Arrangement for indicating presence of individual

Abstract

When an entity (such as a customer using a communication device. . . ) attempts to communicate with a target (such as an employee), an arrangement indicates to the customer, 'status' information describing at least the employee's present and future ability to communicate with the entity (such as by returning his call). At least one sensing device-is configured to provide sensing information concerning the target employee's status in response to an action of the target employee with respect to the sensing device. A monitoring serveris configured to receive the sensing information and to govern communication to the entity (customer) of the target's 'status.' In one implementation, a particular sensing device (such as a cash register, computer terminal, or time clock) is configured to perform both (A) a primary function that is not related to providing the sensing information, and (B) the secondary function of providing the sensing information. In this implementation, the particular sensing device provides the sensing information in response to the person's ordinary use of the particular sensing device as he goes about his job (performing the particular sensing device's primary function), so that the person does not have to explicitly perform any purely presence-related action in order to cause the particular sensing device to communicate the sensing information.