Per-stage assignment of pipelines agents

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9961012-B2
Application number	US-201514977082-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 21, 2015
Priority date	Dec 21, 2015
Publication date	May 1, 2018
Grant date	May 1, 2018

Abstract

The customization of a communication pipelines having multiple stages. For each stage, a set of agent(s) is/are identified as available for adding to that stage. Furthermore, any stages that already have an agent assigned are identified. In response to receiving a user selection of an agent to be assigned to a particular stage, that does not already have an agent assigned, the selected agent is assigned to the stage. An enforcement agent enforces that there be only one agent assigned at most to each stage. Assignments of agents are made per stage. This allows the functionality of the agent to be simplified more towards augmenting the functionality of the stage. Accordingly, the logic of the agent is simplified, thereby making it more likely that there will be a healthy quality of agents available to select from for each stage.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An agent management computing system for assigning agents to a communication pipeline having a plurality of stages;
an agent registry including a plurality or registered pipeline augmentation agents, each pipeline augmentation agent comprising at least (i) an indication of compatibility for at least one of the plurality of stages, and (ii) executable code configured to augment the at least one compatible stage when assigned to the at least one compatible stage;
an enforcement component that enforces that each of at least some of the plurality of stages have only one agent; and
based at least upon the indication of compatibility from the agent registry, an agent assignment component that selects an agent from the agent registry to be assigned to a particular stage of the plurality of stages subject to the enforcement of the enforcement agent.

2. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the communication pipeline comprising a text-based communication pipeline.

3. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 2 , the text-based communication pipeline comprising a text communication pipeline.

4. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 2 , the text-based communication pipeline comprising an instant messaging communication pipeline.

5. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the communication pipelines comprising an audio communication pipeline.

6. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the communication pipelines comprising a video communication pipeline.

7. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the communication pipelines comprising a call initiation pipeline.

8. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the communication pipelines comprising a call receiving pipeline.

9. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a call screening stage, the selected agent being a call screening agent.

10. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a pre-routing stage, the selected agent being a personal operator agent.

11. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a call setup failed stage, the selected agent being a personal operator agent or a voicemail agent.

12. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a rejection stage, the selected agent being a personal operator agent or a voicemail agent.

13. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a connected stage, the selected agent being at least one of a timer agent, a recorder agent, and a billing agent.

14. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 8 , the particular stage comprising a call ended stage, the selected agent being at least one of a recording saver agent and a billing agent.

15. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the selected agent being selected for multiple of the plurality of stages.

16. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the enforcement component enforcing that each of at least all of the stages have only one agent.

17. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the agent assignment component selecting, for each of at least some of the plurality of stages, an agent to be assigned subject to the enforcement of the enforcement agent.

18. The agent management computing system in accordance with claim 1 , the selected agent being the same for at least multiple of the at least some of the plurality of stages.

19. A method for customizing a communication pipeline having a plurality of stages, the method comprising:
for each of at least some of the plurality of stages, and based at least upon an indication of compatibility obtained from an agent registry, identifying from within the agent registry a set of one or more agents that are available for assigning to the plurality of stages, wherein the agent registry includes a plurality of registered pipeline augmentation agents, each pipeline augmentation agent comprising at least (i) an indication of compatibility for at least one of the plurality of stages, and (ii) executable code configure to augment the at least one compatible stage when assigned to the at least one compatible stage;
identifying a particular stage that does not already have an agent assigned;
receiving a user selection of an agent from the set of one or more agents identified from within the agent registry to be assigned to the particular stage;
in response to receiving the user selection of an agent, assigning the selected agent to the particular stage; and
enforcing that there be only one agent assigned at most to each stage.

20. The method in accordance with claim 19 , at least some of the plurality of stages being performed on a mobile telephone, the user selection occurring also using the mobile telephone.

21. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable hardware storage device having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structure such that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, configure the computing system to customize a communication pipeline having a plurality of stages so that the computing system performs the following:
for each of at least some of the plurality of stages, and based at least upon an indication of compatibility obtained from an agent registry, identifying from within the agent registry a set of one or more agents that are available for assigning to the plurality of stages, wherein the agent registry includes a plurality of registered pipeline augmentation agents, each pipeline augmentation agent comprising at least (i) an indication of compatibility for at least one of the plurality of stages, and (ii) executable code configure to augment the at least one compatible stage when assigned to the at least one compatible stage;
identifying a particular stage that does not already have an agent assigned;
receiving a user selection of an agent from the set of one or more agents identified from within the agent registry to be assigned to a particular stage;
in response to receiving the user selection of an agent, assigning the selected agent to the particular stage;
enforcing that there be only one agent assigned at most to each stage.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Dutta Amit Kumar
• Ananthanarayanan Krishnan
• Gopal Vishak
• Matkowski Mieszko
• Sekaran Mahendra

Classifications

• H04M2201/54

  Object oriented software · CPC title

• H04M3/527

  Centralised call answering arrangements not requiring operator intervention · CPC title

• H04L47/783 Primary

  Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers · CPC title

• H04M3/42221

  Conversation recording systems (at the subscriber's set H04M1/656) · CPC title

• H04M3/436 Primary

  Arrangements for screening incoming calls {, i.e. evaluating the characteristics of a call before deciding whether to answer it (based on the calling party profile H04M3/42059; based on location H04M3/42348; based on presence H04M3/42365; diversion H04M3/54)} · CPC title