Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W4/00—Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
  • H04W4/16—Communication-related supplementary services, e.g. call-transfer or call-hold
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
  • H04M3/56—Arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W4/00—Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
  • H04W4/12—Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
  • H04M3/42221—Conversation recording systems
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
  • H04M3/428—Arrangements for placing incoming calls on hold
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04M3/00—Automatic or semi-automatic exchanges
  • H04M3/42—Systems providing special services or facilities to subscribers
  • H04M3/58—Arrangements for transferring received calls from one subscriber to another; Arrangements affording interim conversations between either the calling or the called party and a third party

Definitions

• Call parking and retrieval are an integral part of conventional communication technologies such as in PBXs.
• a parked call is typically a time-extended call transfer.
• Call parking is restricted to just audio calls and a single modality in the phone communication systems.
• Modern communication systems have a large number of capabilities including integration of various communication modalities with different services. For example, instant messaging, voice / video communications, data / application sharing, white- boarding, and other forms of communication may be combined with presence and availability information of subscribers. Such systems may provide subscribers with the enhanced capabilities such as providing instructions to callers for various status categories, alternate contacts, calendar information, and comparable features.
• the above mentioned modalities and others are commonly utilized in two-party or multi-party communications. While these modalities provide an enriched experience to the users, they also provide different challenges and opportunities for handling communications at the system level.
• Embodiments are directed to enabling a subscriber of an enhanced communication system to park an established multimodal conversation within the enhanced communication system and notify another subscriber through a variety of means.
• the other subscriber may retrieve selected or all modalities for continuing the conversation. Different modalities may be parked together or separately on servers and/or endpoints. While waiting for the other subscriber to retrieve the conversation, a participant may receive audio, video, presentation, or other forms of content as playback.
• FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example unified communications system, where embodiments may be implemented for multimodal conversation parking and retrieval;
• FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a basic example system for facilitating a multimodal conversation
• FIG. 3 illustrates major components and actions in an enhanced communication system for facilitating parking and retrieval of multimodal conversations according to embodiments
• FIG. 4 is an action diagram illustrating example actions in parking and retrieving an example two-mode conversation in a unified communication system
• FIG. 5 is an example user interface for a parked conversation notification alert in a system according to embodiments.
• FIG. 6 is a networked environment, where a system according to embodiments may be implemented;
• FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example computing operating environment, where embodiments may be implemented.
• FIG. 8 illustrates a logic flow diagram for parking and retrieving multimodal conversations in an enhanced communication system according to embodiments.
• program modules include routines, programs, components, data structures, and other types of structures that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.
• embodiments may be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and comparable computing devices.
• Embodiments may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network.
• program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
• Embodiments may be implemented as a computer-implemented process (method), a computing system, or as an article of manufacture, such as a computer program product or computer readable media.
• the computer program product may be a computer storage medium readable by a computer system and encoding a computer program that comprises instructions for causing a computer or computing system to perform example process(es).
• the computer-readable storage medium can for example be implemented via one or more of a volatile computer memory, a non-volatile memory, a hard drive, a flash drive, a floppy disk, or a compact disk, and comparable media.
• server generally refers to a computing device executing one or more software programs typically in a networked environment.
• a server may also be implemented as a virtual server (software programs) executed on one or more computing devices viewed as a server on the network. More detail on these technologies and example operations is provided below.
• a unified communication system is an example of modern communication systems with a wide range of capabilities and services that can be provided to subscribers.
• a unified communication system is a real- time communications system facilitating instant messaging, presence, audio-video conferencing, web conferencing functionality, and comparable capabilities.
• users may communicate via a variety of end devices (102, 104), which are client devices of the UC system.
• Each client device may be capable of executing one or more communication applications for voice communication, video communication, instant messaging, application sharing, data sharing, and the like.
• End devices may also facilitate traditional phone calls through an external connection such as through PBX 124 to a Public Switched Telephone Network ("PSTN").
• End devices may include any type of smart phone, cellular phone, any computing device executing a communication application, a smart automobile console, and advanced phone devices with additional functionality.
• a subscriber of the UC system may use more than one end device and/or communication application for facilitating various modes of communication with other subscribers.
• End devices may also include various peripherals coupled to the end devices through wired or wireless means (e.g., USB connection, Bluetooth® connection, etc.) to facilitate different aspects of the communication.
• UC Network(s) 110 includes a number of servers performing different tasks.
• UC servers 114 provide registration, presence, and routing functionalities. Routing functionality enables the system to route calls to a user to anyone of the client devices assigned to the user based on default and/or user set policies. For example, if the user is not available through a regular phone, the call may be forwarded to the user's cellular phone, and if that is not answering a number of voicemail options may be utilized. Since the end devices can handle additional communication modes, UC servers 114 may provide access to these additional communication modes (e.g., instant messaging, video communication, etc.) through access server 112.
• additional communication modes e.g., instant messaging, video communication, etc.
• Access server 112 resides in a perimeter network and enables connectivity through UC network(s) 110 with other users in one of the additional communication modes.
• UC servers 114 may include servers that perform combinations of the above described functionalities or specialized servers that only provide a particular functionality. For example, home servers providing presence functionality, routing servers providing routing functionality, rights management servers, and so on. Similarly, access server 112 may provide multiple functionalities such as firewall protection and connectivity, or only specific functionalities.
• Audio / Video (A/V) conferencing server 118 provides audio and/or video conferencing capabilities by facilitating those over an internal or external network.
• Mediation server 116 mediates signaling and media to and from other types of networks such as a PSTN or a cellular network (e.g., calls through PBX 124 or from cellular phone 122).
• Mediation server 116 may also act as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) user agent.
• SIP Session Initiation Protocol
• users may have one or more identities, which is not necessarily limited to a phone number. The identity may take any form depending on the integrated networks, such as a telephone number, a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), or any other identifier. While any protocol may be used in a UC system, SIP is a commonly used method.
• SIP Session Initiation Protocol
• URI Uniform Resource Identifier
• SIP is an application-layer control (signaling) protocol for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions with one or more participants. It can be used to create two-party, multiparty, or multicast sessions that include Internet telephone calls, multimedia distribution, and multimedia conferences. SIP is designed to be independent of the underlying transport layer.
• SIP clients may use Transport Control Protocol ("TCP") to connect to SIP servers and other SIP endpoints.
• TCP Transport Control Protocol
• SIP is primarily used in setting up and tearing down voice or video calls. However, it can be used in any application where session initiation is a requirement. These include event subscription and notification, terminal mobility, and so on.
• Voice and/or video communications are typically done over separate session protocols, typically Real-time Transport Protocol ("RTP").
• RTP Real-time Transport Protocol
• a conversation as used herein refers to a multimodal communication session, where subscribers may communicate over a plurality of devices, applications, and communication modes simultaneously or sequentially. For example, two subscribers may initiate a conversation by exchanging instant messages through their desktop computers. Later, the communication may be elevated to audio and instant message with one subscriber utilizing their desktop for both modes, while the other uses the desktop computer for instant messaging and a smart phone device for the audio mode. Other subscribers may join or leave the conversation other modes and devices may be added or removed. The commonality between these communications is preserved by designating all these communications as belonging to the same conversation.
• Conversations may be assigned a unique identifier, which enables subscribers to view, record, modify, share, and generally manage aspects of the conversation including documents and other data associated with the conversation (e.g., documents exchanged as attachments in one mode of the conversation or recordings of other modes of the conversation).
• documents and other data associated with the conversation e.g., documents exchanged as attachments in one mode of the conversation or recordings of other modes of the conversation.
• FIG. 1 While the example system in FIG. 1 has been described with specific components such as mediation server, A/V server, and similar devices, embodiments are not limited to this system of the example components and configurations.
• An enhanced communication system facilitating multimodal conversations with parking and retrieval capability may be implemented in other systems and configurations employing fewer or additional components. Furthermore, such systems do not have to be enhanced communication systems integrating various communication modes.
• Embodiments may also be implemented in systems facilitating different communication modes distinctly by coordinating implementation of the rules across different communication modes using the principles described herein.
• FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram illustrating a basic example system for facilitating a multimodal conversation. While a system according to embodiments is likely to include a number of servers, client devices, and services such as those illustratively discussed in FIG. 1, only those relevant to embodiments are shown in FIG. 2.
• subscribers may facilitate multimodal communications 240 employing one or more end devices (e.g., 238, 242) and associated peripherals.
• Multimodal communication 240 may include audio, video, file sharing, desktop sharing, instant messaging, electronic mail, whiteboard sharing, and similar forms of communication.
• the conversation may be established and managed by one or more servers in a distributed fashion (e.g., server 234).
• the modalities may be parked together at a dedicated server (park server), at distinct dedicated servers (one park server for each modality), at multipurpose server(s) (e.g., a routing server), or even at individual endpoints of the system.
• the sales person may notify the technical expert through various means such as an electronic mail, an instant message, a SIP notification, a notification application of the communication system, or even voice based notification (a voice mail or audio call for example).
• the notification may include elements such as links to individual parked modalities such that the technical expert can select and retrieve individual modalities or a link to the entire conversation.
• the notification may be directed to identified person(s) or to a group (e.g., a group instant message to the entire technical assistance group such that any available technical expert can retrieve the parked conversation).
• content in various modalities may be played back to the customer.
• audio, video, or other forms of presentations may be provided (e.g., a slide presentation if the conversation includes video or application sharing modalities).
• the customer may be educated on different products, on aspects of products, provided forms and other information on the offered services, and so on.
• Participants in a multimodal conversation such as the one shown in diagram 200 may be part of the same network (e.g., an enterprise network), connected through different networks (e.g., in a federated environment), or communicate via a combination of secure and unsecure networks such as the Internet.
• Appropriate security measures such as personal identification numbers, passwords, and comparable ones may be employed to ensure privacy and security of the conversation.
• FIG. 3 illustrates major components and actions in an enhanced communication system for facilitating parking and retrieval of multimodal conversations according to embodiments.
• Users 352 and 354 may establish a multimodal conversation as discussed above.
• the conversation may be facilitated through a number of servers and endpoints (356, 358).
• User 1 (352) may decide to park the conversation and transfer to (or bring in) user 3 (360).
• user 1 (352) may park the conversation through one or more of the servers 356 or endpoints 358.
• all modalities of the conversation may be parked together or individually in a centralized or distributed fashion.
• user 1 (352) may notify user 3 (360) through electronic mail, instant message, a notification application, or other means.
• user 3 may retrieve all or some of the modalities of the parked conversation with user 2 (354) and continue.
• the notification may enable user 3 to select which modalities to retrieve.
• the system may automatically determine which modalities to be retrieved based on capabilities of user 3, available resources, and similar factors.
• Information about parked conversation(s) may be sent to or shared with email distribution lists or persistent chat sessions as well.
• the information may include links in form of SIP URI or URLs.
• content may be played back to user 2 (354) in various modalities.
• a media server may be employed to provide such content.
• the content may include audio playback, video playback, presentation displays, data displays, and comparable ones.
• An end recipient of such a parked conversation may not only be within an enterprise, but outside the enterprise such as in a federated environment, or even behind a SIP trunk. The end recipient may be able to authenticate himself/herself to retrieve the parked conversation using, for example, a shared corporate identifier that authenticates the user against a directory service.
• FIG. 4 is an action diagram illustrating actions in parking and retrieving an example two-mode conversation in a unified communication system.
• User 1 (462) establishes a two-mode conversation with user 2 employing an audio call with user 2's endpoint 1 (464) and an instant message session with user 2's endpoint 2 (465). Both modalities include conversation identifier X identifying them as part of the same conversation.
• the endpoints of user 2 (464, 465) negotiate parking the conversation between themselves and send separate invite messages to park server 466 for the two modalities of the conversation.
• new sessions are established between the park server 466 and the endpoints of user 2 (464, 465) preserving the conversation identifier.
• user 2 may be provided playback content as discussed previously.
• park server 466 provides location identifier for the parked conversation (e.g., as a SIP URI or Uniform Resource Locator 'URL') to user 1 and user 2.
• User 1 sends a notification message to user 3 (468) with the received SIP URI for the parked conversation.
• User 3 (468) selects a modality (audio call in this example) by activating a link for the audio modality in the notification message.
• FIG. 5 is an example user interface for a parked conversation notification alert in a system according to embodiments.
• Parking and retrieval notification in a system may be sent through a variety of means such as an electronic mail message with links to different modalities of the parked conversation, an instant message, a SIP notification, and comparable ones.
• Another approach may be a notification application that can provide a user interface like user interface 500.
• User interface 500 is an example parked conversation invite. It includes graphic representations of current modalities in the parked conversation (572) and graphic/textual options to select acceptance of rejection by the invited user (574). The acceptance may also be accomplished by selecting one or more of the graphic representations of the available communication modes.
• UI element 576 displays such selected communication modes for individual selection. Further information may be displayed by the user interface such as who parked the call (578) and conversation participant information 582 (name, address, any other pertinent information).
• a user interface for notifying a subscriber about a parked call may include additional or fewer textual and graphical elements, and may employ various graphical, color, and other configuration schemes to display different functionalities. Other notification methods such as those described above may also be employed with additional or fewer elements as discussed herein.
• FIG. 6 is an example networked environment, where embodiments may be implemented.
• An enhanced communication system providing communication services including multimodal conversations with parking and retrieval capability may be implemented via software executed over one or more servers 618 such as a hosted service.
• the system may facilitate communications between client applications on individual computing devices such as a smart phone 613, a laptop computer 612, and desktop computer 611 ('client devices') through network(s) 610.
• UC services enable subscribers to utilize a wide range of computing device and application capabilities in conjunction with communication services.
• a subscriber may use one or more devices (e.g., a regular phone, a smart phone, a computer, a smart automobile console, etc.) to facilitate communications.
• additional services and communication modes may be enabled.
• Client devices 611 - 613 are used to facilitate communications through a variety of modes between subscribers of the communication system.
• One or more of the servers 618 may be used to park (and subsequently retrieve) all or some of the modalities of an established conversation.
• Information associated with subscribers and facilitating multimodal conversations, as well as multimodal content for playback, may be stored in one or more data stores (e.g., data store 616), which may be managed by any one of the servers 618 or by database server 614.
• Network(s) 610 may comprise any topology of servers, clients, Internet service providers, and communication media.
• a system according to embodiments may have a static or dynamic topology.
• Network(s) 610 may include a secure network such as an enterprise network, an unsecure network such as a wireless open network, or the Internet.
• Network(s) 610 may also coordinate communication over other networks such as PSTN or cellular networks.
• Network(s) 610 provides communication between the nodes described herein.
• network(s) 610 may include wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.
• FIG. 7 and the associated discussion are intended to provide a brief, general description of a suitable computing environment in which embodiments may be implemented.
• computing device 700 may be a conversation park server as part of an enhanced communication system and include at least one processing unit 702 and system memory 704.
• Computing device 700 may also include a plurality of processing units that cooperate in executing programs.
• the system memory 704 may be volatile (such as RAM), non-volatile (such as ROM, flash memory, etc.) or some combination of the two.
• System memory 704 typically includes an operating system 705 suitable for controlling the operation of the platform, such as the WINDOWS ® operating systems from MICROSOFT CORPORATION of Redmond, Washington.
• the system memory 704 may also include one or more software applications such as program modules 706, communication application 722, and park management module 724.
• Communication application 722 may be part of a service that facilitates communication through various modalities between client applications, servers, and other devices.
• Park management module 724 may enable client applications to park some or all of the modalities of established conversations, notify other client applications about the parked conversation, and enable other subscribers to retrieve one or more modalities of the parked conversation.
• park management module may coordinate the notification with other applications such as an electronic mail application, an instant message application, and similar ones.
• park management module 724 may also facilitate play back of content to participant(s) of the parked conversation in various modalities while the conversation is parked.
• This basic configuration is illustrated in FIG. 7 by those components within dashed line 708.
• Computing device 700 may have additional features or functionality.
• the computing device 700 may also include additional data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, for example, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape.
• additional storage is illustrated in FIG. 7 by removable storage 709 and non-removable storage 710.
• Computer readable storage media may include volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information, such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data.
• Computer readable storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computing device 700. Any such computer readable storage media may be part of computing device 700.
• Computing device 700 may also have input device(s) 712 such as keyboard, mouse, pen, voice input device, touch input device, and comparable input devices.
• Output device(s) 714 such as a display, speakers, printer, and other types of output devices may also be included. These devices are well known in the art and need not be discussed at length here.
• Computing device 700 may also contain communication connections 716 that allow the device to communicate with other devices 718, such as over a wireless network in a distributed computing environment, a satellite link, a cellular link, and comparable mechanisms.
• Other devices 718 may include computer device(s) that execute communication applications, other directory or policy servers, and comparable devices.
• Communication connection(s) 716 is one example of communication media.
• Communication media can include therein computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery media.
• modulated data signal means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal.
• communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct- wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.
• Example embodiments also include methods. These methods can be implemented in any number of ways, including the structures described in this document. One such way is by machine operations, of devices of the type described in this document. [0056] Another optional way is for one or more of the individual operations of the methods to be performed in conjunction with one or more human operators performing some. These human operators need not be collocated with each other, but each can be only with a machine that performs a portion of the program. [0057] FIG. 8 illustrates a logic flow diagram of process 800 for parking and retrieving multimodal conversations in an enhanced communication system according to embodiments. Process 800 may be implemented as part of a communication system that facilitates multiple communication modes. [0058] Process 800 begins with operation 810, where a multimodal conversation is facilitated.
• the multimodal conversation may include a number of modalities such as voice, video, electronic mail, instant messaging, application sharing, data sharing, whiteboard sharing, and so on.
• the conversation may include two or more participants and be initiated by any one of the participants.
• one of the participants parks the conversation such that another party can be enabled to join the conversation.
• Different modalities of the conversation may be parked together or individually (or in groups) at dedicated servers, multi-purpose servers, or even endpoints of the enhanced communication system.
• the modalities may be identified as belonging together by the conversation identifier (which may be a numeric value, an alphanumeric value, or other symbol).
• Such content may include audio, video, presentations, or other forms of displayed data.
• one or more modalities of the conversation may continue, while remaining modalities are parked.
• the parking participant notifies one or more subscribers of the enhanced communication system to join (or take over) the conversation.
• the notification may be in the form of an electronic mail, an instant message, a SIP notification, or other forms.
• the notification(s) may include links to the parked modalities of the conversation.
• the links may enable the other subscriber(s) to join (or take over) the conversation by activating all parked modalities or by activating only selected modalities of the conversation (e.g., based on the capabilities of the notified subscriber, a preference of the notified subscriber, etc.) at operation 850.
• the operations included in process 800 are for illustration purposes.
• a communication service with multimodal conversation parking and retrieval capability may be implemented by similar processes with fewer or additional steps, as well as in different order of operations using the principles described herein.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Multimedia (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
• Information Transfer Between Computers (AREA)
• Telephone Function (AREA)
• User Interface Of Digital Computer (AREA)
• Management, Administration, Business Operations System, And Electronic Commerce (AREA)

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