Apparatus for supervising an automatic call distribution telephone system

An automatic call distribution (ACD) telephone system having a plurality of telephone stations distributed throughout an area in a facility, each of said telephone stations being assigned to a respective one of a plurality of agents for handling a plurality of telephone calls, said ACD telephone system comprising:

• an agent supervising station including a processor, a display and an input device for monitoring agent call handling status;
• a locating network connected to said agent supervising station for determining the locations of said agents, including:
• a plurality of remote badge units each respectively assigned to each of said plurality of agents for transmitting corresponding identification information;
• a plurality of remote transceivers positioned at predetermined locations throughout said area for detecting said identification information and for forwarding said identification information to a locating processor;
• and
• said locating processor being responsive to said identification information for generating location information corresponding to the locations of each of said plurality of agents;
• and
• said processor of said agent supervising station including associated memory and stored programs, responsive to said location information and to commands from said input device, for displaying on said display a graphic indicating each agent at the location determined by said locating network.

An agent supervising apparatus for a telephone system having a plurality of telephone stations assigned to a plurality of agents and call distribution to said telephone stations, the agent supervising apparatus comprising:

• an agent supervising station including a processing unit, a display and an input device, said processing unit including associated memory and stored programs for storing map graphic data, agent identification information, and a plurality of telephone station designations, said processing unit being responsive to commands from said input device for displaying on said display a map representation corresponding to said map graphic data and for displaying a portion of said agent identification information positioned on said display corresponding to said plurality of telephone station designations;
• and
• a locating network connected to said agent supervising station, including:
• a plurality of remote badge units assigned to a respective plurality of agents for transmitting corresponding agent identification information;
• a plurality of remote transceivers for detecting said agent identification information and for forwarding said agent identification information to a locator processor;
• and
• said locator processor being responsive to said agent identification information for generating location information corresponding to the locations of said agents.

An agent supervising apparatus for a telephone system having a plurality of telephone stations assigned to a plurality of agents and call distribution to said telephone stations, the agent supervising apparatus comprising:

• an agent supervising station including a display and an input device;
• and
• a processing unit including:
• associated memory and stored programs for storing agent identification, call status information, and a plurality of telephone station designations, said associated memory including a queue of queued inbound calls;
• means for predicting potential loss of at least one of said queued inbound calls;
• and
• signalling means, responsive to said means for predicting, for signalling said agent supervising station of said potential loss.