Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Setty Venkateshaiah

Sira P Rao

Ankur Chavda

Eran Shtiegman

Amritansh Raghav

Amit Gupta

Mohit Talwar

Avronil Bhattacharjee

Shaun David Cox

Serkan M Kutan

Alexander Marliave Hehmeyer

Justin Michael Maguire

Jonathan Jay Cadiz

Ye Tian

Nikhil P Bobde

Cindy Kwan

Shaun D Cox

Sira Rao

A presence aggregation system provides a presence aggregation server that allows for the publication of presence state of a publisher from the publisher's multiple endpoints. A presence state includes an availability value and an activity. An activity may include an activity token and/or a custom string. When any one of the publisher's endpoints makes a presence state publication on the presence aggregation server, the presence aggregation server generates an aggregated state of the publisher (i.e., the availability of the publisher aggregated across all of the publisher's endpoints) and publishes the generated aggregated state to each of the publisher's endpoints. The presence aggregation server may also provide the publisher's aggregated state to the subscribers of the publisher's aggregated state information.

User presence aggregation at a server

A method and system for aggregating capabilities from multiple endpoints associated with a user are provided. The system aggregates the capabilities of the endpoints associated with a user into an aggregate view of available modes of communication for reaching the user. Then, the system publishes the aggregate view so that other users who want to send communications to the user will know the modes of communication available for that user. In addition, the system may designate certain modes of communication as preferred or as capable of reaching the user.

Aggregating endpoint capabilities for a user

A method and system for increasing the computational and network efficiency of presence servers having collections of publications is provided. The presence system uses several techniques that enable a presence server to provide rich presence information without requiring expensive processing. First, the presence system accepts batches of publication updates in a single presence update request. Similarly, the presence system accepts batches of subscription requests. Next, the presence system supports new expiration types for publication update requests that eliminate the need for a publishing user to continually refresh presence information that has not changed. Finally, the presence system accepts access lists that contain membership groups rather than an individual list of users that are to have access to a particular presence collection.

Managing rich presence collections in a single request

A presence aggregation system provides a presence server that allows users to publish information regarding their availability with the presence server. The presence server maintains a record of each user's published information. When an endpoint publishes information regarding a user's availability at that endpoint with the presence server, the presence server provides all of the user's published information, including the information just published, to each of the user's endpoints, including the endpoint which published the information. This allows each of the user's endpoints to generate an aggregated availability of the user. The presence server may also provide all of the user's published information, including the information just published, to each of the subscribing users' endpoints. This allows the subscribing users to also generate a view of the user's aggregated availability.

Aggregating user presence across multiple endpoints

Architecture for gathering and presentation to a remote user (watcher) of presence, preferences, and capabilities information of a local user (publisher). An extensible presence document is employed, as transmitted by the publisher, that contains specific information about the capabilities of the publisher endpoint and preferences that are for the publisher overall. The document is aggregated, and the aggregated capabilities are transmitted to watchers. The watchers render this information in a user experience.

Presence capabilities and preferences

A call forwarding system forwards telephone calls based on presence information of a user as reported by computing devices associated with a telephone number. When a telephone system receives an incoming call directed to one of the telephone numbers of the user's computing devices, it sends an incoming call event to each computing device. Upon receiving the incoming call event from a telephone system, each computing device determines whether the user is most likely present at that computing device based on the presence information. When a computing device determines that the user is most likely present at that computing device, it sends a notification to the telephone system to forward the incoming call to the telephone number associated with that computing device to effect the automatic forwarding of a call based on presence information.

Method and system for forwarding telephone calls based on presence information

Merger and duplicate resolution for contact information across platforms is managed employing contact objects and aggregating the contact objects into contact models. Contact data from internal and/or external data stores may be retrieved and contact objects created for each contact from each contact store. A contact model for each contact entity may be created by aggregating contact data from contact objects across the contact stores. The aggregation may include duplicate resolution through weighting of communication system types, ranking of contact information type, and similar approaches. The contact models may be dynamically updated based on changes to the contact objects.

Contact information merger and duplicate resolution

A system and method for managing presence information based on a specified presence level between a user and other parties. An interface is provided that allows a user to specify a presence level between the user and one or more other parties. Once a user specifies a presence level, the specified level dictates how an incoming communication request is to be managed in the event that the user is not available to receive the communication. The specified presence level may determine the amount of information disclosed to the other party, the presence that is projected to the other party, and the decision on whether to interrupt the user. In some embodiments, the presence level between the user and other parties is automatically inferred by a relationship engine.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Setty Venkateshaiah