within the indexing table. As shown in the table 40, contact number 1 has generated three records in the indexing table, one each for the home, mobile and work telephone numbers. Each record contains a pointer to contact number 1 of the PIM.

Once the routine 58 detects no further suitable index fields, or if the optional routine 58 is not used, the counter 52 increments, to access the next contact (number 2) in the PIM.

The above sequence repeats until indexing table records have been generated for all contacts in the PIM. Optionally, only a selected subset of the contacts may be used. Where a contact contains no data in the index field (e. g. the contact's telephone number is unknown), then either no record is stored in the indexing table for that contact, or a record is generated with an empty indexing field.

The initialisation phase is now complete. Alternatively, the PIM may be adapted to generate and update the indexing table whenever a new contact is added, or a contact is modified.

When an incoming call 22 is received, the CTI extracts 26 the CLI or ANI number from the incoming call, and supplies 28 it to the indexing table 40. Optionally the CLI or ANI number may first be normalised 60. The CLI number is then compared against the index field of the various records of the indexing table. In an embodiment of the invention, the index fields are

grouped for telephone numbers of a similar usage type and the CLI or ANI number is matched. For example, it may check all usage groups in the following order: (1) Primary number; (2) Business line 1; (3) Home line 1; (4) Mobile line 1; (5) Car phone 1; (6) Company number; (7) Business line 2; (8) Home line 2; (9) ISDN line; etc. That is, the CLI number is individually, successively compared to successive records in a predetermined order.

If a match is found, the corresponding pointer is read from the pointer field of the matched record, and used to select and access 42 the corresponding contact from the PIM. In the illustrated embodiment, the CLI number matches the index field of the first record. The corresponding pointer "1"is then read, and used to access contact 1 in the PIM. At least some of the data from the contact is supplied 12 to the CTI 20 for display 32 on the screen 30. Typically, the contact name"John Smith"will be displayed on the screen. This may be accompanied by a telephone number read from the PIM contact data, or the CLI number either normalised or as supplied. Further information such as a postal or email address could also be displayed.

It may be necessary to pass the CLI number extracted from the incoming telephone call through a normaliser 60 to convert it into a normalised format, such as standard international telephone dialling format.

Normaliser 60 may be identical to normaliser 56, and may in fact be the same normaliser.

As shown in the drawing, the CLI number and the index field of the contact may be in different formats, but are each normalised to enable comparison to take place.

While the present invention has been described with reference to a certain number of specific embodiments, the present invention is not limited to those specific embodiments. Indeed, many variations and modifications may be made to the method and apparatus of the present invention. For

example, index fields other than telephone numbers may be used, as appropriate. The invention may be applied to applications other than telephony. For example, incoming e-mails may be treated in a similar way, in that the sender's e-mail addresses may be extracted, compared to a preprepared table of e-mail addresses to identify the corresponding contact data for display, for example on screen alongside the title of the incoming email. In this embodiment, the rapid response provided by the present invention is of less importance.

The invention may also be applied to facsimile (fax) transmissions to identify and display the name of the sender of an incoming fax. This will enable one or more users to identify an incoming fax that they might be waiting for.

The various operations and structures of the present invention as described may be implemented as software routines within a host computer, or may be embodied as hardware equipment.

Software required to operate a computer according to the method of the present invention, or to program the computer to embody the apparatus of the present invention comprises an appropriate set of instructions. The set of instructions may be a computer program, and the present invention extends to such sets of instructions and computer programs.

The computer programs according to the present invention may be provided to a user on a data carrier. The data carrier may be a physical data carrier such as an optical disc (e. g. CDROM or DVDROM), a magnetic disc or tape, or a pre-programmed memory circuit such as a ROM device, for insertion into a reader associated with the computer. Alternatively, the data carrier may be a paper listing of the computer programme, which may be provided for a user to manually key into the computer or for optical scanning, before being operated upon by the computer. Other data carriers include

signals transmitted over a network to the computer. The networks may include one or more of a computer network such as LAN, WAN, a telephone network, or an Internet system. All such data carriers form part of the present invention, when storing a computer program according to the present invention.

The data extracted from the PIM may be stored, for example, to provide a list of received calls, enabling the user to return calls at a later time, or to enable efficient record keeping.

In alternative embodiments of the present invention, the index field may be in a database which may use other techniques to match the CLI/ANI, and the present invention extends to such embodiments, not being limited to embodiments in which the records are located with a simple sequential search.

Claims

CLAIMS: 1. A method for extracting contact data, comprising the steps of : providing a set of contacts, each containing contact data including an index field and at least one other field; identifying each contact with a pointer reference; extracting the index field and the pointer reference from each contact; generating an index table, comprising a number of records, each containing an index field associated with a corresponding pointer reference; receiving data from an external source; using the received data to match the index field of a record; reading the pointer reference from the found record; and extracting at least some of the contact data from the contact having the read pointer reference.
2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of normalising the index field data before storing it in the index table.
3. A method according to any preceding claim wherein the method further comprises the step of normalising the received data before using to compare with the index fields of the index table.
4. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein the received data and/or the index data comprise telephone numbers, and the step (s) of normalising comprise converting the data into standard international telephone dialling format.
5. A method according to any preceding claim, wherein the step of comparing comprises individually, successively comparing successive records in a predetermined order.
6. A method according to any preceding claim, further comprising the step of displaying at least some of the extracted contact data to a user.
7. A method according to any preceding claim wherein the external source is calling line information supplied by an incoming telephone call.
8. A method according to any preceding claim wherein the index field comprises telephone number information, and the at least one other field comprises name information.
9. A method according to any preceding claim wherein one or more of the contacts includes a plurality of index fields, and a corresponding plurality of records is created in the indexing table, one for each index field, each containing a corresponding one of the index fields with the pointer reference of the contact.
10. A sequence of instructions configured to perform a method according to any of claims 1-9.
11. A computer program comprising a sequence of instructions according to claim 10.
12. A data carrier, for example an optical disc, magnetic disc, magnetic tape, or a programmed memory circuit, containing a computer program according to claim 11.
13. A data extraction device comprising: a number of contacts, each including data fields including an index field and at least one other field, and each having an associated pointer reference; an indexing table comprising a number of records, each record containing an index field associated with a corresponding pointer reference; an external data source for providing external data to a compare means for comparing the external data with index fields of the records until a record is found having an index field matching the external data; an extracting device for reading the pointer reference from the found record and extracting at least some of the contact data from the contact having an associated pointer reference corresponding to the read pointer reference.
14. A data extraction device according to claim 13, further comprising a normalising device to normalise the index field data before storage in the index fields of the indexing table.
15. A data extraction device according to any of claims 13-14, further comprising a normalising device to normalise the received data before comparing it with index fields of the indexing table.
16. A data extraction device according to any of claims 14-15 wherein the external data and/or the index data comprise telephone numbers, and the normalising device (s) convert the data into standard international dialling format.
17. A data extraction device according to any of claims 13-16, further comprising a display device for displaying at least some of the extracted contact data to a user.
18. A data extraction device according to any of claims 13-17 wherein the external data source is calling line information supplied by an incoming telephone call.
19. A data extraction device according to any of claims 13-18 wherein the index field comprises telephone number information, and the at least one other field comprises name information.
20. A data extraction device according to any of claims 13-19 when embodied within a programmable computer.
21. A data extraction device according to claim 20, wherein the computer is programmed with a program according to claim 11.
22. A method substantially as described and/or as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
23. A sequence of instructions substantially as described and/or as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
24. A computer program substantially as described and/or as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
25. A data carrier, for example an optical disc, magnetic disc, magnetic tape, a programmed memory circuit, a signal transmitted over a network, or a paper listing, carrying a computer program according to claim 24 or claim 11.
26. A data extraction device substantially as described and/or as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.
27. A computer programmed with a computer program according to claim 24 or claim 11.