Inbound telephony orchestrator for hangout-based contact center platform

A method performed by a conventional phone client for integrating a conventional inbound phone call into a communications session within a multimedia production environment including a contact center manager, an integration unit, and a reflector, the method comprising:

• transmitting a call request to the integration unit, wherein call information including a dialed number that is dialed by the conventional phone client is sent to the contact center manager, wherein the contact center manager is configured to determine, based on the dialed number and a rules engine, whether the inbound phone call needs a new virtual hangout room or whether the inbound phone call should be joined to an existing virtual hangout room, and receive from a room manager application a virtual hangout identification based on a result of determining whether the inbound phone call needs a new virtual hangout room or whether the inbound phone call should be joined to an existing virtual hangout room;
• and
• connecting to the communications session, which corresponds to the virtual hangout identification received by the integration unit from the contact center manager based on the call information, wherein connecting to the communications session includes receiving audio content that includes a consolidated audio stream converted to a format compatible with the conventional phone client, wherein the consolidated audio stream includes audio content from a plurality of data streams received and processed by the reflector, wherein the data streams received by the reflector correspond to the virtual hangout identification, and wherein the plurality of data streams includes at least one data stream of audio content that originated at a conventional phone client over a conventional phone network and at least one data stream of audio content that originated at an Internet Protocol (IP)-based client over an IP network.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium within a communications server having computer-executable instructions for integrating conventional phone calls into virtual hangouts within a multimedia production environment, the computer-executable instructions, when executed by a processor, causing a contact center bell application to perform the steps of:

• receiving call information corresponding to an incoming conventional phone call from a conventional phone client;
• sending the call information including a dialed number that is dialed by the conventional phone client to a contact center manager, wherein the contact center manager is configured to determine, based on the dialed number and a rules engine, whether the incoming conventional phone call needs a new virtual hangout room or whether the incoming conventional phone call should be joined to an existing virtual hangout room, and receive from a room manager application a virtual hangout identification based on a result of determining whether the incoming conventional phone call needs a new virtual hangout room or whether the incoming conventional phone call should be joined to an existing virtual hangout room;
• receiving the virtual hangout identification from the contact center manager;
• transmitting a data stream received from a signaling unit to a reflector, wherein the data stream includes call content of the incoming conventional phone call;
• receiving a plurality of data streams from the reflector, wherein the plurality of data streams includes at least one data stream of audio content that originated at a conventional phone client over a conventional phone network and at least one data stream of audio content that originated at an Internet Protocol (IP)-based client over an IP network;
• consolidating a set of the plurality of processed data streams received from the reflector into a consolidated audio stream;
• and,
• transmitting the consolidated audio stream to the signaling unit.