Avaya Technology LLC

Lucent Technologies Inc.

Avaya Inc.

At&t Information Systems Inc.

Paul Lawrence Richman

Lichan Hong

Kenneth Charles Cox

Vladimir Nepustil

Andrew Derek Flockhart

Lucinda M Sanders

Keith R McFarlane

Darryl J Maxwell

Robert C Steiner

Frank J Bogart

Thomas S Fisher

Theodore A Myslinski

Paul A Connors

Kerry Wayne Hassler

Jose F Velez

Fatsing Chou

An interactive display system includes a display such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), for example, and a display controller. The display controller and display operate in concert to display graphical images that are representative of numerical, tabular, data. The display system may be used to edit, for example, to create or modify, the data tables being graphically represented. The edited data tables may be used to simulate processes, such as workflow processes.

Method and apparatus for graphically manipulating data tables

A work center monitoring system includes an output device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), or other display device and a display controller. The controller formats work center information to be displayed on the output device as single-valued and multi-valued display segments. Each segment displays information related to work center activities, which may be categorized as various skills. The displays may be provided to a work center supervisor to assist in the management of a work center, such as a contact and fulfillment center. Current and historical values of the parameters may be displayed, simultaneously, or in sequence. The values of the displayed parameters may be different types, such as any of a variety of numerical representations which might represent the number of calls in one or more queues, or the oldest call in a queue, for example. The values may be indicative of the elapsed time for servicing the oldest call in a queue, or other indications of time. The information being displayed may derive from a number of sources such as a work center management database, directly from a call management system, or from some other source. In accordance with the principles of the invention, the displayed parameter representations include indicia of 'permissible' parameter values. One such indicator might be an 'I-beam' glyph that indicates the highest and lowest acceptable values for a particular parameter. The area immediately surrounding such an &#x201c;I-beam&#x201d; glyph may include further indicia, such as graduated zones of acceptability.

Method and apparatus for monitoring work center operations

A workflow display system in accordance with the principles of the present invention includes an output device, such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), or other display device and a display controller. The display controller and display operate in concert to display graphical images that are representative of workflow information. Textual information may also be displayed. Such a display may employ the size, color, and number of glyphs to represent the number of work units in one or more work states. Other display characteristics, such as patterns, flashing, or other such visual queues may also be employed to convey information about workflow in a manner which is readily comprehensible. For example, in a telephone contact and fulfillment center application, the size and/or number of circles may indicate the number of waiting calls in a given state.

Method and apparatus for displaying work flow information

The system for integrating agent database access skills in call center agent assignment applications dynamically generates data indicative of an agent's effective skill level by mapping the agent's acquired skills into their augmented skills representative of their ability to use the various automated resources that are required to satisfy the customer's request. The determined effective skill level is automatically updated as changes in the agent's effective skills are measured. In order to distribute work among the agents based upon agent skill levels, there must be a measure of each agent's competence with a particular skill. The pool of agents is divided into categories of those who must use guided problem solving tools to service a customer request, those who can address issues beyond the scope of the guided problem solving tool, and those who exhibit various levels of efficacy in using the guided problem solving tool. The system for integrating agent database access skills in call center agent assignment applications automatically computes an agent's effective skill level, which is a term used herein to describe a metric indicative of the agent's overall knowledge management ability consisting of both acquired skills and augmented skills.

System for automatically assigning skill levels to multiple skilled agents in call center agent assignment applications

A novel telephone call center split monitoring and display system, uses an integrated three-dimensional bar chart to display multiple split activity information in a single view, enabling easy comparison and multiple split monitoring by split managers without crowded views or frequent toggling between several views.

Telephone call center monitoring system with integrated three-dimensional display of multiple split activity data

The flow of work items ( ) through a workflow process ( ) is optimized by repeatedly reordering (FIG. ) work items enqueued in inbox queues ( ) of workflow process tasks ( ) to maximize results according to a given business strategy expressed through target times. Each enqueued work item has an associated in-queue rating (IQR ) that represents the number of queue positions ( ) that the work item can be retarded or needs to be advanced to meet its target time. When a work item enters a queue and whenever a work item changes its queue position, its IQR is computed. An optimization function is then performed ( ) on the queue to determine an order of the enqueued work items that optimizes a metric of those work items that may fail to meet their target times. The work items in the queue are then reordered ( ) accordingly.

Workflow-scheduling optimization driven by target completion time

System for integrating agent database access skills in call center agent assignment applications

A novel telephone call center agent monitoring and display system has a graphical user interface that allows a call center manager to automatically display a detailed multiple bar graph view of the status of particular agents currently engaged in agent activities specified by the manager for a duration also specified by the manager, the detailed view being linked to a composite view of the status of all agents being monitored by the manager. In the preferred embodiment, an agent status summary view displays in bar graph form, the collective statuses of all categories of agent status monitored by a call center manager corresponding to the longest time in the category for all of the agents monitored by the manager. If desired, the manager can &ldquo;drill down&rdquo; to a linked detailed view to display the duration of every agent currently in a chosen status category when the duration in that activity is within a time window chosen by the manager. Using a pointer device or simple keystrokes, the manger can generate a highlighted rectangular area on the summary view defining both the agent statuses of interest and minimum and maximum duration's of interest.

Telephone call center monitoring system allowing real-time display of summary views and interactively defined detailed views

Transferring administration information from a switching system to a computer telephony integration (CTI) terminal via a standard telecommunication link by the CTI terminal executing a feature on the switching system. Advantageously, the information is transferred from the switching system to the CTI terminal utilizing standard display messages as would be displayed on a voice terminal having a display unit. Further, the user of the CTI terminal can request only subsets of the system administration information. Using a voice terminal having a display unit, the user can access individual segments of the administration information.

Telecommunication feature for exchange of translation information

Allowing an agent to customize their CTI terminal with respect to a variety of terminal attributes such as those associated with previous phone activity, configuration information such as color, and graphical statistical representation of ACD center information. The telecommunication agent is able to store information defining this customization and to retrieve it at another CTI terminal at a later point in time. The storage of the customization information is performed as a file on a file server common to all CTI terminals. The result is that no software must be custom written for the file server in order to allow the saving of customized information. In addition, the programs controlling the CTI terminals are independent of the communication protocol that is utilized between the CTI terminals and the file server. A second embodiment of the invention allows the administrator of a call center to specify that each group of agents will utilize the same customization information. This group customization information is stored on each CTI terminal which reduces the real time load on the file server when a new agent work session starts. Also, each CTI terminal periodically polls the file server to see if a new set of group customization information has been stored on the file server. Call center administrators will routinely store new group customization information on the file server. If a new set of group customization information has been stored on the file server, the CTI terminal accesses this information and stores it internal to the CTI terminal.

Logical PC agent

A telephone switching system (100), such as an ACD switching system in a call center, is used to broadcast information for users, such as displayable messages, to telecommunications terminals (110-112, 212), such as display telephones or data terminals, of a plurality of the users, such as call center agents, by means of non-call-associated display messages that are transmitted over the terminals' telephone lines (120-122), at the request of one of the users, such as the supervisor of the call center. The one of the users requests the broadcast either by depressing a predetermined button on their terminal accompanied by dialing a message identifier, or by dialing a feature access code and a message identifier, or by sending an ISDN 'userinfo' or DCP 'route text message' message that contains the information for users. The switching system uses either stored data or data contained in the request to determine the destinees of the information for users. The switching system then broadcasts the information in either an ISDN 'userinfo' or 'notify' message or a DCP 'text' message to the destinees' terminals for displaying to the users of those terminals.

Broadcasting of information through telephone switching system display

An automatic message waiting alerting arrangement in a telephone switching system. Messages for parties served by the system are automatically and manually generated and stored in a database. A message waiting indicator associated with a station is automatically activated only when the database contains an unaccessed message for the station, even though other accessed messages may be retained in the database for the convenience of the station owner. An 'accessed' indicator included with each stored message is set to an 'unaccessed' state when the message is initially stored. The indicator is set to an 'accessed' state when the corresponding message is accessed by an authorized party. At the termination of an access session, the data base is searched for unaccessed messages for the station and the message waiting indicator is activated only if at least one unaccessed message for the station is found.

Growing community of inventors

Boulder, CO, United States of America

Paul Lawrence Richman