Shared access to voice and information

Abstract

In many business applications, data about a client is created and entered on an agent's data terminal during a teleconference with the client. Often, it is necessary to transfer the client to a specialist during the course of the conversation. Alternatively, it is necessary to allow multiple parties to access information together to respond to a client's needs. This invention describes a method of sharing the call and the data terminal information associated with the call with a plurality of phone extensions and their associated data terminals. This capability facilitates shared access to information. A plurality of Computerized Branch Exchangers (CBX) are joined via a network means to facilitate the transfer of the call and pass a host program the phone source extension and the destination extension for the transfer. The host program looks up the source and destination extensions in a phone to terminal file and determines the network address of the data terminals involved and transfers the appropriate host application terminal display to invoke a transfer of display information to the participants in the conference call either automatically or under the control of parties to the conversation. The host application sends the data terminal information to the destination data terminal displays in conjunction with the transferred phone calls.