US 6,449,646 B1Granted

Method and apparatus for allocating mixed transaction type messages to resources via an integrated queuing mechanism

AssigneeAspect Communications Corporation

InventorsScott E. Sikora, Nakul M. Lele, Rajnish Tahiliani, Ben L. Yip, Henry Mingkeung Yeung, Timothy Merrell

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Abstract

An apparatus for routing a transaction message, such as for example a telephone call, e-mail, web chat request, video conferencing session, or non-call event, includes a queue engine and a transaction message router. The queue engine provides an integrated mechanism for queuing transaction messages of varying transaction types within a number of queues according to transaction type. Each queue within the queue engine may be dedicated to queuing transaction messages of a specific transaction type. The transaction message router functions to identify a queue within the queue engine within which a transaction message is to be stored. The identification of a queue by the router may be performed with reference to the transaction type of a transaction message, and with reference to context or addressing information associated with a transaction message. Transaction messages of all transaction types are serviced by a single resource allocator that distributes transaction messages from the queues of the queue engine 44 to a resource, such as an agent.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method of routing multi-media transactions message, the method including:

storing a first transaction message of a first media type at a first transaction processing system, and storing a second transaction message of a second media at a second transaction processing system;
generating a first queue request, representative of the first transaction message, upon receipt of the first transaction message at the first transaction processing system;
generating a second queue request, representative of the second transaction message, upon receipt of the second transaction message at the second transaction processing system;
and
queuing the first and second queue requests within a queuing mechanism;
and
allocating each of the first and second transaction messages to a resource, wherein the allocating of the first and second transaction messages to the resource comprises issuing the first and second transaction messages from the first and second transaction processing systems to the resource upon respective allocations of the first and queue requests to the resource,
wherein the resource comprises first and second resource agents, and wherein the allocating includes allocating the first and second transaction messages from the queuing mechanism to the first and second resource agents according to respective first and second sets of rules associated with the first and second resource agents.

5 more elements

A machine-readable medium storing a sequence of instructions that, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:

store a first transaction message of a first media type at a first transaction processing system, and store second transaction message of a second media at a second transaction processing system;
generate a first queue request, representative of the first transaction message, upon receipt of the first transaction message at the first transaction processing system;
generate a second queue request, representative of the second transaction message, upon receipt of the second transaction message at the second transaction processing system;
and
queue the first and second queue requests within a queuing mechanism;
and
allocate each of the first and second transaction messages to a resource, wherein the allocating of the first and second transaction messages to the resource comprises issuing the first and second transaction messages from the first and second transaction processing systems to the resource upon respective allocations of the first and second queue requests to the resource,
wherein the resource comprises first and second resource agents, and wherein the allocating includes allocating the first and second transaction messages from the queuing mechanism to the first and second resource agents according to respective first and second sets of rules associated with the first and second resource agents.

5 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.