Call management service

A communications client for a communications system including a call management server and a communications client at one or more conference call participants, for the establishment of a conference call having a plurality of conference call participant call legs, said communications client being configured to receive a notification from the call management server that a conference call conference call participant call leg has become active;

• to present automatically in response to said notification a message to the conference call participant confirming that the conference call is active and to present a mechanism to join or monitor the conference call.

A communications client for a communications system, said communications client operative to communicate via a communications link to a call management service and said communications client responsive to instantiation thereof to establish a separate real-time communications connections signalling link to said call management service, said signalling link separate from a voice communications channel, further configured to receive at least one call leg status signal from said call management service and automatically provide corresponding call status information to said user.

A method of operating data processing apparatus for providing a communications client for a communications system, comprising establishing a real time communications connections signalling link to a call management service responsive to instantiation of said communications client, said signalling link separate from a voice communications channel;

• responding to user actuation to transmit telephone call data identifying a destination end point and identifying a source end point defined by said user to said call management service for setting up first and second call legs for establishing voice communication between said end points;
• and
• receiving at least one call status signal via said signalling link from said call management service and automatically providing corresponding call status information to said user.

A communications system, configured to respond automatically to a conference call set-up request message received from a communications client via a communications link to transmit a message comprising a mechanism for joining said conference call;

• and transmit back to said communications client via said communications link a data message confirming scheduling of said conference call, said call management service further configured to determine that a conference call participant end point call leg is active for said conference call;
• and to automatically transmit to said communications client via said communications link a data message notifying said communications client that said conference call is active.

A call management method for a communications system including a call management server and a communications client at one or more conference call participants, for the establishment of a conference call having a plurality of conference call participant call legs, the call management server configured to respond automatically to a conference call set-up request from a first conference call participant;

• to transmit to a second conference call participant a message comprising a mechanism for joining said conference call;
• and to automatically transmit a call status signal indicative of a call status of an active participant leg to a communications client associated with said first conference call participant.

A communications client for a communications system, said communications client responsive to instantiation thereof to establish a separate real-time communications connections signalling link to a call management service, said signalling link separate from a voice communications channel, and said communications client operative to communicate data messages to said call management service via a communications link, said communications client associated with a conference call participant and configured to display a call status icon for a participant call leg;

• further configured to display a user actuatable call control icon associated with a participant call leg and responsive to actuation of said icon to transmit a call control signal to said call management service via said signalling link to effect call control of said associated participant call leg.