System and methods for improving interaction routing performance

Abstract

An interaction router includes a computerized server executing a routing engine stored on a machine-readable medium, an interface at the server receiving information from an interaction switching element, the information regarding an interaction received at the switching element to be routed, an interface at the server to a wide area network (WAN), a function of the routing engine judging if one or more business-logic determinations are to be made to select a routing destination for the interaction, and a function for controlling the switch to route the interaction. If if one or more business-logic determinations are to be made, the routing engine requests the business-logic determination from a remote server over the WAN, and upon receiving the determination from the remote server, uses the determination in controlling the switching element to route the interaction.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An interaction router, comprising:
 a computerized server executing a routing engine stored on a machine-readable medium;   an interface at the server receiving information from an interaction switching element, the information regarding an interaction received at the switching element to be routed;   an interface at the server to a wide area network (WAN);   a function of the routing engine judging if one or more business-logic determinations are to be made to select a routing destination for the interaction; and   a function for controlling the switch to route the interaction;   wherein, if one or more business-logic determinations are to be made, the routing engine requests the business-logic determination from a remote server over the WAN, and upon receiving the determination from the remote server, uses the determination in controlling the switching element to route the interaction.   
     
     
         2 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the business logic determination is requested through assertion of a universal resource locator (URL). 
     
     
         3 . The interaction router of  claim 2  wherein more than one URL may be available for assertion, each URL pointing to a different portion of business logic at the remote server. 
     
     
         4 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the determination is an executable strategy expressed in eXtensible markup language (XML). 
     
     
         5 . The interaction router of  claim 4  wherein the XML strategy is parsed and executed at the interaction router. 
     
     
         6 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the interaction switching element is a computer telephony integrated (CTI) call switch. 
     
     
         7 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the WAN is the Internet. 
     
     
         8 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the business logic determination is dynamically generated at the remote server as a result of processing a set of data against at least one rule. 
     
     
         9 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the routing destination is a live agent or a group of live agents or an automated treatment system. 
     
     
         10 . The interaction router of  claim 1  wherein the function for controlling the switch is a CTI function performed by a CTI server. 
     
     
         11 . A method for routing an interaction received at an interaction switching element comprising the steps of:
 (a) sending a request message to a remote server for a business logic determination;   (b) at the remote server, processing any call data received against at least one rule to generate a business logic determination;   (c) sending the business logic determination back to the interaction router; and   (d) at the interaction router, parsing and executing the business logic determination to route the interaction.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in step (a) the remote server is an application server accessible by wide area network. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the wide area network is the Internet network. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11  executed according to interactive voice response result. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in step (b) the business logic determination is a machine readable and executable XML strategy. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in step (c) the determination is sent in a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) server response. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in step (a) the request is sent as a result of router invocation of a URL during execution of a routing strategy. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in the business logic is created using one of C, C++, C#, or Java. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 15  wherein in step (b) the XML strategy is one of Xstrategy (XST), interactive routing designer (IRD) XML, or interaction routing language (IRL). 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 11  wherein in step (d) routing the event includes selecting the destination and route and returning the route used to a server controlling the interaction switching element.