Meeting coordination system and attendee tracking for use in automated multi-media conference call system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9787847-B2
Application number	US-201414517331-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 17, 2014
Priority date	Oct 18, 2013
Publication date	Oct 10, 2017
Grant date	Oct 10, 2017

Abstract

Methods for operating a meeting coordinator to initiate a teleconference meeting using an automated teleconferencing system, having corresponding meeting coordinators and computer-readable media, comprise: generating a roster of meeting participants comprising meeting invitees; accessing calendaring information concerning the teleconference meeting, the calendaring information including a time of the meeting; a meeting location; identities of the meeting invitees; and contact information for the meeting invitees; and transmitting at least some of the calendaring information to the teleconferencing system to enable the system to connect remotely-located meeting invitees.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for meeting coordination, the method comprising:
accessing, using instructions executed by a first computing device, calendaring information concerning a meeting including a teleconference, the calendaring information including
a time of the meeting;
a meeting location;
identities of the meeting invitees; and
contact information for the meeting invitees; and

monitoring participation status of meeting invitees, using instructions executed by the first computing device by electronic communications between the first computing device and mobile electronic devices associated with the meeting invitees, and between the first computing device and a teleconferencing system, including detecting whether meeting invitees are in the meeting by arrival at the meeting location and by joining the teleconference and detecting whether meeting invitees have departed the meeting by departure from the meeting location and by disconnection from the teleconference.

2. The method of claim 1 , monitoring participation status of meeting invitees further comprising:
receiving, at the first computing device, an indication indicating that a remotely-located meeting invitee has entered the meeting by joining the teleconference; and
receiving, at the first computing device, an indication from a mobile electronic device associated with a local meeting invitee attending the meeting at the meeting location indicating that the local meeting invitee has entered the meeting by detection of presence of the mobile electronic device associated with the local meeting invitee at the meeting location.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein accessing the calendaring information comprises:
accessing the calendaring information from at least one of data stored on a memory of the first computing device and data stored on a network.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
accessing the calendaring information comprises
receiving the calendaring information from the mobile electronic device associated with the local meeting invitee.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein receiving the indication from the mobile electronic device associated with the local meeting invitee comprises:
receiving the indication from the mobile electronic device associated with the local meeting invitee, wherein the indication indicates that the mobile electronic device has processed a beacon signal associated with the meeting location to determine that the mobile electronic device has arrived at the meeting location.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein tracking the participation status further comprises:
maintaining a roster of meeting participants and the participation status to indicate whether the participants are one of in the meeting, departed the meeting or not in the meeting; and
generating a viewable rendering of the roster and the participation status.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein maintaining the roster of meeting participants further comprises:
adding an uninvited guest attendee to the roster.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting, to the teleconferencing system, contact information for a meeting invitee detected to have departed the meeting to enable the teleconferencing system to reconnect the departed attendee to the teleconference.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
directly contacting missing invitees that are not in the meeting using instructions executed by a first computing device.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein directly contacting the missing invitees comprises:
contacting the missing invitees using at least one of e-mail, text messaging, instant mail, telephonic communication, and paging.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
initiating the meeting by automatically contacting of the invitees based on the calendaring information using instructions executed by a first computing device.

12. A meeting coordinator comprising,
a first communication interface enabling communication with a teleconferencing system;
a second communication interface enabling communication with mobile electronic devices; and
a processor coupled to the first and second communication interfaces, configured to:
access calendaring information concerning a meeting including a teleconference, the calendaring information comprising a time for the meeting, a meeting location, identities of meeting invitees, and contact information for the meeting invitees,
generate a roster of meeting participants including the meeting invitees,
communicate, via the first communication interface, at least some of the calendaring information to the teleconferencing system to enable the teleconferencing system to contact remotely-located meeting invitees,
monitor participation status of the meeting invitees, via the first and second communication interfaces by communications with mobile electronic devices associated with the meeting invitees and with the teleconferencing system, including detecting whether meeting invitees are in the meeting by arrival at the meeting location and by joining the teleconference and detecting whether meeting invitees have departed the meeting by departure from the meeting location and by disconnection from the teleconference, said detecting including receiving, via the second communication interface, an announcement that a meeting participant associated with the mobile electronic device has entered the meeting at the meeting location, and
update the roster of meeting participants to track the participation status for the meeting participants.

13. The meeting coordinator of claim 12 , further comprising:
a network communication interface coupled to the processor configured to receive the calendaring information from a computer network.

14. The meeting coordinator of claim 12 , further comprising:
a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the calendaring information is stored in the memory.

15. The meeting coordinator of claim 12 , wherein:
the processor is further configured to enable the teleconferencing system to directly contact the invitees in the event the invitees are not in the meeting.

16. The meeting coordinator of claim 12 , wherein the processor is further configured to:
recognize that the mobile electronic device is exiting the meeting;
identify the participant associated with the device as having exited the meeting as a departed attendee; and
wherein updating the roster comprises updating the participation status for the departed attendee to reflect that the departed attendee is not in the meeting.

17. The meeting coordinator of claim 16 , wherein the processor is further configured to
enable the departed attendee to be contacted after leaving the meeting; and
enable the departed attendee to be reconnected to the meeting on the departed attendee's mobile electronic device.

18. Non-transitory computer-readable media embodying instructions executable by a computer to perform functions for a meeting including a teleconference, the functions comprising:
accessing, using instructions executed by a first computing device, calendaring information concerning the meeting, the calendaring information including
a time of the meeting;
a meeting location;
identities of the meeting invitees; and
contact information for the meeting invitees; and

monitoring participation status of meeting invitees, using instructions executed by the first computing device by electronic communications between the first computing device and mobile electronic devices associated with the meeti

Assignees

• Plantronics

Inventors

• Kaye Michael
• Wilder Beau
• Thorington Brent

Classifications

• G06Q10/1093

  Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups · CPC title

• H04W4/008

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G06Q10/1095

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04W4/023

  using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds · CPC title

• G10L17/00

  Speaker identification or verification techniques · CPC title