International Business Machines Corporation

Philip Randall Coxhead

Sanjay Nagchowdhury

Nicholas David Butler

David G Martin

Rachel Edwina Jackson

Nigel Lewis Jones

An interactive voice response (IVR) system comprises many different application objects which combine to deliver a voice application. These objects typically include IVR programs or scripts, prompts or voice segments and server scripts or programs for communicating with external systems or databases. Large voice applications can contain hundreds of application objects and potentially thousands of voice segments. The grouping of the application objects becomes more important in the later stages of the process. There is described a method of grouping data objects having different data categories, such as IVR programs or scripts, prompts or voice segments, in an application processing system. The method comprises associating a collection of such data objects with a group (a group such as the data objects within a voice application) and arranging the data objects into a sub-groups within the group where each sub-group corresponds to category of the data object (scripts, prompts, voice segments etc) and creating a graphical representation of the sub-groups using a graphical user interface.

Data object management system

A system of controlling performance in an interactive voice response system includes a voice device driver, a voice segment stored in a file in a directory in a standard operating system format; a buffer for storing the voice segment prior to sending to the voice device driver and a plurality of voice channels for output of the voice segment. A sequence of voice blocks is requested to be sent to a buffer, the sequence being one of a plurality of sequences making up a voice segment. The number of voice blocks sent from the file to the buffer is determined. The play period of the sequence and the next underrun time when the sequence will finish playing based on the initiate request time and the play period are calculated. Also calculated is the margin period between the calculated next underrun time and the actual time after a further sequence of voice data blocks is sent to the buffer in response to a device driver request for a further sequence of voice data blocks. A telephony channel is shut down when the margin period exceeds a defined threshold.

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Winchester, United Kingdom

Philip Randall Coxhead