Method and apparatus for creating a presence monitoring contact list with dynamic membership
View Patent ↗Method and apparatus to generate a dynamic contact list of contact and presence information about contact events in a communication system when a calling entity unsuccessfully attempts to communicate with a called entity. When such a contact event occurs, a routing processor or call agent generates contact information about the contact event, including the calling party, called party, time of the contact event, and purpose of the contact event. A presence management processor also generates the presence information about the calling party's subsequent availability for return communication, including if a calling party is available for return communication, when the calling party is available for return communication, how long the calling party is available for return communication, and how the calling party is available for return communication. This contact and presence information is displayed to the called party in a dynamic contact list that includes contact and presence information for a plurality of contact events and calling parties, respectively. The called party is thereby able to determine what contact events occurred while the called party was unavailable for communication, and in what manner to return communicate with those calling parties that attempted to communicate with the called party while it was unavailable.
1. A communication system for advising an intended called party recipient of the availability of a calling party sender for return messages, said system comprising:
a data terminal associated with each of said calling and called parties,
a message routing module for interconnecting said calling and called parties; and a presence processor connected to said data terminal of said calling and called parties and obtaining from a calling party descriptive information and availability status information of said calling party,
said message routing module communicating with said presence processor in response to said calling party not completing a call to said called party and said presence processor in response thereto forwarding to the data terminal of said called party said descriptive information and said availability status information of said calling party.
2. The communication system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said presence processor includes circuitry for communicating with said data terminals and said message routing module, a datastore for storing status information, and status processor.
3. The communication system in accordance with claim 1 wherein said communication system is a telephone system.
4. The communication system in accordance with claim 3 , wherein said message routing module is a call agent.
5. The communication system in accordance with claim 4 , wherein communications between said call agent, said presence processor, and said calling and called parties, including said data terminals, are through a packet-based communication network.
6. The communication system in accordance with claim 5 , further including a residential gateway between each of said calling and called parties and said packet-based communication network.
7. The communication system in accordance with claim 6 , further including a packet based network connecting said service control point to said data terminals of said calling and called parties.
8. The communication system in accordance with claim 3 , wherein said message routing module is a telephone switch and said presence processor is a service control point.
9. The communication system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said data terminal includes a scheduling calendar, said presence processor obtaining said availability status information from said scheduling calendar.
10. The communication system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said availability status information indicates the calling party's availability for return communication from the called party.
11. The communication system in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said presence processor is operative to dynamically update said availability status information.