Patent Publication Number: US-6665378-B1

Title: IP-based notification architecture for unified messaging

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to message notification systems configured for sending a notification message to a subscriber having received a message. 
     2. Description of the Related Art 
     The evolution of the public switched telephone network has resulted in a variety of voice applications and services that can be provided to individual subscribers and business subscribers. Such services include voice messaging systems that enable landline or wireless subscribers to record, playback, and forward voice mail messages. However, the ability to provide enhanced services to subscribers of the public switched telephone network is directly affected by the limitations of the public switched telephone network. In particular, the public switched telephone network operates according to a protocol that is specifically designed for the transport of voice signals; hence any modifications necessary to provide enhanced services can only be done by switch vendors that have sufficient know-how of the existing public switched telephone network infrastructure. 
     For example, existing messaging systems such as voice mail messaging systems rely on a proprietary notification system that has limited adaptability to expanded notification schemes. For example, the simplest type of notification system involves a message waiting indicator on a telephone connected to a private branch exchange (PBX), where the PBX asserts a message waiting indicator signal in response to receiving a proprietary command from a connected voice mail system. A more advanced system may initiate a page to a subscriber&#39;s pager indicating reception of the stored voice message. In each of these cases, however, the notification process necessarily relies on the proprietary features of the PBX and the associated voice mail system. 
     Wireless based communications system have voice messaging systems that notify a wireless subscriber via his or her wireless telephone of a stored voicemail message. Such notification systems are beneficial in cases where the subscriber was making another call on his or her wireless telephone, or if the subscriber&#39;s wireless telephone was previously unavailable due to being turned off or outside a service area. Such wireless based communications systems, however, rely on the proprietary features of the wireless indications system in order to notify the wireless subscriber. 
     Short Message Services (SMS) have been implemented in wireless telephone communications systems as a way to send a message to a subscriber&#39;s cellular phone to notify the subscriber that he or she has received a new voice mail. A messaging server, also referred to as a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), is configured for receiving a notification message from a messaging source according to Short Message Peer to Peer Protocol (SMPP). The messaging source may be, for example, a voice mail system, a paging system, or an e-mail interface resident within the wireless telephone communications system. The SMSC, in response to receiving the notification message from the messaging source, transmits a short message to the cellular phone based on the destination telephone number specified within the notification message. However, this arrangement still provides only limited flexibility in enabling different sources to send a notification to a cellular phone. Hence, the above-described arrangement still lacks sufficient flexibility and scalability to enable messaging subscribers to select the means for notification. 
     Unified communications systems are under development as a way of enhancing messaging services for users such as wireless telephone subscribers. A disadvantage of unified communications systems implemented as enhanced versions of the voice mail system, paging system, or e-mail interface resident within the wireless telephone communications system is that such implementation requires detailed knowledge of the proprietary protocols associated with the voice mail systems. Hence, such implementations are available only from switch vendors having knowledge of the proprietary protocols. 
     Use of a unified communications system implemented independent of the existing proprietary voice mail systems enables service providers to use scalable and distributed systems using recognized communication protocols. Hence, the service providers may use such unified communications systems across multiple platforms, independent of protocol, for storage of various types of messages, for example voice messages, facsimile, and e-mail stored in a centralized messaging store. However, the problem still remains that there exists several different types of notification devices, such as a pager, a phone indicator light, stutter dial tone, facsimile, and telephone. Moreover, for each message that enters a messaging store, one or more subscribers may need to be notified over one or more different notification devices. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     There is a need for an arrangement that provides an open standards-based architecture for delivering notification for unified messaging systems over a broad range of notification devices. 
     There also is a need for an arrangement that provides a scalable notification architecture that can provide notification to subscribers via subscriber-selected devices according to subscriber-selected notification requirements. 
     These and other needs are attained by the present invention, where a notification process, configured for receiving notification messages for respective subscribers from messaging sources according to a prescribed open protocol such as Internet Protocol, accesses subscriber profile information from an open protocol-based subscriber directory based on the received notification messages. The notification process determines, for each received notification message, the subscriber&#39;s notification preference based on the accessed profile information, and selectively outputs a notification delivery message according to a prescribed open protocol to at least one notification delivery process based on the subscriber&#39;s notification preference. The notification process may have access via the prescribed open protocol to multiple notification delivery processes, each configured for outputting a notification to a subscriber&#39;s notification device according to a corresponding device protocol. Hence, subscribers may be notified of events according to their respective preferences, including subscriber device type, or time of notification. 
     One aspect of the present invention provides a method in a server. The method includes obtaining a notification message having been sent from a notification source according to a first open network protocol, the notification message specifying at least one notification recipient and notification information. The method also includes accessing a subscriber directory, according to a second open network protocol, for subscriber attribute information specifying subscriber. notification preference for the specified at least one notification recipient, generating, based on the subscriber notification preference, at least one notification delivery message that specifies a destination address of a corresponding notification device for the notification recipient and at least a corresponding selected portion oft he notification information, and outputting, according to a third open network protocol, the at least one notification delivery message to a selected corresponding at least one of a plurality of notification delivery processes for delivery of the selected portion of the notification information to the notification device according to a corresponding device protocol. The obtaining of the notification message, and the accessing of a subscriber directory for subscriber notification preferences using open network protocols provides centralized management of notification delivery, enabling the supply of a notification delivery message to selected notification delivery processes based on respective device protocols. Hence, a notification source such as a voice messaging system can send a notification message in order to initiate notification delivery according to a user-selected notification preference such as an e-mail message during business hours, a cellphone during specified meeting hours, or a pager during evening hours. Moreover, the notification preference may specify multiple notification devices, independent of the nature of the notification source. Hence, a subscriber may establish notification preferences for any type of notification device, including selected notification based on the notification source. 
     Another aspect of the present invention provides a method comprising the steps of obtaining by a notification process a notification message having been sent from a notification source according to a first open network protocol, the notification message specifying at least one notification recipient and notification information. The method also includes accessing by the notification process a subscriber directory, according to a second open network protocol, for subscriber attribute information specifying subscriber notification preference for the specified at least one notification recipient. The method also includes generating, based on the subscriber notification preference, at least one notification delivery message that specifies a destination address of a corresponding notification device for the notification recipient and at least a corresponding selected portion of the notification information, and outputting, according to a third open network protocol, the at least one notification delivery message by the notification process to a selected corresponding at least one of a plurality of notification delivery processes. The method also includes delivering by the selected at least one notification delivery process the corresponding selected portion of the notification information to the corresponding notification device according to a corresponding device protocol. Delivering the selected portion of the notification information by the corresponding notification delivery process enables deployment of an open standards-based architecture for notifying subscribers of prescribed events, where the notification process can centrally manage distribution of notification information independent of the device protocol of the destination notification devices. In addition, each of the notification delivery processes can be independently accessed by sending a message to the corresponding notification delivery process according to the third open network protocol. Hence, notification messages can be sent to different notification devices in an open standards-based architecture, eliminating the need for configuring each notification message according to device specific protocols. 
     Still another aspect of the present invention provides a notification system comprising a notification process and multiple notification delivery processes. The notification process is configured for obtaining a notification message having been sent from a notification source according to a first open network protocol, each notification message specifying at least one notification recipient and notification information. The notification process also is configured for accessing a subscriber directory according to a second open network protocol for subscriber notification preference information for the at least one notification recipient. The notification process also generates at least one notification delivery message that specifies a destination address of a corresponding notification device for the notification recipient and at least a corresponding selected portion of the notification information based on the subscriber notification preference information, and outputs the at least one notification delivery message according to a third open network protocol. Each of the notification delivery processes are configured for delivering a notification to a subscriber device according to a corresponding device protocol based on a corresponding received notification delivery message. 
     Additional advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the present invention may be realized and attained by means of instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     Reference is made to the attached drawings, wherein elements having the same reference numeral designations represent like elements throughout and wherein: 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating deployment of a notification system for use with a unified messaging system according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the generation of a notification delivery message by the notification process of FIG. 1 using selected portions of notification information and retrieved subscriber notification preference information according to an embodiment oft he present invention. 
     FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the notification method oft he notification system of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
     FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating in detail the notification process of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. 
    
    
     BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION 
     FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an architecture that provides unified notification services via an IP network according to an embodiment of the present invention. The notification system  10  includes a notification process  12  and multiple notification delivery processes  14 . The notification process  12  has an associated SMTP-based mailbox  16 , also referred to as the primary mailbox, configured for receiving generic notification messages  18  from notification sources  20 , such as a unified messaging system  20   a  or an external notification source  20   b . An exemplary implementation of the unified messaging system  20   a  is the commercially available Cisco Unified Open Network Exchange (Cisco uOne) (Products UONE-FOUND 4.1S, and UONE-VOICEMSG4.1S) from Cisco Systems, Inc. An example oft he external notification source  20   b  may be an e-mail server configured for automatically generating e-mail messages in response to a prescribed detected events, for example execution of a prescribed stock transaction, shipment of a customer order, etc. 
     Each notification delivery process  14  also has a corresponding SMTP based mailbox  22 , referred to as a secondary mailbox, configured for receiving a corresponding notification delivery message  28 . As described in detail below, each SMTP based mailbox  22  is configured for receiving according to SMTP protocol a corresponding notification delivery message  28  that specifies selected notification information to be utilized for notification according to a corresponding device-specific protocol. Although the notification delivery message  28  is typically sent by the notification process  12  according to accessed subscriber notification preferences, described below, the notification delivery message  28  may also be sent independently by the external notification service  20   b  if properly configured to supply the appropriate notification information according to the device-specific protocol. 
     Each notification delivery process  14  is configured for delivering a notification to a subscriber&#39;s notification device  24 , according to a corresponding device protocol, based on reception of a notification delivery message  28  in its corresponding mailbox  22 . For example, the notification delivery process  14   a  is configured for sending an SMTP-based notification to an e-mail client  24   a  using an SMTP server  26   a  for distribution of the selected notification information according to the protocol of the e-mail client  24   a . Similarly, the notification delivery process  14   b  is configured for outputting an SMS-based message to the SMS server  26   b  for delivery to the subscriber&#39;s cellphone  24   b . The notification delivery process  14   c  is configured for sending an outgoing facsimile transmission to a subscriber&#39;s fax machine  24   c  using a fax server  26   c , and the notification delivery process  14   d  is configured for sending a command to the message waiting indicator server  26   d  for asserting a message waiting light on a subscriber&#39;s telephone  24   d . The notification delivery process  14   e  is configured for sending a paging command to a paging server  26   e  for delivery of a wireless page to a subscriber&#39;s pager  24   e , and the notification delivery process  14   f  is configured for requesting an outgoing call server  26   d , for example a PBX or a voice over IP call controller, to place an outgoing call to a subscriber&#39;s telephone  24   f  used for notification (e.g., a home telephone or a secretary&#39;s telephone) in order to notify the subscriber of the event specified in the notification delivery message  28 . 
     The notification process  12  is configured for outputting at least one notification delivery message  28  to a corresponding selected secondary mailbox  22  for delivery of a notification to the selected notification device  24  according to the corresponding protocol. In particular, the notification process  12  regularly polls the primary mailbox  16  for received messages from the message store  20   a  or the external notification service  20   b , and obtains the notification messages according to IMAP protocol. According to the disclosed embodiment, the message store  20   a  outputs a notification message to the primary mailbox  16  for each message received by the message store  20 . The notification message  18 , illustrated in FIG. 2, specifies at least one notification recipient and notification information. 
     The notification process  12  generates the notification delivery message  28  and selects the notification delivery process  14  for delivery of notification information to the corresponding selected notification device  24  based on accessing subscriber attribute information that specifies the subscriber&#39;s notification preferences. In particular, the notification process  12 , in response to detecting a notification message in the primary mailbox  16 , accesses a subscriber directory according to LDAP protocol for retrieval of subscriber attribute information for each notification recipient specified in the notification message  12 . 
     In particular, the notification process  12  will determine, for each notification recipient specified in the notification message  18 , whether the notification recipient is a notification subscriber (i.e., subscribes to the notification service), and the subscriber notification preferences for the notification recipient. For example, the subscriber notification preferences may specify that the notification subscriber prefers an e-mail notification at a first prescribed time, an SMS based message at a second prescribed time, and a message waiting indicator (MWI) at all times. Note that the prescribed times for different notification devices may overlap, causing the notification process  12  to generate multiple device-specific notification delivery message  28  for a single notification message  18 . 
     FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the generation of a notification delivery message  28  by the notification process of FIG.  1 . The notification process  12  retrieves the subscriber notification preferences  40  from the LDAP directory  30 , for example the destination addresses  42  of the corresponding notification devices to be used for notification. For example, the subscriber notification preferences  40  include key value pairs that specify an e-mail address  42   a  for the e-mail client  24   a , and a cellular telephone number  42   b  of the subscriber&#39;s cellphone  24   b  for SMS notification by the SMS server  26   b.    
     Upon retrieval of the subscriber notification preferences  40 , the notification process  12  generates at least one notification delivery message  28  that specifies the destination address  42  of a corresponding notification device  24  for the notification recipient, and at least a corresponding selected portion  46  oft he notification information. In particular, the notification process  12  extracts selected portions of notification information  18   b ,  18   c  from the notification message  18  based on the notification device specified by the subscriber notification preference, and inserts the selected portions of the notification information into the notification delivery message  28 . Items that may be extracted from the received notification message  18  include: the sender&#39;s e-mail address, the sender&#39;s telephone number, the sender&#39;s name, the subject of the message, the priority of the message, the message type (e-mail, a fax, voice mail), the date and time oft he message, the total size of the message, a text excerpt, and a MIME-encoded voice or fax attachment. 
     For example, the notification process  12  may generate the notification delivery message  28   a  for the notification delivery process  14   a  by including an SMTP header  44   a  that specifies the destination e-mail address of the secondary mailbox  22   a , the subscriber information illustrated as the destination address  42   a  of the e-mail client  24   a , and notification information  46   a  such as the source of the original message (“From”), date and time stamp, subject line, and a copy of the MIME encoded message attached as a binary file  18   c  in case the user wishes to play the message (in the case of a .wav file) or view the message (in the case of a tiff file). In addition, the notification process  12  may generate a notification delivery message  28   b  for the notification delivery process  14   b  by including an SMTP header  44   b  that specifies the destination e-mail address of the secondary mailbox  22   b  the subscriber information illustrated as the telephone number oft he cellphone  24   b , and notification information  46   b  such as the source of the original message (“From”), date and time stamp, subject line, and message type. Note that the contents of the notification information  46   b  differs from the contents oft he notification information  46   a  based on the relative capabilities oft he notification devices  24   b  and  24   a . Hence, the notification process  12  selects the notification information based on the capabilities of the notification device. 
     FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the notification method by the notification system  10  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The steps described in FIG. 3 can be implemented as executable code stored on a computer readable medium (e.g., a hard disk drive, a floppy drive, a random access memory, a read only memory, an EPROM, a compact disc, etc.). In addition, the notification process  12  and the notification delivery processes  14  may be implemented as executable routines within a single server, or distributed across multiple servers. 
     In addition, the disclosed architecture has the advantage that each of the processes  12  and  14  are scalable across multiple servers for large-scale deployment as multiprocess systems, where each process communicates with another process by sending SMTP-based messages. For example, multiple notification processes  12  may be arranged to serve respective groups of subscribers, where a first notification process (e.g.,  12   a ) forwards a received notification message  18  to the primary mailbox  16  of a second notification process (e.g.,  12   b ) if the first notification process  12   a  does not serve the subscriber specified-in the received notification message. 
     As shown in FIG. 3, the method begins in step  50  by the messaging server  20   a  or the external notification source  20   b  by sending the notification message  18  with a copy of the stored message (shown in FIG. 2 as portions  18   b  and  18   c ) to the primary mailbox  16  of the notification process  12 . The notification process  12  regularly polls the primary mailbox  16 , implemented within the IMAP message store, and obtains the notification message  18  in step  52  according to IMAP protocol and parses the notification message  18  for the notification recipients. 
     Upon identifying the notification recipients from the notification message  18 , the notification process  12  accesses the subscriber LDAP directory  30  in step  54  to determine whether the notification recipients are valid notification subscribers. If the notification recipients are valid notification subscribers, the notification process  12  accesses the subscriber LDAP directory  30  in step  56  for the subscriber notification preferences  40  and all parameters associated with the device protocols to enable notification to the identified user device  24 . If any notification recipient is not a valid notification subscriber, the process is dropped with respect to that notification recipient. 
     The notification process  12  parses the notification preferences  40  in step  58 , and generates the notification delivery messages  28  for each notification subscriber in step  60 . In particular, the notification process  12  determines for each notification device  24  the corresponding destination address  42 , determines the message destination address for the corresponding secondary mailbox  22  based on the selected device, and attaches the selected notification information  46  based on the selected device. Typically the notification process  12  will access a local table that identifies the SMTP destination address for each oft he secondary mailboxes  22 . The notification process  12  then sends the notification delivery messages  28  to the secondary mailboxes  22  in step  62 . 
     Each notification delivery process  14  periodically polls its corresponding secondary mailbox  22  according to IMAP protocol, and in step  64  obtains its corresponding received notification delivery message  28  and parses the notification delivery message  28  for the destination address information  42  and the notification information  46 . The notification delivery process  14  then delivers the supplied notification  46  to the corresponding associated device server  26  according to the device server protocol in step  66 . For example, the notification delivery process  14   a  would send an e-mail message for transmission by the SMTP server  26   a  that specifies the destination address  42   a  of the e-mail client  24   a  and the notification information  46   a  as an attachment to the e-mail. The notification delivery process  14   b , however, would send an SMS message to the SMS message server  26   b  that specifies the destination address  42   b  of the cellphone  24   b  and the text based notification information  46   b  for display on the subscribers cellphone  24   b . The device server  26  would then send the notification message in step  68  to the corresponding subscriber device  24  according to the device specific protocol. 
     If notification to a device  24  should fail, the notification delivery process  14  schedules and performs any number of retries to the device  24 . For example, the information about the message and the subscriber that still needs to be notified may be written to disk, plus the time at which the next retries should occur. Hence, each delivery process  14  processes any new incoming IMAP messages, and processes any needed retries. 
     FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating in detail the notification process  12  according to an embodiment of the present invention. The notification process  12  is implemented as an application runtime environment  70  that executes sequences of instructions (as described with respect to FIG. 3) loaded from a tangible medium  72 , and based on context-specific information loaded from an initialization file  74  during initialization of the process  12 . In particular, the initialization file  74  includes parameters such as IMAP information  74   a  for accessing the primary IMAP message store  16 , LDAP settings  74   b  for accessing the LDAP directory  30 , notification templates  74   c  that specify parameters for generating the notification delivery messages  28 , and SMTP-based addresses that identify the SMTP addresses of the secondary mailboxes  22 . 
     As shown in FIG. 4, the application runtime environment  70  includes a polling resource  76  configured for issuing function calls at regular prescribed intervals for obtaining the notification messages  18  from the primary mailbox  16  according to IMAP protocol. The application runtime environment  70  also includes a message parser  78  configured for parsing the retrieved notification messages  18  for identification of the notification recipients. 
     The application runtime environment  70  also includes a message generator  80  configured for generating the notification delivery messages based on the subscriber notification preference information retrieved from the LDAP directory  30 , and based on the notification information within the received notification message  18 . The message generator  80  generates a notification delivery message  28  for a selected subscriber device  24  having selected portions of the notification information based on a corresponding protocol specific notification template  74   c . In particular, the initialization file  74  includes a notification template  74   c  for each of the notification delivery processes  14 : each notification template  74   c  specifies the relevant key-value pairs from the notification message  18  to be added to the notification delivery message  28  for the corresponding subscriber device  24 . Hence, the message generator  80  utilizes a selected notification template  74   c  based on the subscriber device  24  specified in the subscriber notification preference information: if the subscriber preference specifies an e-mail client  24   a , the message generator  80  utilizes an e-mail-specific specific template that specifies the key-value pairs of the notification information within the notification message  18  that should be included within the notification delivery message  28  to be sent to the secondary mailbox  22   a ; if the subscriber preference specifies an SMS-based client  24   b , the message generator  80  utilizes an SMS-specific template that specifies the key-value pairs of the notification information within the notification message  18  that should be included within the notification delivery message  28  to be sent to the secondary mailbox  22   b , etc. Hence, the message generator  80  is able to select portions of the notification information from the notification message  18  to be included in the notification delivery message  28  based on the subscriber device type  24  specified in the subscriber notification preference information. 
     The application runtime environment  70  also includes a set of libraries  82  that may be implemented as dynamically linked libraries (DLLs) or application programming interface (API) libraries. The libraries  82  enable the runtime environment  70  to implement procedure calls, such as issuing function calls to the IMAP directory  16  for retrieval of the notification messages  18 , the LDAP directory  30  for retrieval of the subscriber notification preference information, and an SMTP server for sending the notification delivery messages  28 . 
     According to the disclosed embodiment, a notification architecture is built upon the open standards of Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Hence, the notification architecture can be made available on a large number of platforms, and can be built upon any number of IMAP compliant messaging stores and LDAP compliant directory stores. In addition, the number of overall LDAP lookups is minimized, since the notification process  12 , obtains all necessary information at one time for each of the notification delivery processes  14 . In addition, network traffic is minimized since each notification delivery process  14  can receive selected portions of the original stored message as needed, as opposed to a complete copy. Finally, the notification process  12  and each of the notification delivery processes  14  are accessible by any SMTP source by sending an SMTP based message with the appropriate notification information to the appropriate mailbox  16  or  22 . Hence, the same notification system  10  can be utilized to support unified messaging services by the message store  20   a , while providing added value for external notification services  20   b.    
     While this invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.