Patent ID: 6681010
Filing Date: 2004-01-20
Classification: H04M

Abstract:
A method for distributing tasks associated with a telephone system and tasks associated with a computer system between a plurality of agents, the method comprising:maintaining a list of the ACD telephone status of at least one agent of the plurality of agents which is logged onto a telephone switch with automatic call distribution (ACD), wherein the list of telephone status of the agent corresponds to the status of the agent with respect to the telephone switch, and maintaining a copy of a call queue associated with the telephone switch; maintaining a list of the computer status of at least one agent of the plurality of agents which is logged onto a virtual ACD, wherein the list of computer status of the agent corresponds to whether the agent is currently assigned to a computer task, and maintaining a copy of a computer task request queue associated with the virtual ACD; receiving a computer task request having associated with it characteristics for an agent to be assigned the requested computer task; generating a list of available agents from the plurality of agents; determining if an agent of the plurality of agents is available to accept a computer task; determining if the agent of the plurality of agents is at least one of logged off the telephone switch and available to take a call from the telephone switch; adding the agent of the plurality of agents to the list of available agents if the agent is available to accept a virtual ACD task and is at least one of logged off the telephone switch and available to take a call from the telephone switch; selecting an agent from the list of available agents having agent characteristics corresponding to the characteristics associated with the received request; and assigning the received computer task request to the selected agent.