KR20040000465A - Method and apparatus for automatic notification and response - Google Patents

Abstract

The disclosed notification and response system uses many different media to enable applications to communicate with recipients. The notification and response system (i) sends requests to one or more recipients using a match specified by each individual recipient, (ii) collects and processes the responses, and (iii) finalizes the media specified by the final destination. Send responses to the destination. The applications frame the requests in at least one supported person's language and media format, and the request is sent to them according to the preferences of the appropriate recipient (s). Communication flow representations specify recipients for a given request, and how, when, and where each recipient will be requested. The requests are updated dynamically, and the parameters of the communication flow representation are not evaluated until the request is delivered. Communication flow rules specify the communication preferences of the receiver, tailoring the communication flow to the sender's characteristics, topics, or scheduling constraints. Communication flow representations are evaluated using three values of logic: notification failure (maybe), response failure (false), and response success (true). The primitive specifies when to terminate execution of the sub-expression by defining a logical combination of concurrent or sequential contact and success test results.

Description

Method and apparatus for automatic notification and response

Enterprise applications need to contact people and have a need for how to contact them and what responses, if any, to collect. For example, applications may need to contact all people with a certain interest, or a specific list of people or a person. Applications may require immediate contact with people at risk, or they may want to remind someone of their work at the right time. Enterprise applications have a need for what to do when a contact is not successful when contact success is something that is defined by the enterprise.

Recipients, on the other hand, have their own preference as to how and when they will be contacted. For example, recipients may want specific people, such as a boss or family, or people who have a particular interest, such as executives of Fortune 500 companies, to be more flexible in establishing real-time contacts. Recipients can also postpone contact with the work they already know, such as weekly status or renewal of expenses, routinely, at a convenient time or place. Often, the receiver's preferences do not match the corporate preferences or implementation of the particular application. In this case, the receiver finds an easy way to handle application constraints to satisfy their preferences, or finds that the processing of enterprises is hindered or even cumbersome.

Many notification systems have been proposed or developed to allow applications to communicate with one or more recipients. However, existing notification systems are usually limited to media and functions. For example, the notification system can only send an e-mail message to a cell phone or pager. In addition, existing notification systems do not support the adaptive use of other communication infrastructures. For example, due to the growth of wireless services such as those using the Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) described in the WAP Forum, "Wireless Access Protocol 1.2.1," June 2000, only one device can be contacted and thus the Web on a cell phone. Many notification and response services have been developed to receive and receive responses in the form.

For example, in March 1999, M. Handley et al., "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol," Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), described in RFC 2543, allow users to register a SIP's Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on their device. It provides a registry that can be associated with specific devices. There are many SIP proxies that provide the ability to contact a list of URLs recorded in the registry for a given user simultaneously or sequentially to establish communication with the user. For example, call processing as described in J. Lennox and H. Schulzrinne, "A language for User Control of Internet Telephony Services," Draft RFC draft-ietfiptel-cpl-05.txt, November 2001. Language) is a proposed language for SIP proxies.

As a CPL, users select a particular URL that is characterized by a SIP INVITE message (used according to the SIP protocol to establish contact with the user), such as the sender's strings and target addresses or interpretation of the INVITE subject matter. You can specify the method in advance. The CLP also allows users to specify a timeout, so a sequential series of INVITE messages to specific devices can be attempted when attempting to establish communication with the recipient. In addition, SIP allows each SIP device or endpoint to specify its user's preferences as a weighted media type and human language list. Senders are asked to provide the most weighted media type and human language from the media types and human language they can use. SIP and CPL cannot provide support for interpreting communication results and taking other actions based on these results. For example, once a telephone call is successfully answered, SIP and CPL do not know whether the user hung up or actually answered the request.

There are enough techniques to specify data flow or program flow through the system, but the techniques that can be used to specify the communication flow are usually at the beginning level. The communication flow is the path from the requestor to the receiver. Typically, these existing communication flow techniques refer to specifying a recipient for a request, such as some predefined contact method such as sending an e-mail message to a mailbox or sending a message to a pager. Communication flow paths are often thought of as simple connections between two parties, but recent communication capabilities have enabled various communication flows. For example, a given communication flow may (i) contact the recipients or devices used by the receiver simultaneously or sequentially, or (ii) wait for all recipients or just some recipients to respond to the request. and (iii) take other measures when a communication error occurs.

Therefore, there is a need for a general technique that conveniently and accurately specifies the parameters of a communication flow, such as the recipients of a request, how each recipient will be asked for, the time and place, and how the responses will direct other communications. There is also a need for a technique that specifies communication parameters to capture and combine the needs of the application and the preferences of the recipients.

(Cross reference to related applications)

This application claims the benefit of US Provisional Application No. 60 / 291,087, filed May 15, 2001.

The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for communicating with one or more recipients, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for automatic notification and response between an application and one or more recipients using one or more different media types.

1 illustrates a notification and response system incorporating features of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates the notification and response system of FIG. 1 in more detail.

3 is a sample table from the request database employed by the request manager of FIG. 2.

4 is a flow diagram illustrating a three-valued logical evaluator incorporating features of the present invention.

5 is a sample table from the recipient preference and role database of FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 illustrates a personal naming context of multiple recipients, illustrating portions of an LDAP directory tree from the recipient preference and role database of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a sample table from another portion of the recipient preference and role database of FIG. 5.

8 is a sample table illustrating a set of communication flow representation primitives in accordance with the present invention.

9A-9E show truth tables for the various primitives shown in FIG.

FIG. 10 is a sample table summarizing count values for each primitive shown in FIG. 8.

FIG. 11 illustrates the interaction between the request manager and the communication flow manager shown in FIG. 2.

12A and 12B are flowcharts illustrating the operation of the request manager of FIG. 11 in more detail.

13 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the communication flow manager of FIG. 11 in more detail.

14 illustrates a web form that allows an application to specify parameters of a team meeting request.

FIG. 15 shows the compiled result of the request of FIG. 14.

FIG. 16 illustrates that the requestor provides some share allocation in the new company's IPO to preferred customers for four hours.

FIG. 17 illustrates an e-mail message sent to some recipients in response to the request of FIG. 16.

Disclosure of the Invention

Generally, a notification and response system is disclosed that enables one or more applications to communicate with one or more recipients using a number of different media such as e-mail, telephone, web page, pager or fax. In general, a notification and response system (i) uses a medium specified by each individual recipient to send a request to one or more recipients, (ii) collect and process responses, and (iii) by the final destination. Send a response to the final destination by the specified medium.

Applications can frame requests in any of a number of supported human language and media formats, and the request is automatically sent to the appropriate recipient (s) according to each recipient's media and human language preferences. Thus, recipients receive messages from different applications or systems (or both) according to their specified preferences and endpoint capabilities. The responses are returned to each application in a format convenient for the corresponding application. The application can send messages to one or more designated recipients or according to pre-selected recipient lists or roles. The recipient preferences and role database controls the central management of recipient lists, roles and recipient preferences. The recipient preference and role database records role, people and device information, and associated communication flow information.

Applications use a communication flow expression to specify who to contact ("Bob") and the time of contact (weekdays, 9am to 9pm) under what conditions to contact (only if "Ann" says yes). use. The recipients specify the rules that specify the communication flow representation as the details of the method, ie which devices to use, and when to contact them. Recipients may automatically delegate certain requests to other recipients. According to one aspect of the invention, the requests can be dynamically updated with new information until the request is sent, so that the recipients receive the most current business information. In addition, the parameters of the communication flow representation (who, what, when) are evaluated when the request is forwarded, so that the request is forwarded according to the most recent recipient preference.

The application sends a request to the disclosed notification and response system to send a specific notification message to one or more recipients and to collect responses to the notification and return it to the requestor or to another application. The request consists of (i) a notification message, (ii) request parameters, (iii) communication flow representation, and (iv) responses. The notification message may be framed in any of a number of supported human language and media formats, and the request is automatically sent to the appropriate recipient (s) according to the human language preference and medium of each recipient. The request parameters specify the information that the notification and response system must use to control the behavior of the request or to properly format the request (or both).

Communication flow representations capture and combine the needs of applications and the preferences of recipients. The communication flow representation portion of the request specifies the recipient (s) ("who") associated with the request, and when and where they will be received. The recipient may be a role (eg, "customer service"), a person (eg "Jerry"), a device (eg "800-555-1234") or another communication flow representation to be evaluated. Each recipient is active because it can provide communication flow rules that specify the communication preferences of the recipients and tailor the communication flow to the sender's characteristics or the topic of the request or the needs of their schedule. In general, communication flow rules replace the name of a recipient in a communication flow with details regarding when, where and how to contact the recipient according to the recipient's preferences. The communication flow representation also specifies what action to take when a particular recipient fails to respond successfully to the request.

The notification and response system may employ success tests in the communication flow to evaluate the values specified by the responder to determine whether a particular contact was successful. The responder is the person who received the request and returned the response. When responses are received, the notification and response system will send attribute value pairs of each individual response, or collated results to the final destination specified in the initial request after the request is completed.

Communication flow failures can occur for two reasons. Firstly, simply referred to as a notification failure (and vice versa) is a failure to contact the recipient or the recipient may not respond to the notification at all. Secondly, after the recipient has been contacted, he or she can accept or reject the request, either successful (say "true" or "yes") or failed (say "false" or "no").

According to another feature of the invention, the communication flow representation is evaluated using trivalue logic. The three possible values of logic are notification failure (maybe), response failure (false) and response success (true). Notification success is a confirmed transient state that occurs before a response succeeds or fails. For many devices, it is only possible to know that a notification has been received when a response is received from the recipient. Thus, the success expression associated with the request may specify a tri-valued logical representation as variables that may be included in the response received from the receiver. The success representation tests the logical combination of the values of the response, the contact evaluates to "true" if there is a successful response, "false" if there is a response failure, otherwise, if no more time is allowed for the response, There is a failure to notify and the contact is evaluated as "maybe".

Each communication flow representation includes one or more primitives to specify whether to contact the recipients simultaneously or sequentially and when to terminate execution of the sub-expression by defining a logical combination of success test results. That is, primitives combine an indication of simultaneous or sequential communication with an assessment of how the state of communication with the receiver affects the communication flow. The other primitives control how the communication flow is constructed from the list of found objects by searching the directory or time at which contact will be made.

Primitives employed by the disclosed notification and response system can naturally be grouped into concurrent / sequential pairs as follows. and / then, or / else, races / delegates, and votes / polls. Notification and sequential primitives differ in how operands are evaluated. In simultaneous primitives, each recipient is contacted at the same time. When current requests are no longer needed to determine the true value of a primitive, these requests are canceled. In sequential primitives, requests are made to each receiver in the order they appear. When this receiver responds, the request is sent-if necessary-to the next receiver to determine the true value of the primitive. Each primitive is evaluated as true, false or maybe depending on the success of the communication with the receivers.

A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as other features and advantages of the present invention, will be obtained by reference to the following detailed description and drawings.

Best Modes for Carrying Out the Invention

In the present invention, one or more applications 110-1 to 110 -N, collectively referred to as applications 110, are described herein, and one or more receivers 120-1 to 120 -N collectively referred to as receivers 120. Provides a notification and response system 100, as shown in FIG. 1, which enables communication with a number of different media such as e-mail, telephone, web page, pager or facsimile. In general, notification and response system 100 (i) sends requests to one or more recipients 120 using the medium specified by each individual recipient 120, (ii) collects and processes the responses, (iii) Send responses to their final destination by the medium specified by the final destination.

2 illustrates the notification and response system 100 in more detail. As shown in FIG. 2 and described below, application 110 provides an application interface 220 that provides a service for submitting or canceling a request, a service for checking the status of a request, and a service for returning results to applications 110. Submits the request to request manager 1200. Applications can submit notification requests, for example via HTTP POST, and request the appropriate application interface 220 to cancel outstanding notifications.

The application interfaces 220 are, for example, many commercial Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) interfaces, such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) or the MQSeries ^™ interface available from IBM or the J2EE ^™ interface available from Sun Microsystems. Can be implemented. For each request, application interfaces 220 map between the external representation of the request and the representation within notification and response system 100. Similarly, for each response, application interfaces 220 map between a response representation inside and outside of the notification and response system 100.

The request manager 1200 described below with reference to FIG. 11 tracks all submitted requests. As described below with reference to FIG. 3, the request manager 1200 maintains a request database that includes information about each request and indicates the status of each request, such as open, canceled, or completed. The request database 300 may be maintained in memory or in a persistent database in which requests and their current state (including responses) may be stored. Among other functions, request manager 1200 assigns a unique identifier to each request that can be used to identify the request that recipient 120 will receive and the request to respond. In addition, the request manager 1200 modifies the requests so that the responses can be sent back to the notification and response system 100 if necessary.

As mentioned above, applications 110 use communication flow representations to specify parameters of a given request. The request manager 1200 follows the communication flow directions when performing specific communication with each recipient with the receiver. The request manager 1200 uses communication flow presentation services of the communication flow manager 1300, described below with respect to FIG. Interaction between the request manager 1200 and the communication flow manager 1300 will be described with reference to FIG. 11.

In general, the communication flow manager 1300 translates the target communication flow defined in the request into an internal representation of a more efficient tree structure. In addition, the communication flow manager 1300 iterates through the tree representation, extending non-device receivers and specifying devices in processing. At each iteration, the communication flow manager 1300 enters any success test results obtained and determines which open contacts to cancel or which new contacts to take. As such, the communication flow manager 1300 interprets and executes the communication flow representation to determine how to send the request to the appropriate recipients 120 and how to respond to the success or failure of each communication attempt.

Directory interface 250 maps between representations in roles, people, and devices used by notification and response system 100 and representations in recipient preferences and role database 500. Directory interface 250 also handles navigation and other requests. In general, the communication flow manager 1300 is provided with a communication flow for contacting roles and names of recipients that the notification and response system 100 needs to explain to devices that know how to contact. My representation in the directory schema and notification and response system 100 may be mapped within a single class to support the use of other types of databases and to create my representation regardless of the particular directory schema in use. This class provides a set of specific search and retrieval methods.

The media-specific contacts 270 deal with delivering the notification and, in some cases, the collected response. If no contact can be made over a particular medium even after a specified number of attempts or times, a notification failure message is returned to the request manager 1200. Interfaces specific to the medium 270 are described in detail in the following paragraph under "Media Specific Interfaces". For each notification message, media-specific interfaces 270 map between the in-request document representation and the out-of-representation of the notification and response system 100. Similarly, for each response, medium-specific interfaces 270 map between the external response representation and the internal representation of notification and response system 100.

Web portal 280 serves data to recipients 120 and collects responses via various media. Web portal 280 is a set of servlets that provide access to open notifications, completed notifications, and canceled notifications of recipients. This includes a servlet that displays a notification and another servlet that collects responses, as well as a servlet that displays a list of pending notifications for the recipient to choose to read or listen to. Web portal 280 is configured in this manner such that all notifications are sent by direct notification and response system 100 and also all responses are collected by notification and response system 100. Centralized implementation allows notifications to be controlled, personalizes notifications, and includes previous responses in notifications. Personalization data from the recipient preference and role database 500 is handled by the same rewrite mechanism that modifies the form execution tags to point to the appropriate servlet.

Notification and response system 100 mediates all requests to recipients 120 specified in the communication flow representation. This allows the notification and response system 100 to record the responses and forward these responses to the communication flow manager 1300. The communication flow manager 1300 takes different paths from each other by the communication flow based on these responses. For example, in a web application program interface (API), all requests are represented as web pages and those requiring responses include forms for accepting the response. Since the requests are rewritten to send responses to a given URL, the completion status can be recorded before being sent via another path to the final destination specified in the original request made to the notification and response system 100. The dispatch and return processing of the notification and response system 100 may be modified to suit various ways of specifying requests and responses, such as those in a unified messaging system or XML-based API.

Thus, the present invention provides personalized message delivery (recipients receive messages when and how they want them). The notification and response system 100 can deliver requests and collect responses in any of a number of supported human languages and media formats such as e-mail, telephone, web page, pager or facsimile. In addition, the notification and response system 100 provides for central request management, response collation, and clear dispatch of requests from (and responses to) existing applications to requests and recipients.

Requests

The application 100 sends a request to the notification and response system 100 to cause a particular notification message to be sent to one or more recipients and to collect a response to the notification and return it to the requestor or to send to another application. The request used here consists of (i) a notification message, (ii) request parameters, (iii) communication flow, and (iv) responses.

Notification message

Application 110 may generate one or more versions of a request to support delivery over different media and in different human languages. That is, the application 110 prepares the data files to be converted by the servlet into the document type that the receiver prefers to receive, and then delivers the URL of the servlet to the notification and response system 100. For example, an application 110 that wishes to send a meeting notification to one or more recipients may generate an HTML document containing a message, along with a form that handles a possible response, if any. This HTML document will then be stored on the web server and the URL sent to the notification and response system 100.

The use of a servlet to generate a message in a particular media format illustrates one of the advantages of the present invention. The mediums of the message may be tailored to the needs and preferences of the recipient upon delivery, and the content of the message may be generated upon delivery with the most up-to-date information at all times. For example, many media contacts employed by the present invention initially have an indication that a notification message is available to the recipient, such as an email message including a notification message or a hyperlink to a web page containing the notification message. Provides a page indicating that the recipient must call the specified phone number to come. The recipient then accesses the notification message and the recipient is provided with the latest notification message upon access. Thus, the requestor can update the notification message until the recipient actually accesses the notification message.

Request parameters

The request has a set of associated parameters. These parameters specify information that the notification and response system 100 must utilize to control the behavior of the request or to properly format the request (or both). As discussed above, request manager 1200 uses request database 300 to include all notification requests submitted, including information about each request, as well as indicating the current status of each request, such as open, canceled, or completed. To track.

3 is a sample table of the request database 300. As shown in FIG. 3, the request database 300 includes a plurality of records 305-315, each associated with a different request. For each request identified in field 330, the parameters recorded in request database 300 include (i) the requestor identifier of field 335 (ie, the name of the person or application that originated the request); (ii) the response destination in field 340 (e.g., a communication flow representation indicating the URL or response to which the responses will be sent, and whether the responses to be matched should be sent at the end of the request or upon receipt of each response). Display); (iii) the gist of field 345 (ie, a brief description of the request that may be used, for example, in an email summary); (iv) the maximum lifetime of field 350 (ie, the length of time that notification and response system 100 continuously attempts to deliver a notification and collects responses, all outstanding requests after this time are canceled and any collected responses Should be sent to their final destination); (v) languages of field 355 (ie, languages available for notification messages); (vi) content types that may be taken in the message, such as field 360, such as HTML, VXML, and plain text; Field 365 contains a communication flow representation); (vii) a public / private flag indicating whether the received responses can be viewed or used by other designated recipients; And (viii) the current state of the request in field 375.

Note that the content of each notification message, including subject headings, may be provided by one application 110 in one or more supported person's languages or automatically translated into the desired supported person's language. In another variation, the language parameter of field 355 may be replaced with a rule specifying how and when the language translation will be obtained, and the content type parameter specifying a rule specifying how and when the content types will occur. Can be replaced by

Communication flow

As discussed below, in the paragraph under "Communications Flows," the notification and response system 100 employs a communication flow representation to specify the communication subject, method, time and location. Communication flow representations specify recipients for the request. The recipient can be a role (eg "customer service"), a person (eg "Jerry"), a device (eg "800-555-1234"), a software application or an agent (eg monthly Agent) or another communication flow representation. In addition, the communication flow representation specifies how, when and where recipients will receive the request.

Communication flow expressions also specify what action to take when a particular recipient fails to respond successfully to the request. The communication flow representations take and combine the needs of the application and the preferences of the receivers. Communication flow representations are active recipient lists. Each recipient is active because the recipients provide communication flow rules that replace the names of the recipients in the communication flow with more details about when, where and how to contact them according to their preferences. These communication flow rules allow recipients to combine their personal communication flows with the communication flow representation for the request. Recipients use rules to specify their communication preferences and to tailor their communication flow to the sender's characteristics, request topics, or the needs of their schedules.

Responses

As described below, in the paragraph under "Communications Flows," notification and response system 100 may employ success tests in the communication flow to evaluate the values specified by the responder to determine whether a particular contact was successful. Can be. Respondents are those who receive a request and return a response. When the responses have been received, the notification and response system 100 will send attribute value pairs of each individual response, or after the request is completed, will send results against the final destination specified in the initial request. In the illustrated implementation, the notification and response system 100 waits for the entire communication flow to be executed before returning any results, but the modification to return each response upon receipt is minor.

Communication flows

Communication flows are characterized by communication flow representations, success specification, communication flow rules and parameters. Communication flow representations combine the communication requirements of applications with the communication preferences of users. Communication flow expressions specify recipients for a request (by direct name or by defined recipient list or role). In addition, the communication flow representation specifies how, when and where recipients will receive the request. Communication flow expressions also specify what action to take when a particular recipient fails to respond successfully to the request.

Communication flow success / failure specifications

The communication flow success specification describes the states for response success and failure at each stage of the communication flow. In the illustrated implementation, the communication flow success specification supports both a success specification defined by the requestor and a success specification defined throughout the system for a particular communication flow. Alternatively, the test response status primitives described below allow the requestor to specify a success specification for each receiver in the communication flow.

Communication flow failures can occur for two reasons. First, it may simply be a failure to contact the recipient, or the recipient may never respond to the notification as what is called a notification failure (or vice versa). Secondly, the recipient may subsequently reject the request after being contacted, or respond negatively to a response, such as a response failure (ie "no") or a response success (ie "yes"). "No" and "Yes" are semantic components because they are only applications that can determine whether the recipient has accepted and responded to the request (eg, saying "yes") for the purpose of continuing the communication flow. Have For example, response success may occur when the recipient has reviewed the document and made an indication to accept it. If the recipient said "Yes, reviewed" then the flow of communication continues with the next reviewer. Response failures, on the other hand, can occur when the recipient has reviewed and rejected a request for software modification. If the receiver says "No, I will not make this software modification", the communication flow ends or continues with error handling.

In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, communication flow representations are evaluated using a trivalue logical evaluator 400, shown in FIG. The three possible values of logic are notification failure (may be possible) at step 420, response failure (false) at step 450, and response success (true) at step 440. As shown in FIG. 4, notification success is a temporary state identified in step 410 that occurs before a response success or a response failure and thus is not directly indicated. For many devices, it is only possible to know that a notification was received when a response from the recipient was received.

The success expression specifies a logical representation of three values for the variables that may be included in the response received from the receiver 120. That is, generally, notifications include HTML forms, VXML dialogs, or equivalent objects. For example, a form associates a name with values specified by the responder. The success expression tests the logical combinations of values in the response, where the contact evaluates to "true" if there is a successful response, the contact evaluates to "false" if there is a response failure, or no longer time is allowed for the response. If not, notification fails and the contact is evaluated as "may be possible".

For example, consider an HTML page containing a notification that contains a form with a single button named "Submit" that, when clicked, sets the value of the button to "True". The success expression for this page will be "Submit = True". The stock price change notification may include a pair of radio buttons named "actions" that may take "buy" or "sell" values and another field named "quantity" that may take numerical values. . The success expression for this page might be "Action = Buy & Quantity> 1000". A success test may be specified as "A? Submit =" true "?," for example, meaning contact A, and if a response is received, if the response assigns a "true" value to the parameter "submit" Can be set to "true". "Submit: If the value is something other than true," contact is "false" and if no more time is allowed to receive a response, the contact is evaluated as "maybe".

An example of the benefits of trivalue logic used in a communication flow representation for bivalue logic is illustrated. Someone wants to contact Tom if he or she is successful in contacting Joann, or to contact Priya if contact with Joan fails. Using the '-side' and '-no' as a common two-valued logic primitive, this relationship may be expressed as follows.

(Joann or Tom) or (Joann or Priya).

Joann also uses the same logic to specify that he prefers to be contacted via a cell phone, or prefers to be contacted via an office phone if it fails, or to send a request to Jerry if it fails. As follows.

Cell or office or Jerry.

The requester undoubtedly wants to contact Tom or Priya based on the actual response from Joann, and Joann only wants to be contacted Jerry if he / she fails to respond (ie Joann responds with no). In this formulation, there are inherent problems. It is not possible to get all these results from normal bivalue logic. As discussed in the following paragraph, in the tri-value logic of the present invention, Tom is only contacted when Joann says "Yes", Priya is only contacted when Joann does not answer "Yes," and Jerry is not Joanna at all. You will only be contacted if you do not.

Communication flow receivers

As mentioned above, communication flow representations provide a flexible, general technique for specifying recipients for a request and a method of directing communication in response to responses received from the recipients. In the illustrated implementation, the recipient preference and role database 500, shown in FIG. 5, is described, for example, in M. Wahl et al., “Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3),” RFC 2251 (Dec. It may be implemented as a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory described in 1997). The recipient preference and role database 500 holds objects describing recipients that may appear in the communication flow representation. As shown in FIG. 5, the illustrated recipient preference and role database 500 includes a plurality of records 505-520 each associated with a different recipient.

For each recipient identified in field 530, recipient preference and role database 500 identifies the recipient type in field 540 and the personal communication flow defined for the recipient in field 550. The types of recipients that may appear in field 540 are a person, role, application, device, directed communication flow, or method for contacting an individual recipient. While a person, role, or designated communication flow object may specify a communication flow representation for contacting recipients, the method of contacting an individual recipient or application (or media contact object) is a terminal object in the translation of recipient names ( The object is no longer translated in the directory). The object contains attributes that are important for reaching an individual or application that can act as an agent for each, namely address, protocol, timeout, and retry interval for contacting.

According to another aspect of the invention, referred to as dynamic communication flow representation replacement, combining recipient names with information in recipient preference and role database 500 is delayed until contact time. Thus, the delay coupling feature of the present invention means that the recipient described as a role such as the CEO of the company may be changed until the system 100 begins to attempt to notify the CEO. In addition, the recipient's personal communication flow, such as an office telephone number, can be changed to another phone during the trip and still be successfully used by requests submitted prior to the start of the trip.

When the receiver is contacted by media contact, the receiver may request to change his communication flow representation to another communication flow representation. This allows the recipient to hand over tasks dynamically to more eligible recipients. Also, the receiver delays the task by replacing the communication flow with a communication flow with a delay phrase "to Joann after +04: 00" that generates a reminder to process the request after 4 hours. You can also

5 provides a number of objects in the recipient preference and role database 500 illustrating different types of recipients. Primitives employed in the recipient preference and role database 500 are described below in the section under "Primitives". For example, as shown in record 505, recipient " Joann " specifies the personal flow of communication for all requests in the following representation.

(cell races email) delegates Jerry

Therefore, when you contact Joann, you will call Joann's cell phone and an email will be sent to Joann at the same time. If Joann doesn't respond, Jerry must be contacted (according to personal communication flow to Jerry) to make a request for Joann. If Joann responds to the request, Jerry is never contacted.

In the example shown in record 510, the role SysAdmin specifies a personal communication flow for sending requests to the administrator for the current shift.

(Sam between 0: 800-16: 59 or Sue between 17: 00-00: 59 or Greg between 01: 00-07: 59) delegates SysAdmin

In record 510 the role sends requests to the system administrator working for a specific time during the workday starting at 8:00 am. If no administrator can be contacted during the first working day of request processing, the phrase in parentheses fails and the attempt to contact the next day is repeated through a recursive SysAdmin reference.

Note that a recursive reference to the receiver, eg a reference in the SysAdmin role, is only allowed to follow sequential primitives in the communication flow where other termination conditions exist. In the SysAdmin example, the response ends either true or false when a response is received, or a notification failure (possibly possible) when the requestor sets a timeout.

Even with these precautions, it is possible to loop through name references in the directory. For example, Joann's communication flow representation can say "Tom" and Tom's communication flow representation can say "Joann". Even in this case, the simultaneous recursive reference and the sequential recursive reference are distinguished from each other, thereby avoiding an uncontrolled resource dependent loop. All concurrent circular and sequential circular references are avoided by analyzing the name translation history without any other termination condition. The previous example for Joann and Tom would be an error, but the following situation would be acceptable. Because Joann's communication flow representation attempts to contact him via email and delegates to Tom in case of failure, Tom's communication flow representation simply leaves the Joann back (because Tom is on vacation). As a final precaution for requests that loop to the same recipients quickly or for a long time, the communication flow representation may return an error when the maximum number of contact attempts specified for the recipient has been exceeded.

Continuing the examples in FIG. 5, the designated communication flow "reviewers" in the record 415 specify a list of recipients to be contacted at the same time for review.

Chris, Jerry, Benji, Jenny

Requests to reviewers are successful when all reviewers respond successfully. As described below in the paragraph under "Communication Flow Primitives", the "votes" primitive may be used to change the success criteria for this list. For example,

reviewers votes 2

Is successfully completed when both reviewers respond successfully.

Note that the media contact objects in the recipient preference and role database 500 may be agents. For example, the monthly agent may supply three media contacts combined in the next communication flow.

HoldCal ten (Cell then ScheduleCal else CancelCal)

If HoldCal finds the requested available data, it is contacted via the cell phone to approve the meeting purpose. If the user agrees with the purpose of the meeting, the meeting time is scheduled, otherwise the meeting is canceled.

LDAP directory tree

6 illustrates a portion of an LDAP directory tree 600 that represents a personal naming context of multiple recipients. LDAP directory tree 600 is a representation of user coral degree information recorded in recipient preference and role database 500. For example, the LDAP directory tree 600 shown in FIG. 6 includes a personal naming context 610 for recipient Joann, and a personal naming context 620 for recipient Tom. The personal naming context 610 for the recipient Joann defines rules, communication flow representations, and media contacts. The recipient Tom uses the default rules, communication flow representation and media contacts.

Communication flow rules and parameters

Communication flow rules specify when to translate a recipient's name into a specific personal communication flow representation. Recipients can specify conditions regarding parameters of the request, such as title and requestor parameters, to control which personal communication flow representation to use for a particular request. For example, recipients can select these topics when some topics are represented by title, or select requesters for immediate processing via cell phone. They can choose different types of requests via email or the web for later processing.

Unlike systems based on other preferences, preference processing in communication flow manager 1300 is a general mechanism essential for request delivery processing. The rules of the recipient 120 and the personal communication flow representations establish a personal naming context 610 for this recipient 120. The receiver's name and names in the receiver's rules or communication flow representations are translated for the receiver's context. Unlike other context-based naming systems, this rule-based affinity handling does not obscure the global meaning of names. Global names are visible and available to everyone. For this reason, recipients can easily use global names to specify that they want to delegate certain types of requests to someone else. Personal naming context 610 supports meaningful global names while performing a meaningful and appropriate translation in the recipient's context.

Thus, as shown in FIG. 6, the personal naming context 610 for Joann corresponds to three communication flow rules, namely, administrator rule 630, family rule 640, and clerical rule 650. Contains nodes. Each recipient's personal naming context, such as personal naming context 610 for recipient Joann, is established as a sub-tree rooted at their InetOrgPerson {RFC2798} or InetOrgRole object in LDAP directory tree 600. The InetOrgPerson object is an LDAP standard object for describing contact information about people, and the InetOrgRole object is a sub-class of the LDAP standard object class OrgRole {RFC2256}. For example, in Figure 6, Joann's personal naming context 610 is rooted at "UID = joann" in the InetOrgPerson node label.

Each personal naming context 610 may have three types of objects related to communication flow representation processing, as communication flow rules, directed communication flow, and media contact objects. In FIG. 6, the top three entries 630, 640, 650 in the personal naming context 610 represent three communication flow rules, the names MgrRule, FamilyRule and PaperwrkR. Nodes 660,670,680 correspond to three media contact objects with names of web, cell and email, respectively. Nodes 690 and 695 correspond to two designated communication flow representations, UrgentCF and RelaxedCF.

Communication flow rules specified by Joann, such as administrator rules 630, family rules 640, clerical rules 650, will be defined in the recipient preference and role database 500. Corresponding objects from the recipient preference and role database 500 defining administrator rule 630, family rule 640, clerical rule 650 are shown in FIG. Specifically, the recipient preference and role database 500 includes records 710 that define administrator rules 630, records 720 that define family rules 640, and records that define clerical rules 650. 730).

Each communication flow rule as shown in FIG. 7 includes the following four attributes: active, order, condition, and communication flow representation. Active is set to "yes" or "no". Rules that are set to inactive, ie no, are not taken into account when translating the recipient's name into the personal communication flow. The order attribute is used to order all active rules of the recipient's naming context 610 for evaluation. In order, the conditions of each rule are tested in turn. A condition is a logical expression consisting of attribute value comparisons, such as equality, inequality, range, and regular expression matching. Once the condition is met, the recipient's name is translated into the accompanying communication flow representation for the purpose of delivering the request. The condition on MgrRule is tested for specific requestors by username or uid. The condition on FamilyRule tests for titles beginning with "Family". The conditions for PaperwrkR are always met. PaperwrkR is a default rule that applies when none of the other rules are satisfied. For this reason, its turn number is the highest number.

As shown in FIG. 7, each of the illustrated rules in records 710, 720, 730 refers to at least one designated communication flow representation (urgentCF 690 or relaxedCF 695). The rgentCF or relaxedCF communication flow representation may be defined as a designated communication flow representation in the recipient preference and role database 600 as follows.

UrgentCF: cell races officephone races homephone

RelaxedCF: email races web.

Therefore, the designated communication flow expression allows the recipient Joann to establish various rules for being contacted based on the conditions specified in the rules.

When constructing rules, it is useful to create a specific communication flow representation for common contact methods. Therefore, the receiver can update a particular preference in the designated communication flow representation once, and all communication flow rules referencing the changed designated communication flow representation are automatically updated. Rules may then refer to named flows, sometimes using the same named communication flow, for various purposes. Simply, PaperwrkR rules use a specified communication flow (relaxedCD 695). The MgrRule rule places a time constraint on when the recipient can be contacted urgently and always uses a loose contact flow. FamilyRule rules use all available media contacts.

Communication flow rules allow corporate employees to provide escalation emergency responses. For example, suppose a company must immediately respond to a request from a customer, and the request is received from a customer with a title that includes the keyword "emergency work." It is also assumed that at least one employee of the enterprise has specified the following communication flow rules:

Title = "* Urgent Business *";

Communication flow: (cellphone races pager) before +0: 05 delegates manager

"Administrator" is a default designated communication flow that uses an administrator link in the recipient directory to find a qualified administrator. The escalation rule will work when a request is received with a title containing the keyword "emergency task." If the employee does not respond within five minutes on his cell phone or pager, the request goes up to the "manager".

Typically, a communication flow that achieves escalation employs a delegation primitive where the request is canceled before going to the next level. In another variation, the communication flow may achieve escalation without first canceling open requests to the person in the chain. For example, the following example communication flow achieves escalation without first canceling open requests to the person in the chain.

(Tom else Manager) races (Manager after +04: 00).

This communication flow will initially only contact Tom, and will immediately contact the designated manager if the initial response fails. Also, the request will go up to the manager after 4 hours and only the first response from Tom or the manager will be accepted. Note that the notification and response system 100 can optionally maintain information regarding why a given request was canceled and provide this information to the recipient associated with the canceled request.

In this communication flow representation, an optimization is used to contact the manager once, despite the fact that the manager nominated by the recipient can be active twice in the communication flow at the same time. Each example of the recipient name is owned by the entity that used it in the request, either by the requester or by the person or role that provided the personal communication flow. If the recipient names identify the same object / recipient and the owners of the recipient names are the same, the recipient is only contacted once for these names. If the owners are different, it is assumed that the recipient wants to behave in a manner different from the owner's delegation, so that the recipient is contacted one or more times about who delegated the request to the recipient.

The user preferences recorded in the recipient preference and role database 500 and the LDAP directory tree 600 and described above with reference to FIGS. 5-7 may be modified by presence and availability information. For example, the recipient can specify his preferences as follows:

(present (cell) then cell) delegates (present (email) then email)

This function contacts an existing server with recipient and device information that can be used for cell media contact. If the existing server indicates that the cell phone is on, the function returns "true". Otherwise, it returns "may be possible". Similarly, if the recipient is on the network for email media contact, the function returns "true". Otherwise, it returns "may be possible". If the receiver is on the cell phone, the receiver is contacted by the cell phone. If the recipient is absent or unreachable, the network is checked and an email is sent if there is a recipient. This functionality can be somewhat complex depending on the features provided by the existing server. Note that communication flow rules allow recipients to restrict which requesters or types of requests can access them through existing servers.

In another application of presence and availability information, media contact can optimize behavior by omitting a communication attempt (eg, a telephone call) where presence information will fail (eg, when the cell phone is disconnected). Media contact can simply continue as if the telephone call attempted failed.

User preferences may be determined by the enterprise. For example, a company may send a notification to a customer that an increase in infringement is based on the customer's stake history. For example, as discussed below for the "Delegation" primitive, customers with poor payment history may receive a first overdue notice by automated telephone call and a second notice through a collection agency. Customers with an average payment history can receive a first overdue notice by postal service, a second notice by automatic telephone call, and a third notice through a collection agency.

Directory Intents and Heuristics

Communication flow manager 1300, described below with reference to FIG. 13, employs default directories in LDAP directory tree 600 (FIG. 6) for quick installation and easy use. The communication flow manager 1300 enhances ease of use by employing heuristics when searching the directory. When the communication flow manager 1300 is first installed in an enterprise, the communication flow manager 1300 will operate in an existing corporate LDAP directory 500. In addition to the information regarding the organization of the corporate LDAP directory 500, the communication flow manager 1300 is also available for objects specific to its application (ie, communication flows, communication flow rules, media communications, enhanced roles and configuration objects). Requires creation of object classes.

The communication flow manager 1300 requires the creation of a directory sub-tree 600 that can store its configuration and the internals of its other objects. Internal directories are used to provide communication flow services to people and roles that already exist in the corporate directory. These people and roles may be enhanced by communication flows and rules personalized at the recipient and their corporate discretion.

The default instances of media contact objects use a replacement function that is available to these users that specify their own media contact concepts. The address field in the media contact object may use angle brackets to specify the attribute name in the intended recipient's LDAP directory entry. The value of this attribute-if present-replaces the attribute name enclosed in angle brackets in the object search in the address field. For example, <mobile> populates the Media Contact Object Address field with the mobile value of the inetOrgPerson object that describes the intended recipient Joann. More sophisticated replacement techniques are possible and these techniques are within the scope of the present invention.

In addition to the default instances of the media contact objects, the communication flow manager 1300 generates a default designated communication flow representation and a default communication flow rule. In the illustrated notification and response system 100, the intent is to send all requests to the recipient's email account and web portal, i.e., the email race web. All internals can be changed by the enterprise to suit corporate needs, and internal objects can be used by those users who construct their own personal communication flow representations and communication flow rules.

Distinguishing full names of entries can be cumbersome and unintuitive. Accordingly, communication flow manager 1300 uses a heuristic search with short names to find the objects it needs. The distinguished full name of the object is specified by putting this distinctive name in angle brackets in the communication flow representation, for example: <uid = joann, ou = people, o = research.avaya.com>. Short names are used only in these examples.

When encountering a name, the communication flow manager 1300, when appropriate, is a directory sub-tree (s) used to store information about people, roles, designated communication flows or personal naming contexts, for example 610. , Search 620. The communication flow manager 1300 searches for the short name by comparing it with relative distinguished names of entries in the sub-tree. If no match is found, the communication flow manager 1300 searches its default directory before returning an error.

Other parts of the enterprise or other companies may be contacted through the intra-company communication flow manager 1300 even if the external organization does not have a communication flow manager installed. If the external organization has an LDAP directory 500, it can be put together in the name field of the communication flow manager 300 in two ways. First, merge the external directories into my directory using a "smart referral" or other mechanism that associates them with other directories for responses. In this case, whenever internal or personal communication flow information cannot be obtained from an external directory, the communication flow schedules for my directory are applied to the external directory. Secondly, by means of an ad-search primitive, contact information for other directories can be described and they can be used by the requestor. In all cases requiring internals, if the name of the directory sub-tree that stores the configuration for the internals and communication flow manager 1300 in an external directory does not match the proposed agreement for the communication flow manager 1300, the local internals Are used. For this reason, it is recommended that LDAP directories support the sub-tree name recommended for communication flow manager 1300. In this notification and response system 100, this name is as follows.

<ou = Xui Server, o = domain-name-of-server>

Requesters sometimes have an address book of individuals who want to contact people not in the directory. Often, requestors prefer to contact certain individuals by specific media types, such as by telephone. In these cases, requesters can create personal naming contexts for these individuals within the requestor's personal naming context in the directory. Each personal naming context for another person includes communication flow rules, media contacts, and named communication flows in a sub-tree rooted in this inetOrgPerson for this person, followed by this inetOrgPerson entry. The requestor then specifies the distinguished full names for each of these recipients in the communication flow for its requests.

The communication flow manager 1300 will use the communication flows specified by the requestor 100 for the recipient. Improvements in the system will extend an algorithm that first searches for short names in the requestor's tree, then through the directory's People and Roles sub-tree, and finally in the directory's default sub-tree. Because these techniques do not match the specification of recipients for preferences, they will only be used for recipients not listed in the directory or for applications where the preferences of the recipients are irrelevant or do not have to follow.

Communication flow primitives

As mentioned above, the communication flow representation specifies the recipients who will receive the request, and how, when, and where the recipients will receive the request. Primitives included in the communication flow representation specify whether to contact the receivers simultaneously or sequentially, and when to terminate execution of the sub-expression by defining a logical combination of success test results. 8 is a sample table illustrating a set of example communication flow presentation primitives. 8A-9E illustrate truth tables for the various primitives shown in FIG. 8. 9A-9E, "F" represents a false response, "T" represents a true response, and "X" represents a maybe response. In each of FIGS. 9A-9E, the left column represents the responding first operand and the top row represents the responding second operand (for all primitives other than a single operand that are not “primitives”). The "b" subscript in T, X, or F indicates that both operands must be evaluated to obtain the indicated value. Primitives direct the flow of requests to recipients. That is, primitives combine indications for simultaneous or sequential communication with an assessment of how the state of communication with the receiver affects the communication flow. Other primitives control how to construct the communication flow from the time of contact or the lists of objects in the directory.

Primitives can be grouped into concurrent / sequential pairs, such as and / then, or / else, races / delegates, and votes / polls. Concurrent and sequential primitives differ in how operands are evaluated. In concurrent primitives, each recipient is contacted at the same time. Pending requests are canceled when they are no longer needed to determine the true value of the primitive. In sequential primitives, requests are made to each recipient in the order in which they appear. When the receiver responds, the request is sent to the next receiver, if necessary, to determine the true value of the primitive. Each primitive is evaluated as true, false or maybe depending on the success of the communication with the receivers.

And / Then

The "and" primitive specifies that the communication flow is successful (true evaluated) when both receivers are contacted at the same time and both receivers successfully respond. If a request to one of the recipients fails, the "and" primitive evaluates to false and the request to the other recipient is canceled if possible. In all other cases, the "and" primitive evaluates to maybe. The truth table for “and” is shown in FIG. 9A, where the values for the responding first operands are along the left for each row and the values for the responding second operands are along the top for each column.

The "then" primitive is the form that follows "and", that is, the recipients are contacted one at a time in the order in which they appear and the second recipient is contacted only if the first recipient responds with success. The truth table for the "primitive" differs from the truth table for the "and" primitive when the first operand returns maybe "and the second operand returns false. The second operand is not evaluated in the case of the "then" primitive and the true value of the "then" primitive remains maybe, while for the "and" primitive, the second operand is evaluated and the primitive returns false. This choice was made in order for the "then" primitive to provide a more natural semantic explanation.

Or / Else

The "or" primitive specifies that the communication flow is successful (it evaluates to true) if two recipients are contacted at the same time and at least one recipient responds with success. If both recipients respond negatively, the primitive is evaluated as false. In all other cases, primitives evaluate to maybe. The truth table for the "or" primitive is shown in Figure 9c.

Since the "else" primitive is a form that appears after the "or" primitive, the second recipient is only contacted if the first response is unsuccessful. The truth table for the "else" primitive is the same as for the "or" primitive shown in Figure 9C. In the case of an "else" primitive, the second operand is only evaluated if the first operand evaluates to maybe or false. The "else" operator is provided to solve a scenario in which the second receiver is contacted only if the first receiver says "no" or may not respond.

Races / delegates

The "and / then" and "or / else" primitives are all focused on contacting enough recipients to determine the success or failure of the communication flow representation. Sometimes it is useful to accept the first of many possible responses. Since existing primitives count votes until success is achieved or impossible, the above is not possible with existing primitives. Concurrent primitive "race" succeeds or fails depending on the state of the first of the responding operands. If the first responder succeeds, the "race" primitive is success. If the first responder fails, the "race" primitive is a failure. The request to the second responder is canceled if possible. For example,

Cell races Office races Email races Web

Succeeds or fails in response to the first response received from the recipient via any of the media contacts of the cell phone, office phone, email or web portal.

Unlike the other primitives discussed here, the "races" primitive gives the same weight to the success or failure response from an operand. The "and / then" primitives respond immediately to the failure of the operand but wait for the results from both operands before returning success. "or / else" primitives respond immediately to the success of the operand, but wait for both operands before returning a failure. The "races" primitive immediately responds to the first response from the operand and returns the result of this operand. As shown in the above example, it is particularly useful to contact an individual through a plurality of devices and have the individual respond to the request with success or failure through only one of these devices. A "races" primitive cannot be specified by other primitives. The truth table for "RACES" is shown in Figure 9d.

The "delegates" primitive is the form that follows the "races" primitive. The truth table for the "delegates" primitive is the same as for the "races" primitive. The "delegates" primitive only evaluates the right operand if the operand on the left returns a maybe. Like the "races" primitive, the "delegates" primitive cannot be specified by other primitives.

Returning to the above example, Joann may specify his preferences as follows.

cell delegates office delegates Jerry

while the generator of the request specifies:

(Joann then Tom) or (Joann else Priya)

Jerry only responds if Joann doesn't. If Joann or Jerry says "Yes" when he is absent, he will only contact Tom. If neither Joann or Jerry responds, or if they both say "no", then Priya is contacted.

The "races" primitive was triggered by the need to contact a person through multiple simultaneous devices. For example, the recipient may specify that notification be sent to both his cell phone and his office phone. If the recipient answered through the recipient's own office phone, he or she would need to contact the cell phone with an issue to indicate whether the response was successful or failed. "and" and "or" primitives did not satisfy this requirement. The " delegate &quot; primitive solves the scenario of contacting the second recipient only if, for example, a series of devices are discovered sequentially until the first recipient does not respond or is contacted.

As mentioned above, the "delegates" primitive allows an enterprise to provide personalized request delivery on an escalation. For example, a company involved in a bill collection may provide personal communication flows for each customer based on their relationship history with the customer as follows.

good credit customers: web delegates email delegates sms delegates homephone

poor credit customers: homephone delegates officephone delegates cell

Thus, when the customer fails to respond to each request, the request is escalated to the next contact method.

Votes / Polls

It is possible to generalize sequential and concurrent communication flow primitives for lists of recipients. Simultaneous and sequential forms of "and / or" primitives are special cases of two or more common primitives that allow votes by a list of recipients to be simultaneously or sequentially. For example, successful "and" primitives are votes by two recipients 100% voted yes, and successful "or" primitives are votes by two recipients at least 50% voted yes.

The "vote" primitive simultaneously contacts the number c of recipients in a list and returns success (true) if the count value m or percentage n% of success responses is reached. Accordingly, a failure occurs if there are c-m + 1 false responses. Each receiver can be a communication flow representation, where the count value or percentage indicates the number of successes that should be received for a successful "votes" primitive. For example,

{TOM, Joann, Jerry} votes 50%

Contact Tom, Joann and Jerry at the same time. If at least two responded successfully, the "votes" primitive is a success. The "votes" primitive is a failure (returns false) when a sufficient number of recipients return false responses, not reaching the specified count or percentage. In other cases, if success cannot be reached, the "votes" primitive is maybe. In the above example, if at least two of Tom, Joann, and Jerry respond with a failure, the "votes" primitive fails. On the other hand, true, false, and maybe are true values of maybe.

Note that it is possible to calculate the number of true votes needed to return true directly from a count value or a percentage in a primitive. From this, the number of false votes needed to return false (total count value + 1-true), and the number of non-true votes (false or maybe at least one maybe) to return maybe (total count) It is simple to calculate The "polls" primitive is the form that follows the "votes" primitive.

The votes primitive can be effectively used to sell or distribute a limited number of items, for example. For example, a company with 500 predetermined items and 5000 potential customers may specify the following communication flow.

{customer1, customer2, ..., customer5000} votes 500

This request will be completed when the customer orders 500 units (when each customer orders only one unit). For an example where each customer may order more than one unit, see below for test response status primitives.

The poll primitive can be used effectively to fill emergency personnel supply. For example, a school looking for five profession teachers from the list ordered by tomorrow morning may specify the flow of communication as follows.

{teacher1, teacher2, ..., teacherN} polls 5

As mentioned above, this request will be completed when the five subordinate teachers have agreed to teach.

Since communication flow representations are not lists, it is useful to convert the representation into lists that require "votes" and "polls" primitives. In particular, named communication flows in the recipient preference and role database 500 often have a natural list structure. Automatic conversion for these primitives is supported when communication flow representations other than lists in parentheses appear as first operands of "votes" and "polls" primitives. In the case of a communication flow representation that includes only readable or segregated automatic conversion is performed. If the expression contains only "and" and "then" primitives, it is converted to a list of readable. If the expression contains only "or" and "else" primitives, the expression is converted to a list of separations. Go back to the example given above,

Reviewers votes 2

Is actually

(Chris and Jerry and Benji and Jenny) votes 2

Expression.

Readables are automatically converted into lists {Chris, Jerry, Benji, Jenny}. While it is possible to specify the details of converting an expression to a list, it is not clear that such conversions are necessary, clear or desirable. The search primitive described below converts the lists into representations.

Generalization of "races" and "delegates" primitives

It is possible to generalize "race" and "delegate" primitives for receiver lists. Generalization The generalization of "race", called "race", accepts a decision algorithm that determines the success or failure of a primitive from a list of recipients, the number of responses to collect, and the received responses. For example, one use of the generalization "race" is to accept the received Nth value. This corresponds to a radio talk show model that accepts a response from the 100th caller. In another example, the generalization race collects three of the five responses and returns a majority of three responses. 2 results waiting for success,

{A, B, C, D, E} votes 2

Note that it is different from. Generalization A delegate is a generalization of a delegate primitive. A generalization delegate is similar to a generalization race except that it contacts the receivers sequentially until the primitive is satisfied.

Implementation of sequential / simultaneous primitives

Sequential and concurrent primitives are implemented in this embodiment by a simple counting algorithm. Each primitive is described by the number of true responses needed to return true and the number of false responses required to return false. It is also described by the minimum number of maybe responses needed to return maybe and the total number of responses that must be received before maybe can be returned. Figure 10 summarizes the count values for each primitive, where C is the count of all the recipients listed in votes / polls and X is the number of true responses required by the votes / poll percentage or count value. Concurrent and sequential primitives count the number of responses received in each class. Whenever the requirement for one of the status returns is reached, the primitives cancel the current request and return the appropriate status.

State interpretation and time primitives

As discussed above with respect to FIG. 4, success for the request to the recipient 120 includes notification success and response success. Notification success occurs when the recipient has been successfully contacted. By default, response success occurs when the receiver responds to satisfy the definition of success in the request and response system APIs. In the web API of the notification and response system 100, the proposal for response success is to respond to a web form that does not include a "false" or "no" value in the submit button. The "false" or "no" of the submit button is a default response to the response failure.

Some applications may require application-specific definitions for response success. For example, if an expense report is approved by several managers in turn, success may be defined as responding to the request with report_status = "approved".

Test response status primitives allow applications to provide a response success specification as a logical representation of a comparison of attribute-value pairs from a response. The logical expression is specified between the question marks following the receiver whose response is to be tested. The comparisons may include equality, inequality, range, and regular expression matching. If the success specification is the same for all receivers in the communication flow but different from that specified in the system, then the provisioned over the entire request may be supplied.

The following example specifies the response success status without using the default functionality.

DepartmentHead? report_status = "approved"? then Director? report_status = "approved"? then VP? report status = "approved"?

When a test response status primitive is applied to a representation containing a plurality of receivers, it is applied to each receiver in a more complex representation. For example, the previous expression

(DepartmentHead then Director then VP)? report status = "approved"?

It may also be described as. The success specification can test the results for success or failure after performing aggregation and other advanced processing on the attributes of the response for all responses so far.

As mentioned above, the vote primitive may be used to sell or distribute a limited number of items, but each customer is assumed to purchase exactly one unit. The following success expression allows each customer to order one or more units and close notifications when at least 100 units have been sold.

(Sue or Fred or ... or Sam)? sum [(number_sold) ≥ 100?

After 100 units are sold, open requests to other recipients are canceled. When the notification subscription is personalized by the data available to the notification and response system, the results of previous responses can be used to present those items 100-sum (number_sold) that are still salable. If two recipients try to purchase the remaining items, the first recipient will succeed and the second recipient will hear that the request has been canceled (ie, withdraw the application) because it was completed by the other.

Between / Before / After

In addition to primitives that test response status, the "between", "before", and "after" primitives specify a time constraint for sending a notification and collecting a response from the recipient. A time constraint can specify a start time as in the "after" primitive, an end time as in the "before" primitive, or both as in the "between" primitive. "" Between xy "can be represented as" after x before y ". When multiple time constraints apply to the same recipient, the time constraint is evaluated from left to right The first time constraint establishes valid start and end times Subsequent time constraints may specify these times. Time constraints can adjust the time in the forward or reverse direction Other constraints, including finding the start or end of an interval, can shift the start time forward or end time backward, ie multiple primitives If you establish conflicting absolute start times or conflicting absolute end times, slow down the start time and set the end time. Use forwarding to effectively cross constraint intervals: When a temporal constraint primitive is applied to a representation containing multiple receivers, it is applied to each receiver in a more complex representation.

Time constraints are specified using time representations and time domain representations. Time representations represent specific times of time, and time domain representations represent time domains. Since time domain representations are used to describe time representations, first define a time domain representation. The time domain is one or more temporal intervals specified as (start time, end time), where the start time is within the interval and the end time is not. The basic time domain is conceptually a section from the beginning (creation) to the end of time (amagedon). Generation is taken as an arbitrary start time (such as 00: 00.00 UTC on January 1, 1970, such as Epoch on Unix), and armageddon is treated similarly. Currently, time is specified as the resolution in seconds since generation. All other time domains are a set of teardown time intervals (start, end) where the beginning of the interval is closed and the end of the interval is open.

The time domains are closed regions under the union, intersection, and subset, which means that these operations on the regions produce another valid region. The time domain representation is formed from the primitive time domain (defined below), and the operations of union, intersection, and subset. Just as communication flow representations can be named and used in other communication flow representations, time domain representations can also be named and used in other time domain representations.

Primitive time domains include:

Segments with specified start and end times, such as May 13, 2002, 9: 00.00 to May 13, 2002, 17: 00.00.

Any given day, such as May 13, 2002

Some Sunday, for example, from Sunday, May 12, 2002 to Saturday, May 18, 2002.

Some predetermined month, such as May 2002.

As in 2002, any given year.

For example, as Monday (some given day of the week) (meaning the union of all Mondays between creation and armageddon)

Like a month, any given month (meaning the union of all Mays from creation to armageddon)

As on July 4, any given day of the year (meaning the union of all July 4, from creation to armageddon).

Some predetermined time range, such as 9: 00-17: 00.00, meaning the union of all these intervals on all days from creation to armageddon.

For example, one may define weekdays as the union of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as certain days. Holidays may be defined as the union of January 1, July 4, and December 25. Working hours may be defined as the intersection of weekdays and the time range 9: 00.00-17: 00.00. It may also set working hours by taking the intersection with the female set of holidays.

The time expressions may specify an absolute time, or may specify a time calculated relative to the start time (such as 4 hours from now), or the time zone and start time (such as the start of the next business day; or from now on). It is also possible to specify the time calculated from 4 hours of work, counting only within the time zone of the work time and meaning 4 hours from now.

The time representation may take one of the following forms.

Some absolute time, such as May 13, 2002, 17: 00.00.

A relative time, such as +4: 00.00, meaning 4 hours after the current time, or -3: 00.00, meaning 3 hours before the current time.

The start or end of the next section in the time domain, for example the next business deadline, may be specified as the next end of one section in business hours after the current time. More generally, one can count beginnings or terminations, for example the second deadline of a task.

If the time elapsed within a predetermined time zone, for example, now is May 13, 2002 16: 00.00, then the four-hour period of work is 12: 00.00 May 14, 2002. You can also move backward from the current time, which is especially useful after moving forward. For example, you can set a time zone for your next vacation and then refer to 4 hours of work before the start of your next vacation.

More complicated time representations can be defined about them.

For example, you can set a (public) time period that lasts from 12: 00.00 to 12: 00.00 every day. The next start (or end) of such a segment will be at noon the following day. You can similarly calculate the noon of the next business day using the intersection of weekdays. By combining this with an operator that counts the ends of the intervals, we can calculate the deadline for two business days after noon of the next business day.

As another example, working hours in Spain may be specified as the union of 9: 00.00-12: 00.00 and 14: 00.00-19: 00.00. To find out the day's closing, take an intersection of Spanish working hours and the day and find the end of the segment in the resulting time zone.

An enterprise can define time domain objects specified for the communication flow manager, or each recipient can define their own personal time domain objects. One example use of these objects is to define business hours for an enterprise. The object is

Common name (cn) of the time domain object: business

(Common name in cn): task

It includes.

The directory filters which recipients use the realm. This can be used to relate this business area to people in a particular company, time zone, or geographic area.

The time zone used to calculate valid times.

Time domain representation of the intervals within the domain. This time domain representation can refer to other basic or specified time domains.

As temporal expression operators in the time domain, "end of-", "start of-", "end of n of-", "start of n of-, where n is the count value or the last keyword, and the relative time" + ", In the "before", "before", and "between" primitives, "-" which is a relative time in the region is used, an example is as follows.

AFTER end of business

BEFORE 2 start of business

BETWEEN start of business-end of business

BEFORE business + 4: 00.00

AFTER end of business AFTER business-01: 00.00

AFTER last end of (SpanishBusinessHours intersect Today)

Various simplifications can be made to make the syntax more natural. For example, if the time domain name comes after after, then the next end of the interval in this time domain may be taken to the specified time. Similarly, for before, the next start of the interval in the time domain can be taken as the specified time. This simplifies "AFTER end of business" to "AFTER BUSINESS" and "BEFORE start of Monday" to "BEFORE Monday". It also simplifies "BETWEEN end of 08: 00.00-start of 17: 00.00" to be "BETWEEN 08: 00.00- 17: 00.00". The entire time domain representation using union, intersection and filter over the existing time domains can also be used where time domain names are used.

The standardized processing of the communication flow manager is that the common name of the time-domain object begins with the name specified in the communication flow, which may include other conditions after the dollar character "$", such as business $ west-coast, Is applied to determine the time-domain name conditionally that two must match a filter in the time-domain object. If several matching objects are found, one of the objects is selected, if possible an object with the logically most specific filter (filter including all other matching filters), if not possible, any of the matching objects Is the chosen one. First, the communication flow manager finds a time domain of a predetermined name with a matching filter in the context of an inetOrgPerson or inetRole object. If none is found, the communication flow manager looks for an area in its default directory.

Short Names and Directory Search Primitives

The examples addressed here show that requestors 110 can specify recipients 120 using short names. As described below in the paragraphs under "Directory Internal and Heuristic Methods", these short names are translated by a heuristic search of the recipient preference and role database 500. The requestors 110 may specify, in angle brackets, the distinguished full name of the receiver 120, for example <uid = Joann, ou = people, o = research.avaya.com>. Specifying distinguished names for the recipients 120 can be difficult for users because they require the users to know the structure of the LDAP name tree (FIG. 6). As the communication flow representation also supports search operations, users can describe the attributes of one or more receiver objects in the recipient preference and role database 500. When users employ search operations, they do not need to know distinct names of directory objects. For example, a search primitive having a format such as "search (filter, pattern, op)," searches the recipient preference and role database 500 for people, roles or designated communication flow objects that match the specified filter. Advanced search primitives have the format "adv_search (directory-server, directory-port, base, scope, filter, pattern, op)". The operation of the filter, pattern and op parameters of the advanced search primitive is the same as the search primitive. The directory-server parameter specifies the domain name of the host of the recipient preference and role database 500 for searching, and the diary-port parameter specifies the port number of the recipient preference and role database 500 server on this host. . A directory tree rooted at the base distinguished name is searched on the server. The search scope is base (for objects identified only by base), 1-level (for searching only children of objects identified by base), or sub-trees (all sub-objects of objects identified by base) When searching the tree). Directory-server, directory-port, base, or range may be null, in which case defaults apply.

In general, search primitives for communication flow representation include a macro function for processing search results. Each object returned is replaced with a pattern, given the pattern parameter of the search primitives, in the case of the token "<dn>". The result stream for this object is then readable in the result stream for other objects with user-specified primitives, given in the op parameters of search primitives, for example "and" or "race". For example, the pattern is

(<dn> between 5/01 / 01-05 / 08/01) delegates (<dn> between 5/08 / 01- 05/10/01)

Generates a string to notify each recipient once a request after May 1, 2001, and again after May 8, 2001 if no response is received. If a response from all receivers is needed before the request is completed, the resulting strings will be concatenated with "and" primitives to generate a communication flow representation. The user can also constrain the search by returning to only one recipient, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art. By specifying how to handle multiple matches in a search, users are prevented from inadvertently sending this request to large groups when they only want to send a request that requires careful attention to an individual.

Search primitives can be used, for example, for expert assistance. For example, if the requester needs information as an expert on a topic, such as J2EE, the requester may specify the following flow of communication.

search ("& ((objectclass = inetOrgPerson) (expertise = J2EE))", "<dn>", OR)

Alternatively, the communication flow can be specified as follows.

expertl or expert2 ... or expertN

In another example, a network alarm is generated which must be resolved by a specialist. The requestor may specify the following flows of communication:

search ("& ((objectclass = inetOrgPerson) (expertise = netmgr))", "<dn>", OR)

These requests will be completed when an expert satisfies the request.

The following table lists the precedence (operation order) of operators from highest to lowest. Operators of the same level are combined from left to right. In general, parentheses can be used to change the order first.

Operator AND, THEN OR, ELSE RACES, DELEGATES NOT VOTES, POLLS AFTER, BEFORE, BETWEEN ? SEARCH and other features

Request Manager 1200 and Communication Flow Manager 1300 Interaction

11 through 13 illustrate an interaction between the request manager 1200 and the communication flow manager 1300. 11 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the flow of information between various entities associated with a request. 12A and 12B are flowcharts illustrating the operation of the request manager of FIG. 11 in more detail. 13 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the communication flow manager of FIG. 11 in more detail. In this embodiment, request manager processing 1200 and communication flow manager processing 1300 process the various pre-selected asynchronous events detected in steps 1205 (FIG. 12) and 1305 (FIG. 13), respectively.

As shown in FIG. 12A, the request manager 1200 detects a new request received from the application 110 via the application interface 220 in step 1210. The request manager 1200 creates an entry for the request in the request database 300 (FIG. 3) in step 1215 and communicates with the request identifier a parsing portion of the communication flow representation for the request in step 1220. Provided to flow manager 1300.

As shown in FIG. 13, the communication flow manager 1300 detects a new communication flow representation to process in step 1310. The communication flow manager 1300 may, if necessary, process a communication flow representation in step 1315 and reach a set of executable terminal nodes in the tree 600 that represent the media contact objects to employ for a given recipient. Until then, each name in the communication flow representation is analyzed using the recipient preference and role database 500. Note that the receivers 120 can enter and update their preferences in the recipient preferences and role database 500 using the communication flow management GUI 1110.

The communication flow manager 1300 generates a list of devices to contact and sends this list to the request manager 1200 as part of the contact scheduling information at step 1324. In general, the contact scheduling information includes only contacts that can be immediately scheduled by the request manager 1200. For example, if the preferences of a given recipient indicate that they can only be contacted by telephone between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm, the communication flow manager 1300 may not be able to access the telephone medium until this time range becomes valid. Will not schedule contact.

Specifically, the communication flow manager 1300 parses the received communication flow representation into a tree and goes through the tree using, for example, a depth-first search (DFS) method until the terminal node is reached. Iterate through the nodes in the tree to start processing. Whenever a terminal (leaf) node is encountered in the tree, the media contact stored therein is processed. If a given node contains concurrent primitives, all nodes associated with the operands of the concurrent primitive are processed. If a given node contains sequential primitives, the right operand is not processed until the left operand is completed.

In addition, before returning the media contact to the request manager 1200, the communication flow manager 1300 determines whether it satisfies the time constraint associated with the media contact (terminal node). For example, the communication flow manager 1300 determines whether the start time has been reached. If all time constraints are met, the media contact is included in the list returned to request manager 1200. If all time constraints are not met, the media contact is not yet included in the list returned to the request manager 1200 and the communication flow manager 1300 sets a timer so that the media contact is made by the communication flow manager 1300 at the appropriate time. Can be added to the list. Note that the media contact object is not retrieved until all time constraints have been met.

Note that the tree representation of the communication flow representation may include inverse pointers to the root node in a known manner to facilitate the associated time constraint confirmation. If a node has been contacted for a person or role in the tree, it is determined whether the name has been previously contacted with the same owner (same specified communication flow). If this name had been previously contacted with the same owner, no second contact attempt is made. Rather, status information is propagated from previous contacts.

As shown in FIG. 12A, the request manager 1200 detects contact scheduling information received in step 1225, and the media contact type indicated in step 1230, as described below in the paragraph under “Media-Specific Interfaces”. Attempt to contact each recipient indicated in the contact scheduling information using (s).

If the request manager 1200 detects one or more responses or message expiration events in step 1240 (FIG. 12B), then a record of responses or expiration with a corresponding request identifier, e.g. Is optionally generated in the response database 1150. In an embodiment where each individual response is provided to the requesting application 110, the received response is sent to the corresponding application 110 in step 1248. Responses or expiration status are sent to communication flow manager 1300 for further processing in step 1250.

The communication flow manager 1300 detects the received response or expiration status as the request identifier in step 1330 and uses the request identifier in step 1335 to retrieve the appropriate communication flow representation. When a response or expiration status is detected in step 1330, the communication flow manager updates the tree representation of the communication flow representation in step 1335 to reflect the status of the media contact. The communication flow manager 1300 then ascends to the root of the tree by determining the status of any higher order operands that are currently determined so that the operands are now complete as a result of the status of the media contact. When Orland is completed, current media contacts for this operand are put on the contact list to cancel. This list is returned to request manager 1200 after step 1350 or step 1320 as appropriate. If the entire flow of communication has not been completed due to the propagation of the state, this occurs when the completion state of the best operator in the tree is set, and processing continues to step 1315. If the entire communication flow is complete, processing continues to step 1350.

Using the communication flow representation, the communication flow manager 1300 determines what additional communications are needed or whether the communication is complete. If it is determined in step 1340 that further communications are needed, the program control goes to step 1314 to generate contact scheduling information and provide this contact scheduling information to the request manager 200. However, if it is determined in step 1340 that the communication flow representation is complete, the communication flow manager 1300 sends a completion status indication to the request manager 1200 in step 1350.

In an embodiment where collated responses are provided to the requesting application 110, once the request manager 1200 has received a completion status indication from the communication flow manager 1300 at step 1260, the request manager 1200 collates the responses and steps At 1265 it is sent to the final destination address indicated by the requesting application 110. The completion status message is sent to the corresponding application in step 1270.

Media Specific Interfaces

In this embodiment, the media-specific interfaces are sub-classes of a single Appclass MediaContact classification that require each sub-class to implement two methods, all of which are one way of initiating contact and another way of canceling it. to be. However, even if only two methods are needed, to some extent sub-classes range from very simple to very complex, depending on the intelligence distribution between the notification and response system 100 and the endpoints. In general, for each media contact, the request is transcoded by one of the transcoders specific to the media described below, creating an encoding that is appropriate for the particular contact to be attempted. The communication interface specific to the protocol handles the actual sending of encoded requests to each recipient.

This group of classes can be regarded as a device abstraction layer (DAL). This DAL hides all the complexity of the various devices to other notification and response system 100 classes, and to specify, initialize, and cancel the notification, as well as any parameter setting and acquisition methods that are uniform across all devices. Only a few simple methods are revealed. Next, a number of MediaContact sub-classes are described.

WebContact

The WebContact class allows the recipient to access the web portal to view a list of open requests, completed requests, and canceled requests. The WebContact class inserts an item in the open list that contains the requester's name, the requested time, the summary, and a hyperlink to the request URL. Cancel just moves the item from the open to the cancel list. The "recipient" responds by clicking on the desired notification and completing the form displayed.

PhoneContact

The PhoneContact class should initiate phone calls rather than waiting for recipients to make or contact them. The PhoneContact class can also employ VoiceXML (Voice eXtensible Markup Language) systems that convert VXML scripts (or other textual representations) into audio. The PhoneContact class sends a message via TCP specifying the request identifier, the media contact identifier, the telephone number to call, and the URL of the servlet to send the VXML script to the target recipient. In the case of a cancellation, PhoneContact simply sends a message telling it to cancel the telephone call if it has not already called.

The control program of the automatic telephone dialer queues requests for telephone calls and executes them in FIFO order as soon as the resources become available.

EmailContact

The notification and response system 100 enables plain text, HTML, and embedded dynamic HTML as three different types of email. In the first case, sometimes many recipients use text only email clients. This includes not only text editor Emacs and some web based clients, but also wireless email clients such as those available from Blacberry® and Palm. In this case, which should be provided by indicating that the email must be text in the directory, the notification and response system 100 usually constructs a simple email message that includes the requester's name, request summary and a URL pointing to the notification message. In this implementation, the requesting application created the text message itself and also inserted the telephone number of the voice portal to which audio access may be requested.

For email clients that cannot process embedded frames or layers but are HMTL-enabled, EmailContact again describes the notification, but this time constructs an HTML page containing a hyperlink to the notification message. For an email client that can handle embedded frames and layers, EmailContact constructs a message that inserts a notification so that the content is included when the client renders the message.

An ultimate complication for EmailContact was the need to interpret email messages that could not be delivered. This is implemented by providing a main method that is specified as a program this time handling any messages sent to the notification and response system 100. This method attempts to interpret the returned mail to see if the delivery attempt failed or indicates something else. If so, notify notification and response system 100 that the contact has failed. Notification and response system 100 may optionally read and interpret receive requests. This will enable you to determine that the notification was successful even if no response was sent, and might be a necessary feature for some applications.

SMSContact

SMSContact handles notifications through a short message sending service that can be purchased from many cell phone providers, including Sprint®, Verizon®, and AT & T®. The SMSContact object performs a provider-specific HTTP POST or GET to the website to send the message. Although it is possible to do this roughly by sending an email to a service provider, POST provides a bit more control. POST entails the cost of software change as the provider's web interface evolves. The notification and response system 100 can optionally interpret the confirmation email sent by most service providers once the message has been delivered. In addition to checking when the SMS message was sent successfully, the email also lets you know if the service provider's web interface has changed, so the system will rely on using email SMS delivery until the SMSContact software is updated. Can be.

FaxContact

The notification and response system 100 may provide a class for sending notifications to a fax machine, for example using the pass function of Avaya's AUDIX system. This class converts an HTML or text page into a TIFF image file and then makes a request to send the image to the destination via fax. This class also includes simple state and management servlets that provide information about pending faxes and some control thereof.

AudixVoiceContact

The AudixVoiceContact object is designed to send a text version of the notification to the recipient's voice mailbox. This implementation is implemented using the ViaVoice® product from IBM, which converts the message into an audio file and then sends it to the AUDIX server using the same mechanism as FaxContact.

SIPContact

The SIPContact class connects the notification and response system 100 to endpoints capable of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP is described, for example, in March 1999, in M. Handley et al., "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol," RFC 2543. SIP is a relatively new protocol defined by the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) that sets up and controls various communication sessions.

To do this, the SIPContact class relies on a component called the SIP Execution Environment (SEE) that receives messages from the notification and response system 100. The message includes a SIP address for the recipient; Media contact identifier; Request identifier; And a list of available media types and human languages to use in this request. The SEE takes the SIP address and “invites” the address according to the SIP protocol to establish contact with the recipient. The SEE then receives an OK message from the recipient device indicating the recipient's preferred medium and human language. The SEE executes the XFS request described below, from the list previously supplied from the available ones, the media contact identifier; Request identifier; And the preferred media type and human language to use for this request. The XFS request returns appropriately formatted content for notifying the receiver according to the receiver's SIP preferences. This technology supports devices that prefer to receive multiple formats (some devices have screens and audio) by enabling SEE to use XFS once for each of the desired formats.

In this implementation, the SEE may send an instant message or call to a Microsoft XP® softphone; SIP-enabled Avaya 4624® IP phones, digital and analog phones that have changed the call control protocol to SIP (instead of H.323) (via the enhanced version of MultiVantage® call processing software with SIP protocol support) Can make a phone call; Instant text messages can be sent to SIP-capable Avaya 4624® IP phones that have infrared capabilities and have changed the call control protocol to SIP (instead of H. 323); A web page can be displayed on an experimental SIP-enabled Avaya 4630® IP screen phone that replaced the call control protocol with SIP (instead of H.323).

SIP complements the notification and response system 100 of the present invention in many ways. In particular, SIP provides a mechanism that allows a recipient to set contact preferences on a server such that the recipient's preferences apply to the person making the contact. While SIP-enabled recipients can express their preferences over SIP, typical recipients can still define individual communication flows within notification and response system 100. The SIP mechanism will be used by the recipients to control how and when to receive notifications while communication flows within the notification and response system 100 send notifications to non-SIP endpoints and preferred endpoints specified in SIP. It is expected to determine how and when to send. That is, as SIP and Unified Messaging allow control over how messages are received, notification and response system 100 will allow the enterprise to control how these messages are sent. Note that SIP control over how to receive messages may be enhanced by communication flow representation and communication flow rule functionality, as disclosed herein.

The SIPContact class suggests some of the benefits of the structure of the notification and response system 100. In particular, the content of the notification message in the notification and response system 100 is invoked by a web or telephone browser or MediaContact by invoking a form servlet called XFS by two factors identifying the destination and the device contacted with the request. Can be invoked.

http: // xui / XFS? Rid = xui-1234-1 & Cid = 1

Where Rid is the request id and Cid is the media contact id. Both are sufficient to identify the recipient together. XFS was simply used to retrieve the appropriate request using request manager 1200 and then to obtain the URL of the notification message. This message was then recalled, rewritten to change the recipient of the response and to personalize the message, and then sent to a browser or other destination.

To support multiple languages and media types, the XFS servlet can be modified to accept two additional parameters to specify the desired language and MIME type. For example, the more general version of XFS allows searching for specific language and format types as follows:

http: // xui / XFS? Rid = Xui-1234-I & Cid = 1 & Ctype = text / plain & Language = ENU

This specifies what the English, plain text version of "xui-1234-1" needs.

The notification and answering system 100 delivers a notification to a SIP-enabled Avaya screen phone at the same time in two ways, as a voice over the phone and as a web page pop on the screen. This was done by letting the SEE specify that screen phones can handle both web pop and audio connections. The SEE then calls XFS to load two calls, the first to load the HTML page and the second to load the VXML page.

http: // xui / XFS? Rid = xui-1234-1 & Cid = 1 & Ctype = text / html & Language = ENU;

http: // xui / XFS? Rid = xui-1234-1 & Cid = 1 & Ctype = text / vxml & Language = ENU.

Examples

As noted above, notification and response system 100 allows application 110 (requester) to query, specify desired response types, and receive a set of responses that are collated from recipients via email. Enable to receive 14 illustrates a web form 1400 that allows the application 110 to specify parameters of a request for a team meeting. In the example of FIG. 14, Joann is sending requests to "YangQian" and "Petsche" to schedule a meeting. If these recipients agree with the meeting time and location, a request is sent to their manager (cmk) to see if they can attend. The generated request is sent to the indicated recipients via other media contacts as appropriate. The request includes a Yes button and a No button to answer the request. Figure 15 shows the compiled result of the request. As shown in FIG. 15, Petsche may attend the meeting but YangQian may not attend the meeting and has not been contacted by their manager.

In another example, shown in FIG. 16, the requestor provides some stock allocation in the new company's IPO to preferred customers for four hours. Time constraints apply to PreferredCustomers, the specified communication flow. PreferredCustomers translate into parallel combinations of receivers. The requestor offers a series of options in its request to its best customers. 17 illustrates an email version of the request, received by each recipient defined by PreferredCustomers, which is a designated communication flow that specifies email preferences. Matched responses are returned as soon as all recipients' responses or four hours of delivery expire. If the receiver fails to respond within four hours and tries to wait or respond to the request later, the appropriate message is displayed and the reply is not solicited or accepted.

Another embodiment of the invention, referred to as "reverse 911," allows the notification and response system 100 to provide an emergency 911 response. For example, communication flow representations and rules may be defined to notify parents when there is an urgent problem at school. In such cases, it is difficult for the school to provide the emergency resources needed to contact the parents or guardians of each student on campus. The reverse 911 system of the present invention provides an automated technique for contacting parents and provides significant safeguards to prevent inappropriate or fraudulent use and to minimize false alarms. The reverse 911 system requires parents to register with the service provider the preference to be contacted in an emergency. Once activated, schools can use the web interface or e-mail to initiate contact with all parents at the same time. The notification may optionally include a button for parents to acknowledge the receipt of the message. In addition, the school may specify an approval process requestor using the techniques described herein that must be satisfied before the notification is sent to the parent, and may enhance this safety with other safety features (eg, to authenticate the requestor). Login and access control). Thus, the present invention can provide "person in loop" safety.

The same reverse 911 system, based on what is disclosed herein, will be particularly dangerous, such as assisting the Red Cross or government agencies to find and schedule blood donors in case of emergency, or as a chemical spill, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art. It may be employed in other variations of contacting the neighbors in the context of the situation.

In another embodiment of the invention, referred to as "adaptive scheduling", the notification and response system 100 may notify the designated recipients of the schedule change. For example, if a mass transit mode, such as a train or aircraft flight, is delayed during a meeting or if the computer encounters traffic, the notification and response system 100 notifies the parties of the schedule change and applies to the schedules of the participants. It can be configured to adjust the modification. For example, the monthly agent described herein allows this schedule modification to be performed automatically. The passenger may specify, for example, a communication flow rule that is initiated when an e-mail message with title = "flight information *" is received. Communication flow rules can provide information about who to contact, such as limousine services, colleagues or spouses, if delayed. The notification may provide information specific to the affected recipient. For example, a notification to a limousine service may request an alternative pick-up time, and a notification to a colleague may reschedule a meeting (for example, using a monthly agent) or have a colleague meet when there are no delayed passengers. You can request to attend (using the delegate feature).

As is known in the art, the methods and apparatus described herein may be distributed as a manufacturer's article comprising therein a computer readable medium embodying computer readable code means. The computer readable program code means may operate with the computer system to perform all or part of the steps of performing the methods or to create the devices described herein. The computer readable medium may be a recordable medium (e.g., floppy disk, hard drives, compact disks, or memory cards) or a transmission medium (e.g., a network including optical fiber, WWW ( world-wide web), cables, or time division multiple access, code division multiple access, or wireless channel using other radio frequency channels). Any known or developed medium capable of storing information suitable for use in a computer system may be used. Computer-readable code means is any mechanism that enables a computer to read instructions and data, such as magnetic changes on a magnetic medium or height changes on the surface of a compact disc.

Each of the computer systems and servers described herein includes a memory that will configure associated processors to implement the methods, steps, and functions disclosed herein. The memories may be distributed or local, and the processors may be distributed or monolithic. The memories may be implemented as electrical, magnetic or optical memory, or any combination or other types of memories. In addition, the term “memory” should be construed broadly to fully encompass any information that can be read from or written to an address in an addressable space accessed by an associated processor. By this definition, the information on the network is still in memory because the associated processor can retrieve information from the network.

It is to be understood that the embodiments and variations shown and described herein merely illustrate the principles of this invention and that various modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. .

Claims (70)

A method of providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the method comprising: Receiving a response from the at least one recipient; And Selecting at least one path in the communication flow based on the response. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising changing a reply-to address in the message to ensure that the response is received at a desired destination. 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the modified reply address allows a mediator to act as an agent of the sender. 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the modified response address allows a mediator to provide response processing services to the sender. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step determines subsequent communications for one or more additional recipients. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said selecting step aggregates received responses and evaluates whether predefined message completion criteria are met. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting step determines a completion state to return response information to the sender. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the response information is provided to the sender in a format designated by the sender. The method of claim 1, wherein the message is provided to the at least one recipient according to preference information specified by the corresponding at least one recipient. The method of claim 1, wherein the message content is obtained substantially close in time when the message is provided to the at least one recipient. 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising evaluating the communication flow, wherein the communication flow refers to at least one communication flow rule defined by the at least one recipient, the communication flow rule being at least of the recipient. A method of specifying one preference. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication flow refers to at least one preference of at least one recipient as specified by an enterprise associated with the at least one recipient. 12. The method of claim 11 wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one time condition. 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one media preference. 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one human language type preference. 12. The method of claim 11, wherein said communication flow rule is evaluated substantially in close proximity when said message is provided to said at least one recipient. 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the communication flow refers to at least one media preference of the at least one recipient to receive the message, Wherein said at least one media preference is stored in a central location. 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the communication flow controls call processing of a SIP proxy. 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the SIP proxy evaluates an incoming SIP INVITE message and selects a dedicated call routing rule for the at least one recipient. A method of providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow, the method comprising: Receiving the message from the sender; Evaluating the communication flow, wherein the communication flow specifies at least one preference of the sender to convey the message; And Processing the message based on the preferences of the sender. 21. The method of claim 20, further comprising providing response information to the sender in a format designated by the sender. 21. The method of claim 20, wherein content for the message is obtained substantially in time for the message to be provided to the at least one recipient. 21. The method of claim 20, further comprising evaluating the communication flow, The communication flow refers to at least one communication flow rule defined by the at least one receiver, The communication flow rule specifies at least one preference of the recipient. 21. The method of claim 20, wherein the communication flow refers to at least one preference of the at least one recipient, as specified by an enterprise associated with the at least one recipient. 24. The method of claim 23 wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one time condition. The method of claim 23, wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one media preference. The method of claim 23, wherein the communication flow rule comprises at least one human language type preference. 24. The method of claim 23, wherein said communication flow rule is evaluated substantially in close proximity when said message is provided to said at least one recipient. 24. The method of claim 23, wherein the communication flow refers to at least one media preference of the at least one recipient to receive the message, Wherein said at least one media preference is stored in a central location. A method of providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the method comprising: Receiving the message from the sender; Evaluating the communication flow, wherein the communication flow is controlled by a communication flow expression that includes at least one primitive keyword that indicates how the message should be processed. Evaluating; And Processing the message based on the communication flow representation. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword is that two specified operands, A and B, must be contacted at the same time, and that the communication flow representation is successful only if and when both A and B respond successfully. How to tell. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that for two specified operands, A and B, B should be contacted only if A responds successfully, and the communication flow representation indicates that both A and B successfully How to indicate if and only if successful. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that two operands, A and B, must be contacted at the same time and that the communication flow representation is successful as long as either A or B responds successfully. 31. The communication flow representation of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword is that for two specified operands, A and B, B should be contacted only if an attempt to contact A fails; How to dictate if you have successfully answered. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that two specified operands, A and B, must be contacted at the same time, and that the communication flow representation has a value of initial contact for a response. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword is for two specified operands, A and B, that B is only contacted if an attempt to contact A fails, and the communication flow representation is non-first maybe. maybe) A way to indicate that it has a value in the response. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that recipients must be contacted at the same time and that the communication flow representation is successful if a predetermined threshold of successful response is received. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that recipients must be contacted sequentially and that the communication flow representation is successful if a predetermined threshold of successful response is received. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that recipients should be contacted in parallel. 40. The method of claim 39, further comprising canceling the waiting requests after completing the waiting requests. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that recipients should be contacted sequentially. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the primitive keyword indicates that one or more potential operand values should be reversed. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation is evaluated using 3-valued logic. 44. The method of claim 43, wherein the three possible logic values are notification failure (maybe), response failure (false) and response success (true). 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation comprises a success test indicating when the communication flow representation should terminate. 46. The method of claim 45, wherein the success test specifies a three-valued logical expression for variables that may be included in a response received from the at least one receiver. 46. The method of claim 45, wherein the success test is capable of performing aggregation over all received responses and processing the responses. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation causes the material to be escalated to the next level and to cancel pending messages associated with the current level prior to the promotion. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation causes material to be promoted to the next level and maintains pending messages associated with the current level prior to the promotion. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation defines preferences of the sender and the at least one receiver. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation is evaluated at a time of delivery to the at least one recipient. The communication flow representation of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation refers to a communication flow rule defined by the at least one recipient, The communication flow rule may adjust the communication flow with respect to characteristics of the sender. The communication flow representation of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation refers to a communication flow rule defined by the at least one recipient, The communication flow rule may adjust the communication flow with respect to features of the message. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation directs one or more actions to be performed if the at least one recipient does not respond to the message. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation enables the at least one recipient to delegate the message to another recipient. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation enables the at least one recipient to transition the message to another recipient after reading the message. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation indicates preferences of the at least one receiver using temporal constraints. 31. The method of claim 30, wherein the communication flow representation indicates preferences of the at least one receiver using temporal domains. A method of providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow, the method comprising: Receiving the message from the sender; Evaluating the communication flow, wherein the communication flow is evaluated substantially close in time when the message is provided to the at least one recipient; And Processing the message based on the preferences of the sender. 60. The method of claim 59, further comprising obtaining content for the message substantially close in time when the message is provided to the at least one recipient. A method of providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the method comprising: Receiving the message from the sender; Evaluating the communication flow, wherein the communication flow is controlled by a communication flow representation that indicates how the message is processed, wherein the communication flow representation is evaluated using three-valued logic, Evaluating the communication flow; And Processing the message based on the communication flow representation. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the system comprising: A memory that stores computer-readable code; And A processor operatively coupled to the memory, the processor configured to implement the computer-readable code, The computer-readable code is Receive a response from the at least one recipient, And select at least one path in the communication flow based on the response. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow, the system comprising: Memory for storing computer-readable code; And A processor operatively coupled to the memory, the processor configured to implement the computer-readable code, The computer-readable code is Receive a message from the at least one recipient, Evaluate the communication flow in a manner that the communication flow specifies at least one preference of the sender for delivery of the message, And process the message based on the preferences of the sender. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient along a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the system comprising: Memory for storing computer-readable code; And A processor operatively coupled to the memory, the processor configured to implement the computer-readable code, The computer-readable code is Receive the message from the sender, Evaluate the communication flow in a manner such that the communication flow is controlled by a communication flow representation including at least one primitive keyword indicating how the message should be processed; And process the message based on the communication flow representation. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one receiver in accordance with a communication flow, the system comprising: Memory for storing computer-readable code; And A processor operatively coupled to the memory, The processor is configured to implement the computer-readable code, The computer-readable code is Receive the message from the sender, Evaluate the communication flow in a manner that the communication flow is evaluated substantially close in time when the message is provided to the at least one recipient, And process the message based on the preference of the sender. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the system comprising: Memory for storing computer-readable code; And A processor operatively coupled to the memory, The processor is configured to implement the computer-readable code, The computer-readable code is Receive the message from the sender, Evaluate the communication flow in a manner such that the communication flow is controlled by a communication flow representation that indicates the manner in which the message is processed and the communication flow representation is evaluated using 3-value logic; And process the message based on the communication flow representation. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the system comprising: Means for receiving a response from the at least one recipient; And Means for selecting at least one path in the communication flow based on the response. A system for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, the system comprising: Means for receiving the message from the sender; Means for evaluating the communication flow, the means for evaluating the communication flow controlled by a communication flow representation that includes at least one primitive keyword indicating how the message should be processed; And Means for processing the message based on the communication flow representation. An article of manufacture for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, A computer readable medium having computer readable code means thereon; The computer readable program code means for receiving a response from the at least one recipient; And selecting at least one path in the communication flow based on the response. An article of manufacture for providing a message from a sender to at least one recipient in accordance with a communication flow having a plurality of potential paths, A computer readable medium having computer readable code means thereon; The computer readable program code means for receiving the message from the sender; Evaluating the communication flow, comprising: evaluating the communication flow controlled by the communication flow formula including at least one primitive keyword indicating how the communication flow should be processed; And processing the message based on the communication flow representation.