Patent ID: 6928153

Claim:
A method for creating a call processing control record and processing a call from a calling party to a user in accordance with the call processing control record, the method comprising: (a) receiving schedule data transmitted from an electronic scheduler, where the schedule data comprises at least a portion of a user's schedule; (b) comparing the schedule data with stored data to determine if the schedule data differs from the stored data; (c) automatically generating a call processing control record if the schedule data differs from the stored data, where the call processing control record comprises an indication that an announcement should be transmitted to a caller in response to a call being placed to the user during a certain time period and an indication of the user's selection of a particular announcement to be transmitted to the caller; (d) storing the call processing control record; (e) receiving, at a switch, a call from a calling party; (f) accessing the call processing control record after receiving the call; (g) transmitting call control information to the switch, the call control information including an indication of the announcement that is to be transmitted to the calling party; and (h) transmitting the appropriate announcement to the calling party.