CA2246174A1 - Method and system for presenting computer-telephony options - Google Patents

Method and system for presenting computer-telephony options Download PDF

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Publication number
CA2246174A1
CA2246174A1 CA 2246174 CA2246174A CA2246174A1 CA 2246174 A1 CA2246174 A1 CA 2246174A1 CA 2246174 CA2246174 CA 2246174 CA 2246174 A CA2246174 A CA 2246174A CA 2246174 A1 CA2246174 A1 CA 2246174A1
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CA
Canada
Prior art keywords
computer
telephony
options
telephone
auto
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Abandoned
Application number
CA 2246174
Other languages
French (fr)
Inventor
Mary Lou Hardy
Thomas A. Gray
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Microsemi Semiconductor ULC
Original Assignee
Mitel Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Priority claimed from GB9719709A external-priority patent/GB2329298A/en
Application filed by Mitel Corp filed Critical Mitel Corp
Publication of CA2246174A1 publication Critical patent/CA2246174A1/en
Abandoned legal-status Critical Current

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Abstract

A method of presenting computer-telephony options to a telephone having an associated display after a telephone call has been established with anauto-attendant answering the incoming telephone call comprises the steps of:
monitoring the telephone to detect a request for computer-telephony options;
transmitting the computer-telephony options to the telephone for presentation on the display upon detection of the requests;
monitoring the telephone to detect selection of one or more of the computer-telephony options; and conditioning the auto-attendant in accordance with the one or more selected options. A communications system including at least one telephone having an associated display and a computer-telephony system including an auto-attendant to answer incoming telephone calls is also provided.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PRESENTING
COMPUTER-TELEPHONY OPTIONS
Field Of The Invention The present invention relates to telephony and in particular to a method and system for presenting computer-telephony options.

5 Back~round Of The Invention Many businesses make use of computer-telephony systems having auto-attendants to answer incoming telephone calls. When an incoming telephone call is received, the auto-~ n(l~nt presents the caller with a variety of options viadialogue. The caller after listening to the dialogue can select the desired option by 10 pressing the ~propliate touch-tone key. To facilitate use, the dialogue is arranged in a convenient and logical manner consistent with knowledge of human psychology.
These computer-telephony systems save money by allowing a caller to direct their own telephone call without requiring the ~ t~nre of an employee of the business. Although this benefit exists it is offset by the many options typically 15 presented to callers and the fact that the options are conveyed by voice making the process slow and error prone. If a caller makes a mistake, the caller often must listen to many seconds of repeat dialogue resulting in caller frustration. Accordingly,improvements to computer-telephony systems of this nature are desired.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel 20 method and system for presenting computer-telephony options.

Summary Of The Invention According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided in a computer-telephony system having an auto-attendant to answer incoming telephone 25 calls, a method of presenting computer-telephony options to a telephone having an associated display after a telephone call has been answered, said method comprising the steps of:
monitoring said telephone to detect a request for computer-telephony options;
transmitting said computer-telephony options to said telephone for presentation on said display upon detection of said request;
monitoring said telephone to detect selection of one or more of said computer-telephony options; and S conditioning said auto-atten~nt in accordance with said one or more selected options.
In a plefelled embodiment, the request for computer-telephony options is in the form of a sequence of DTMF signals generated by the telephone. It is also preferred that the computer-telephony options are presented on the display as text. In 10 one embodiment, the text is transmitted from the computer-telephony system to the telephone via text encoded DTMF signals. In one embodiment, the selection of theone or more computer-telephony options is made via a sequence of DTMF signals orby highlighting text presented on the display.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a 15 communications system comprising:
at least one telephone having an associated display; and a computer-telephony system having an auto-attendant to answer incoming telephone calls, said computer-telephony system including means for monitoring said at least one telephone to detect a request for computer-telephony 20 options; means for transmitting said computer-telephony options to said at least one telephone for presentation on said display upon detection of said request; means for monitoring said at least one telephone to detect selection of one or more of said computer-telephony options; and means for conditioning said auto-~ttçn~l~nt in accordance with said one or more selected options.
The present invention provides advantages in that a caller does not have to wait until all options are presented verbally by the auto-attendant. Instead, the caller can request the computer-telephony system to transmit the complete menu of options for presentation on the display associated with the telephone allowing the caller to select one or more desired computer-telephony options without having to 30 navigate through the auto-attendant dialogue.

Brief Description Of The Drawin~s An embodiment of the present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Figure 1 is a schematic of a communications system including a computer-telephony system having an auto-attendant and a plurality of remote user locations;
Figure 2 is a schematic of one of the user locations of Figure 1 including a telephone having an associated display;
Figure 3 is a schematic of the computer-telephony system shown in 1 0 Figure 1;
Figure 4 is an illustration of computer-telephony options presented by the computer-telephony system of Figure 3; and Figure S is a table of DTMF comm~ntl~ to which the computer-telephony system of Figure 3 responds.
Detailed Description Of The Preferred Embodiment Referring now to Figure 1, a communications system is shown and is generally indicated to by reference numeral 10. Communications system 10 includes a computer-telephony system 12 connected to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 14 via a trunk connection 16. A plurality of remote user locations 20 are also connected to the PSTN 14 via trunk connections 22 and include telephones to allow callers to establish telephone calls with the computer-telephony system 12 over the PSTN 14.
Figure 2 better illustrates one of the user locations 20. As can be seen, the user location 20 includes a personal computer 30 having a monitor 32, a keyboard 34 and a mouse pointer 36 operating in a well known manner. A telephone 38 is connected to the personal computer 30 by way of a universal serial bus (USB) 40.USB 40 includes a 12Mbit/s serial interface running over a 4 wire bus with an associated software stack supporting peripheral connectivity to the personal computer 30. A DTMF signal receiver 42is also included in the personal computer 30 as well as software to convert DTMF signals to text for display on the monitor 32.
Computer-telephony system 12 is best illustrated in Figure 3 and is typically located at the premises of a business. As can be seen, computer-telephony system includes an auto-alt~n~l~nt 50 to answer incoming telephone calls received from user locations 20 over the PSTN 14 and to direct the incoming telephone calls to an ~plo~,iate telephone 52. As is well known the auto-~tten~l~nt 50 presents a caller with the options via dialogue and prompts the caller to select options by pressing apl~lopliate keys on a touch-tone telephone. A DTMF signal receiver/generator 5410 within the auto-attendant detects pressed keys so that the auto-attendant 50 can process the incoming call in the manner selected by the caller. In addition to the above-described conventional operation, the auto-attendant 50 also transmits thecomplete menu of options to the caller for display on the monitor 32 upon receipt of a request from the caller as will be described.
Figure 4 illustrates the menu of options 60 available through the auto-attendant 50 which is normally presented to a caller through dialogue. As can beseen, in the first branch of the menu 60, a caller has the following options:
(i) selecting the language the dialogue is to be presented (either English or French) by pressing a "1" or "2";
(ii) requesting tr~ncmi.c.cion of the menu of options 60 for display by pressing the DTMF signal sequence "* * * * *"; or (iii) requesting connection to an operator by pressing "0".

If the caller selects the language of the dialogue, the auto-attendant 50 25 enters a second branch and the caller is presented with more options via dialogue.
Specifically, the caller has the following options:
(i) selecting sales by pressing a " 1 ";
(ii) selecting complaints by pressing a "2"
(iii) selecting accounting by pressing a "3"; or (iv) requesting connection to an operator by pressing "0".

S

If one of options (ii) to (iv) is selected, the auto-aKendant 50 directs the incoming telephone call to the apl)lop-iate telephone 52 so that the incoming telephone call is answered by the proper party. If option (i) is selected, the caller is presented with 5 more options as follows:
(i) selecting North America by pressing " l ";
(ii) selecting Europe by pressing "2"; or (iii) requesting connection to an operator by pressing "0".
Once one of these options has been selected, the auto-aKendant 50 directs the l0 incoming telephone call to the a~plopliate telephone 52. This operation ofthe auto-attendant 50 is conventional.
If the caller requests tr~n~mi~sion of the menu 60 for display by pressing the DTMF signal sequence "*****", the auto-aKendant 50 transmits the menu as text in ASCII that has been encoded via DTMF signals to the user location l 5 20. Since DTMF encodes digits 0 to F in hexadecimal and since ASCII encodes text letters as hexadecimal numbers from 00 to FF, each ASCII term is represented by 2 DTMF signals. When the user location receives the string of DTMF signals, the DTMF receiver 42 in the personal computer 30 detects the DTMF signals. Software executed by the personal computer 30 in turn converts the DTMF signals back into20 ASCII and presents the menu as text on the monitor 32 so that the caller has all of the available options visible.
When the caller wishes to select an option, the caller enters a start of item sequence of DTMF signals of the form "# # # * *". Following this, the caller enters the DTMF signals corresponding to the desired level and branch in the menu 25 For example, if the caller wants to select European sales in English from the menu 60, the caller enters the DTMF signal sequence "0l, 0l, 02" corresponding to the menu options "l" for English, "l" for Sales and "2" for Europe. Once this is completed, the caller enters an end of item sequence of DTMF signals of the form "# # * # #".

The caller can also pause a session by entering the DTMF signal sequence "11111111*" as well as end a session by entering the DTMF signal sequence "###*#".
Altematively, the caller can highlight and select the desired option using the mouse pointer 36 or keyboard 34. In this case, the personal computer 30 generates the applupl;ate DTMF signal sequence.
When the auto~ n~nt 50 receives the DTMF signals from the user location, they are detected by the DTMF receiver generator 54. The auto-~tt~n~nt in turn processes the DTMF signals and processes the caller's selected options so that 10 the caller is directed to the applopliate telephone 52 in the desired manner. As will be appreciated, a caller requesting the menu for display can select from the menu without having to listen to the dialogue of the auto-attendant 50 associated with the various levels and branches of the menu.
Although the menu 60 has been described as being transmitted to the 15 user location as ASCII text encoded via DTMF signals, those of skill in the art will appreciate that any conventional modem standard can be used to transmit the menufrom the computer-telephony system to the personal computer.
In addition, although the user locations have been described as including a telephone connected to a personal computer via a USB, it will be 20 appreciated that the user locations can include telephones with built in displays and DTMF receivers to allow the text encoded DTMF signals to be decoded and displayed as text.
Those of skill in the art will also appreciate that variations and modifications may be made to the present invention without departing from the spirit 25 and scope thereof as defined by the appended claims.

Claims (13)

1. In a computer-telephony system having an auto-attendant to answer incoming telephone calls, a method of presenting computer-telephony options to atelephone having an associated display after a telephone call has been established, said method comprising the steps of:
monitoring said telephone to detect a request for computer-telephony options;
transmitting said computer-telephony options to said telephone for presentation on said display upon detection of said request;
monitoring said telephone to detect selection of one or more of said computer-telephony options; and conditioning said auto-attendant in accordance with said one or more selected options.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said request is in the form of a predetermined sequence of DTMF signals.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein said computer-telephony options are presented on said display as text.
4. The method of claim 3 wherein said text is transmitted from said computer-telephony system as text encoded DTMF signals.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein said text encoded DTMF signals represent ASCII.
6. The method of claim 2 wherein the selection of said one or more options is made via a sequence of DTMF signals.
7. The method of claim 2 wherein the selection of said one or more computer-telephony options is made by highlighting computer-telephony options presented on said display.
8. The method of claim 2 wherein the selection of said one or more computer-telephony options is made by highlighting computer-telephony options presented on said display and/or by a sequence of DTMF signals.
9. A communications system comprising:
at least one telephone having an associated display; and a computer-telephony system having an auto-attendant to answer incoming telephone calls, said computer-telephony system including means for monitoring said at least one telephone to detect a request for computer-telephony options; means for transmitting said computer-telephony options to said at least one telephone for presentation on said display upon detection of said request; means for monitoring said at least one telephone to detect selection of one or more of said computer-telephony options; and means for conditioning said auto-attendant in accordance with said one or more selected options.
10. A communications system as defined in claim 9 wherein said means for monitoring includes a DTMF signal detector to detect a predetermined sequence of DTMF signals.
11. A communications system as defined in claim 10 wherein said computer-telephony system transmits said computer-telephony options as text.
12. A communications system as defined in claim 11 wherein said text is transmitted in the form of text encoded DTMF signals.
13. A communications system as defined in claim 10 wherein said selection detection means includes a DTMF signal detector to detect DTMF signalsgenerated by said at least one telephone.
CA 2246174 1997-09-16 1998-08-31 Method and system for presenting computer-telephony options Abandoned CA2246174A1 (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US5909597P 1997-09-16 1997-09-16
GB9719709.9 1997-09-16
GB9719709A GB2329298A (en) 1997-09-16 1997-09-16 Visually displaying computer telephony options at caller's telephone device
US60/059,095 1997-09-16

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
CA2246174A1 true CA2246174A1 (en) 1999-03-16

Family

ID=29422187

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
CA 2246174 Abandoned CA2246174A1 (en) 1997-09-16 1998-08-31 Method and system for presenting computer-telephony options

Country Status (1)

Country Link
CA (1) CA2246174A1 (en)

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