GB2355133A

GB2355133A - Automatic configuration of communication endpoints in response to detection of identificaton badges

Info

Publication number: GB2355133A
Application number: GB9923631A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Don Wade; Philippe Moquin; Graham Thompson
Original assignee: Mitel Corp
Current assignee: Microsemi Semiconductor ULC
Priority date: 1999-10-06
Filing date: 1999-10-06
Publication date: 2001-04-11
Also published as: GB9923631D0

Abstract

A communication endpoint 20 has an integral badge locating sensor for detecting the presence of a locating badge 26. Upon detecting the presence of a locating badge, the communication endpoint obtains data from the badge and relays a message to a central processing system. The central processing system then provides information, relating to the badge wearer, to the communication endpoint which is then configured for use by the badge wearer based upon the information provided by the central processing system. The system may be used to automatically configure telephones in a PBX system, or alternatively, may be used to configure a computer in the vicinity of the badge wearer.

Description

2355133 AUTOMATIC FEATURE ACTIVATION

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates in general to office systems and more specifically to a method and apparatus for detecting the presence of an individual and automatically configuring a communication endpoint for use by the individual.

Background of the Invention

In most office systems, when an employee leaves his/her desk (e.g. in order to speak with another employee, to get a drink etc.), there is usually no way to contact the employee except to leave a voice message and wait for the employee to return to his/her desk. At that point, the employee retrieves the voice message and returns the call at the employee's convenience. Common and obvious solutions to this problem are to supply employees with a pager, a wireless telephone or a cellular phone.

In practice, these solutions add significantly to the cost per employee for the communication system and therefore are not widely used by staff who have lesser need to stay in touch. In addition, although advances in technology have resulted in minimization of such equipment, the equipment can nonetheless be bulky and cumbersome.

PBX manufacturers have added numerous features to their systems to assist the active or mobile employee who does not use a pager or mobile telephone device. These features are designed to be activated or deactivated when the employee is away from his/her desk visiting a co- worker or working at an alternate location either in or out of the office.

For example, current PBX systems incorporate features which, when an employee is away from his/her desk, allow incoming calls to be forwarded directly to voice mail by dialing a special access code or by using designated key pad strokes. This eliminates noisy ringing, results in time savings for the callers and may, if the voice mail system has the capability, activate a more informative announcement. Upon returning to his/her desk, the employee must deactivate this feature in order to receive calls in the usual matmer.

A more advanced feature allows the employee to indicate which extension, or telephone number, the employee can be reached at and have calls 2 automatically forwarded to that extension. Even more advanced PBX features include forwarding calls based on predetermined screening criteria.

The prior art PBX solutions described above all depend on the employee taking some action before leaving his/her desk and after returning to his/her desk. The employee may also have to take some action at the location he/she is temporarily located. It is desirable to reduce or eliminate such manual activation and deactivation when invoking these advanced PBX features.

There have been previous methods of automating the task of locating individuals, such as through the use of infrared technology. In this system, originally manufactured by Olivetti, individuals wear a low cost, credit card sized badge containing unique personal identification information. The person's identification information can be transmitted via an infrared link to any base station in the vicinity of the individual. This is more clearly disclosed in an article entitled "Track People with Active Badge", Byte Magazine, Dec. 93 issue.

However, incorporating such a locating system within an office system to automatically activate PBX features is quite costly. The capital and installation costs of such a system might not be justified for solely activating the PBX. More importantly, operating costs for such a system are high due to the difficulty in associating the physical location of base stations, employee's desks, telephones, telephone numbers and sensor badge identification numbers.

Summary of the Invention

It is an aspect of the present invention to provide means for detecting the presence of an individual and automatically configuring a communication endpoint for use by the individual.

It is another aspect of the present invention to integrate an individual locating system into an office system.

In the preferred embodiment, an individual sensor is integrated into a telephone set and information regarding the proximity of individuals, or employees, to the telephone set is translated into PBX messages which, in turn, activates or deactivates certain PBX features. By incorporating the sensors into the telephone sets and by using PBX messages, the costs of integrating the individual locating system are reduced.

3 More importantly, in the context of telephone system feature activation, the system eliminates any need for spatial attributes of either the individual locating system or the office system to be known. The system of the present invention is self-configuring. This helps to minimize installation and operating costs.

It should be noted that another aspect of the present invention is to contact or locate staff for the principle purpose of communication, e.g. "in their office" or "in the Board Room" within an office system and is not intended to be a security system or means to keep track of the physical co-ordinates of the location of individuals, or employees, e.g. room 24 on the 5h floor.

In operation, if the sensor in the telephone set has a line of site range of five metres, at any point in time, the office system knows that an individual is either within five metres of a telephone or that the employee can not be contacted via that telephone.

Other aspects of the present invention are as follows:

A method for detecting presence of an individual within an office system, via a locating badge associated with said individual, and automatically configuring a communication endpoint for use by said individual, comprising the steps of:

a) detecting the presence of said locating badge associated with said individual via a badge locating sensor incorporated within said communication endpoint; b) relaying a message to a central processing system confirming the presence of said locating badge; c) providing information relating to said individual, ftom said central processing system to said communication endpoint; and d) configuring said communication endpoint for use by said individual based on said information provided by said central processing system.

An apparatus for detecting presence of an individual, via a locating badge associated with said individual, and automatically configuring a communication endpoint for use by said individual, comprising:

a) a locating badge containing preprogrammed information; b) a central processing system; 4 c) at least one communication endpoint, having a badge locating sensor for detecting presence of said locating badge; and d) communication means for transmitting messages between said at least one communication endpoint and said central processing system; wherein said messages from said at least one communication endpoint to said central processing system confirm the presence of said individual and said messages from said central processing system to said at least one communication endpoint provide information for automatically configuring said communication endpoint for use by said individual when the presence of said individual is detected.

Brief Description of the Figures

A preferred embodiment of this invention is illustrated in Figure which is a schematic diagram of a location system implemented in an office system.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

In Figure 1, an Individual Location System 10 is integrated into a standard office system 12. The office system 12 includes a central processing system 14. It will be understood that although the office system 12 is shown as a telephone system, it may also be a set of computers as described below. In the present embodiment, the central processing system 14 is a call control system in the form of a PBX or a KTS but could be a product based on a number of alternative systems including a Client-Server (also known as un- PBX), IP (Internet Protocol) based distributed network based switch.

A set of telephones 16 is connected to the call control system 14 via interconnecting means 18. Each telephone in the set of telephones 16 may be a regular telephone set 19 or a sensor equipped telephone (SET) set 20. It will be understood that the telephone may be interchanged with any communication endpoint. In the present embodiment (a PBX system), the interconnecting means 18 is provided via a standard point to point telephone wiring. However, in other systems, the interconnecting means 18 may be a corporate LAN. It will be understood that although the telephone system 12 of the present embodiment is a PBX system, the invention is independent of how PBX messages (described below) are passed to the telephones 20. In other words, the invention does not depend on a specific transmission system 22.

In the present embodiment, the transmission system 22 is used to transmit both voice and signaling data between the telephone 20 and the call control system 14 via the interconnecting means 18. The transmission system 22 is required to support spontaneous transmission of messages from the SET set 20 to the call control system 14 at any time, whether or not the SET set 20 is in use. A variety of proprietary and standard or de facto standard (e.g. ISDN, xDSL) digital transmission systems may be used. All of the transmission systems 22 are characterized by their capability to support required spontaneous message transmission. In an analog telephone sub-system, ADSI transmission would be preferred for its message capability.

Each SET set 20 incorporates a sensor 24 which detects the presence of and receives information from a locating badge 26. It will be understood that the number of locating badges 26 is preferably equal to the number of employees but is not required to be a specific number. The badges 26 are each uniquely coded and this 6 code is transmitted to the sensor 24. The badges 26 may be of any size but are preferably small and lightweight in order not to inconvenience the employee. Many methods have been proposed in the prior art for achieving this sensing and transmission. In the preferred embodiment, infrared technology, similar to the technology developed by Olivetti (discussed above) is used. In the preferred embodiment, infrared technology is used but may be replaced by RF technology. A possible replacement is BluetoothTm which is an emerging de facto standard, short range pico cell RF technology.

Therefore, employees 28 who wish to be accessible must wear the locating badge 26. As the locating badge 26 comes within a predetermined range 29 (i.e. 5 metres) of a Sensor Equipped Telephone set 20, the sensor equipped telephone set 20 relays a PBX message to the call control system 14. According to existing technology, the presence or lack of presence of any badge 26 within the range 29 of a given sensor equipped telephone set 20 is periodically confirmed. Thus, if the locating badge 26 is out of range, this information is also passed on to the call control system 14 via a PBX message.

A more detailed description of the call control system 14 is herein provided. The call control system 14 of the present embodiment is a PBX containing a non-volatile memory sub-system 30. The subsystem 30 is normally implemented using disk drive or flash memory. Within subsystem 30 is stored an extension number table 32, or database, which maps employee telephone numbers to physical equipment addresses and vice versa. Most PBX features are associated with a telephone number or groups of telephone numbers. In order to process a call, actual communication with telephones 19 or 20 is achieved using the telephone's physical equipment address.

A sample extension number table 32 is shown in Table 1 (below). Typically, the extension table 32 contains other information such as Class of Service, Feature Activation Data, etc.. The table 32 may also be linked to a corporate directory or a network based directory via the LDAP protocol.

For the present invention, an additional field is added, the employee

Badge Number ID. This static field links a badge ED with the employee 28, as specified by a home extension number.

TABLE 1 Extension Number Table 7 Entry # Physical Equipment Extension Owner Badge ID # Address Number 1 PHY(l) 1001 ID(l) 2 PHY(2) 1002 ID(2) 6 PHY(6) 1006 ID(6) N PHY(N) 1100 None N+1 PHY(N+I) 1200 11)(N) In the preferred embodiment, a badge location table 34 is also provided. It is preferred, but not necessary, that the badge location table 34 be stored in the non-volatile memory subsystem 30. This table maps all Badge Number DDs to physical equipment, or telephone, addresses. The content of the badge location table 34 is continuously updated as PBX messages are received indicating location of badges 26.

It should be noted that, in general, one Badge Number ID could be associated with multiple physical telephone addresses and one physical telephone address may be associated with multiple Badge Number IDs. Table 2 provides a sample badge location table 34 structure.

TABLE 2 Badge Location Table Entry # Badge ID # Physical Equipment Address I ID(l) PHY(l) 2 ID(2) PHY(2) 6 ID(6) PHY(2), PHY(6), PHY(9) N ID(N) Empty N+1 ID(N+l) PHY(M) 8 Entries 1, 2 and N+1 are in a one-to-one mapping. This is typical when an employee 28 is sitting at his/her desk. Entry 6 is typical of an employee 28 who has just left his/her desk and is walking around. This causes a multiple number of Sensor Equipped Telephone sets 20 to sense the badge 26 associated with the employee 28. In the present table, the sensor equipped telephone set 20 with the physical telephone address PHY(2) sees more than one badge 26. Entry N represents a badge 26 that is registered to the call control system 14 but is out of range of all of the sensor equipped telephone sets 20.

If a real-time database report generator is used, a status display, for use by an administrative assistant, allows the assistant to know the location of any employee connected to the data network, by indicating either phone number(s) and/or the location to which the employee is near or an indication that the employee is not near a telephone 20.. This extra information allows the assistant to handle a call for the employee 28 accordingly. As mentioned above, the status display should not be used as a security measure and to track the location of employees but shall only be used to help the administrative assistant more readily respond to a telephone call.

The present embodiment also allows for automating PBX features. An example of a PBX feature which may be automated with respect to the preferred embodiment is call forwarding. As in most systems, call forwarding involves two parts.

The first part is to specify disposition of calls once call forwarding is enabled. This is achieved relatively infrequently and the present invention is not concerned with this part. The second part is to turn the call forwarding feature ON or OFF as the employee 28 leaves or returns to their desk, respectively. The present invention may also automate other PBX features in a manner similar to the one disclosed below for the call forwarding feature.

In the automation embodiment, a task is scheduled to run every five seconds (for example) which interrogates the badge location table to determine changes in the physical equipment address associated with the Badge Number ID.

Pseudo-code is provided herein below:

For each entry, Badge_11)#, in the Badge Location table If Physical Equipment field has changed, then

Get Home PHY(Badge_ID#) for badge from Extension Number table 9 If it is not one of the Physical Equipment Addresses listed, then If Forward OFF for the extension then Turn Forward ON Else, If Forward is On for that extension then Turn Forward OFF It will be understood that the above is simply a sample pseudo-code to automate activation and deactivation of the Call Forwarding feature. In operation, more comprehensive "debouncing" processes are implemented to prevent inadvertent activation of the feature. For example, the call control system 14 may wait 15 seconds before activating the Call Forwarding feature to ensure that the employee hasn't briefly gone out of range. However, a single instance of the employee 28 back at his/her desk will deactivate the Call Forwarding feature.

It will also be appreciated that, although one particular embodiment of the invention has been described and illustrated in detail, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various changes and modifications may be made.

For example, a follow me feature can be used to automatically forward all calls to any sensor equipped telephone 20 nearest the employee and to voice mail only during the period that the employee is not near the phone.

Also, similar to the automation of the activation and deactivation of the Call Forwarding feature, activation and deactivation of a Do Not Disturb feature may also be automated. The employee can remotely activate or deactivate the feature by using a button on the badge 26 provided that the employee 28 is near a sensor equipped telephone 20. The local phone 20 sends a distinctive acknowledgement to the employee 28 informing the employee 28 that the change has been accepted. Once activated, all calls go to the employee's voice mail and are not forwarded to the closest telephone 20.

Another example'is if some employees work at more than one desk.

This occurs, for instance, when employees 28 constantly work between a lab station and a desk. By using the present invention, a telephone class of service, number, voice mails etc., can automatically follow the employee 28 as the employee moves from a first office to the other office.

Similarly, the employee 28 may be visiting another location and wish to use a co-worker's desk. The employee 28 presses a button on the badge 26 which issues an "I am Here" PBX message to the Call Control system 14 and therefore transfer the employee's phone features to the new extension. Once the employee 28 vacates the temporary location, or when the badge 26 is out of range of the temporary phone, the original features are restored.

Alternatively, when a personal computer is used as the communication endpoint, the personal computer immediately identifies employees once they sit down at the computer. This allows, for example, a graphic workstation for AutoCad TM to immediately recall the last set of drawings with which the employee was using. It also allows for an employee to receive his/her e-mail at the new location.

Also, an active directory may be incorporated within the system whereby an employee's profile information may be kept for future reference.

Incorporating an active directory with the system enables a employee's profile to be constantly updated and travel with the employee. All such changes and modifications may be made without departing from the sphere and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

I. A method for detecting presence of an individual within an office system, via a locating badge associated with said individual, and automatically configuring a communication endpoint for use by said individual, comprising the steps of-.

a) detecting the presence of said locating badge associated with said individual via a badge locating sensor incorporated within said communication endpoint; b) relaying a message to a central processing system confirming the presence of said locating badge; c) providing information relating to said individual, from said central processing system to said communication endpoint; and d) configuring said communication endpoint for use by said individual based on said information provided by said central processing system.
2. The method of Claim I further comprising the step of inputting predetermined information relating to said individual into said locating badge before step a).
3. The method of Claim 2 wherein said predetermined information is an individual identification number.
4. An apparatus for detecting presence of an individual (and automatically configuring) endpoint for use by said individual, comprising:

a) a locating badge containing preprogrammed information; b) a central processing system; c) a badge locating sensor within said communication endpoint, for detecting presence of said locating badge; and d) communication means for transmitting messages between said communication endpoint and said central processing system; wherein said messages from said communication endpoint to said central processing system confirm the presence of said individual and said messages from said central processing system to said communication endpoint provide information for automatically configuring said communication 12 endpoint for use by said individual when the presence of said individual is detected.
5. The apparatus of Claim 4 wherein said central processing system comprises a 5 non-volatile memory subsystem.
6. The apparatus of Claim 5 wherein said non-volatile memory subsystem comprises an identification look-up table for providing information relating to said individual based on said preprogrammed information in said locating badge. 10
7. The apparatus of Claim 6 wherein said nonvolatile memory subsystem further comprises a location table for storing location of said locating badge based on said messages from said at least communication endpoint.
8. The apparatus of Claim 4 wherein said communication endpoint is a sensor equipped telephone or a computer.
9. The apparatus for Claim 4 wherein said central processing system is a call control system.