Patent ID: 7940792

Claim:
A method of controlling and monitoring via client systems calls placed through telephony devices, each telephony device being a time division multiplexing (“TDM”) telephone and having a unique identifier, the method comprising: providing a plurality of the client systems and the telephony devices within a communication network, each of the client systems having a unique identifier and hardware and software components that provide a user interface for controlling a telephony device, a client system for controlling a telephony device using SIP, the plurality of the client systems being communicatively connected in a group; for each of the telephony devices, providing a logical representation and a physical representation for the telephony device, the logical representation for the telephony device representing a communication link of the telephony device, the physical representation of the telephony device representing physical attributes of the telephony device; determining relationships between the client systems and the telephony devices based on their unique identifiers, a relationship indicating that a client system is to control a telephony device via the logical representation and the physical representation of the telephony device; for each relationship between a client system and a telephony device, establishing a device control channel between the physical representation of the telephony device and the client system, the device control channel being through a private branch exchange that supports a computer telephony integration (“CTI”) protocol and a front end that converts messages between the SIP and the CTI protocol; and establishing a call control channel between the logical representation of the telephony device and the client system, the call control channel being through the private branch exchange that supports the CTI protocol and the front end that converts messages between the SIP and the CTI protocol, the call control channel being different from the device control channel; and under control of the user interface of each client system that has a relationship with a telephony device, controlling the telephony device, via the logical representation by sending SIP messages using the call control channel and via the physical representation by sending SIP messages using the device control channel, to place calls via the telephony device; and monitoring the telephony device via the logical representation using the call control channel and via the physical representation using the device control channel to receive calls via the telephony device.