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Description  |
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BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic call distributor and, more
particularly, to an automatic call distributor with a display terminal and
means and methods for controlling the display terminal for simultaneous
display of a plurality of different types of information concerning the
distributor.
Description of the related art including information disclosed under 37 CFR
1.97-1.99
Automatic call distributors employing a multiport switch controlled by a
central processing unit for interconnecting external telephonic units of
an external telephonic network with internal telephonic units used in the
implementation of telemarketing are well known. Examples of such automatic
call distributor systems are shown in patent applications U.S. Ser. No.
07/770,197 of Jones et al. entitled "Multichannel Telephonic Switching
Network With Different Signaling Formats and Connect/PBX Treatment
Selectable For Each Channel", filed Oct. 2, 1991, now U.S. Pat. No.
5,268,903, issued Dec. 7, 1993; U.S. Pat. No. 5,140,611 of Jones et al.
entitled "Pulse Modulated Self-Clocking and Self-Synchronizing Data
Transmission and Method for a Telephonic Communication Switching System",
issued Aug. 18, 1992 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,004 of Lenihan et al.
entitled "Tone and Announcement Message Code Generator for a Telephonic
Switching System and Method" issued Jun. 30, 1992.
It is also known in such automatic call distributors to employ a data
display terminal having a data display for providing visual information to
management and supervisory personnel concerning different aspects of
activity within the automatic call distributor. This visual information
includes the performance status of telemarketing agents located at the
internal telephonic units of the call distributor. The agents service
calls from customers calling from external telephonic units of an external
telephonic network. A user or supervisor stationed at a data display
terminal monitors the progress of the agents servicing the incoming calls
and the status of certain telephonic trunks within the call distributor.
By monitoring the call distributor, a supervisor at a data display
terminal is better able to determine which agents are receiving certain
types of customer calls, which agents are idle for long periods of time
and which agents are unavailable to receive customer calls. This allows
the supervisor to understand the call activity within the call distributor
and to make the necessary changes (such as assigning a particular agent to
service different types of calls) for a more efficient telemarketing
operation.
In the known systems, the display screens at the data display terminal is
divided into separate areas or windows for display of different types of
information. For example, one window is used to display agent status;
another window is used to display information concerning commands entered
by the user at the data display terminal, and another window displays the
actual command inserted at the terminal. These designated areas, or
windows, are assigned various sizes for display of information on the
screen. The supervisor, or other user, through means of the keyboard at
the data display terminal activates a particular window for full display
of the particular window in the forefront of the display screen. This
activated, or active, window, depending upon size, entirely or partially
overlaps the other nonactive windows which appear to be in the background
of the screen. Information displayed in the background for the inactive
windows that are only partially overlapped by the active window are
readable to the user at the display terminal. Simultaneous visual access
to the information in the nonactive windows is useful towards maintaining
the efficiency of the automatic call distributor.
Disadvantageously, in these known systems the user of the data display
terminal cannot control which nonactive windows partially or entirely
overlap other nonactive windows. Many times a supervisor must activate a
particular window, but also needs to receive information displayed in the
background of another window. In the known data display systems, the user
or supervisor has no control over which nonactive windows overlap or are
displayed over the other nonactive windows. Accordingly, the user in many
situations is unable to receive certain information from a particular
nonactive window while certain other windows are activated. These
circumstances force the users to change from one active window to another
in order to obtain the desired information sequentially, instead of
obtaining it simultaneously, with resultant increased risk of erroneous
readings and inefficiency.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide
an automatic call distributor having a data display terminal which
overcomes the disadvantages of known call distributors by providing a
system and method for selectively programming priorities of nonactive
window areas at the data display terminals, themselves, for enhanced
flexibility and utility.
This object is achieved in part through provision of an automatic call
distributor having a multiport switch controlled by a central processing
unit for interconnecting external telephonic units of an external
telephonic network with internal telephonic units of the call distributor
and a data display terminal with a display screen coupled with the
automatic call distributor for displaying information concerning automatic
call distributor activities, a programmable data window display system
comprising means for storing a plurality of different types of information
for display, means for selectively displaying the different types of
information at different active and nonactive window areas of the display
screen, means for establishing a priority for said plurality of windows
and means at the display terminal for selectively changing the priority of
the window areas to control a selectable order in which the nonactive
window areas overlap on the display screen when there is insufficient room
on the screen for full simultaneous display of the active window area and
all the nonactive window areas.
The object is also achieved in part by providing in conjunction with an
automatic call distributor having a multiport switch controlled by a
central processing unit for interconnecting external telephonic units of
an external telephonic network with internal telephonic units of the call
distributor and a data display terminal with a display screen coupled with
the automatic call distributor for displaying information, with a method
of selectively programming the display of data windows, comprising the
steps of (1) storing a plurality of different types of information for
display, (2) selectively displaying the different types of information at
different active and nonactive window areas of the display screen, (3)
establishing a priority for said plurality of windows and (4) selectively
changing the priority of the window areas to control a selectable order in
which the nonactive window areas overlap on the display screen when there
is insufficient room on the screen for full simultaneous display of the
active window area and all the nonactive window areas.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The foregoing objects and advantageous features of the invention will be
explained in greater detail and others will be made apparent from the
detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the present invention
which is given with reference to the several figures of the drawing, in
which:
FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the
display programmable automatic call distributor of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a view of a preferred form of the display programmable data
display terminal shown in block form in FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is schematic illustration of the display screen of the data display
terminal of FIG. 2 and the size and location range of the various windows
that have their priority for display controlled by the data display
terminal of FIG. 2 of the preferred embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a function block diagram of the details of the peripheral data
interface circuit shown in single block form in FIG. 1;
FIGS. 5A-5E is a composite flow chart of a computer program stored in the
peripheral data interface card memory of FIG. 4 and to update the
characteristic information for each window of FIG. 3; and
FIGS. 6A-6D is a composite flow chart of a computer program stored in the
peripheral data interface card memory of FIG. 4 used to operate the data
display terminal of FIG. 1 updating the display information for each line
on the display screen.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram of the preferred embodiment of the
display programmable automatic call distributor 10 is seen to include a
plurality of 1-N data display terminals 32, a peripheral data interface 30
and a multiport switch 12 controlled by a central processing unit 14 in
conjunction with a main memory 16 to selectively connect a plurality of
internal telephonic units 18 with a plurality of external telephonic units
20 of an external telephonic switching network 22. The central processing
unit 14, which controls call distribution functions, preferably comprises
a Motorola 68030 microprocessor. Generally, while the display
programmable, automatic call distributor 10 can be implemented in other
ways and in different sizes except for the novel changes which will be
explained below in detail, it is preferably an automatic call distributor
of the type shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/770,197 of Jones
et al. entitled "Multichannel Telephonic Switching Network With Different
Signaling Formats and Connect/PBX Treatment Selectable For Each Channel"
filed Oct. 2, 1991; U.S Pat. No. 5,140,611 of Jones et al. entitled "Pulse
Modulated Self-Clocking and Self-Synchronizing Data Transmission and
Method for a Telephonic Communication Switching System", issued Aug. 18,
1992 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,004 of Lenihan et al. entitled "Tone and
Announcement Message Code Generator for a Telephonic Switching System and
Method" issued Jun. 30, 1992, and reference should be made thereto for
details.
The programmable display terminal 32 logically is coupled with the central
processing unit 14 via a peripheral data interface (PDI) circuit, or card,
30. The data display terminal 32, FIG. 2, preferably has a cathode ray
tube (CRT) for display screen, or other display screen, 34 for providing
information concerning activity within the automatic call distributor 10,
FIG. 1. The data display terminal 32 has an associated keyboard 36 for
entry of commands, log-in, and other information carried to and processed
by the PDI circuit 30, FIG. 1. Preferably, the data display terminal 32 is
a model 4000 manufactured by Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc. a
subsidiary of NCR Corporation.
The peripheral data interface (PDI) circuit 30 includes a Motorola 68000
microprocessor 50 and a 2 Mbyte dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 52,
FIG. 4, for control of the display screen functions of the data display
terminal 32, FIG. 2. In response to power up of the peripheral data
interface card 30, the operating software and window processing routines
for control of the data display terminal is down loaded from the main
memory 16 of the automatic call distributor 10 to the 2 Mbyte DRAM 52 at
the PDI circuit 30. All changes to the display screen 34 are handled by
the window processing routines stored in the memory 52, FIG. 4, of the PDI
circuit 30. The window processing routines are described in detail with
reference to FIGS. 5 and 6. Information displayed on the screen 34, FIG.
2, is stored in associated window memory buffers at the PDI DRAM memory
52, FIG. 4, with one or more buffers allocated for each separated area or
window on the screen. Any changes to the display on one screen 34 result
from corresponding changes to date in the associated buffer for the window
being updated.
Referring to FIG. 3, the display screen 34 of each of the programmable data
display terminal 32 is separated into a plurality of areas, or windows,
40, 42, 44, 46 and 48. A plurality of memory buffers of the PDI circuit
30, FIG. 1, are allocated for each of the windows. In the preferred
embodiment, the display screen 34 is comprised of twenty-four number
lines, each having eighty character spaces in length. The display screen
34, FIG. 3, is divided into five reconfigurable areas, or windows, called:
the status window 40, the general information window 42, the work window
44, the output window 46 and the input, or command, window 48. The user
enters a command on the keyboard 36, FIG. 2, of the programmable data
display terminal 32 to change the number of lines, or size, of the windows
and the top line of the work window 44, FIG. 3, to reconfigure the format
of the window display.
In order to obtain the object of the invention, the user can enter a
command to the priority of each of the windows for enhanced flexibility in
format reconfiguration tailored to the particular display needs of the
user. A numeric value is entered and stored in the memory 52, FIG. 4, of
the PDI circuit 30 for the window size designating the number of lines of
the window and the top line of the work window 44. Another numeric value
is entered and stored in another part of the associated buffer to
designate the window priority level. The microprocessor 50, FIG. 4, of the
PDI circuit 30 reads the numeric values for the size and priority of each
window upon execution of the command and adjusts the window screen display
36, FIG. 3, format accordingly. The user can also enter a command to
designate any one of the windows as the active window. In such case, all
the other windows are nonactive. The programmable priority number of a
nonactive window determines whether it will overlap another nonactive
window on the display screen 34 when the size of the window does not
permit full display of all windows. In such event, a nonactive window of a
given priority will overlap all those windows of lower priority and will
be overlapped by all windows of greater priority. In the preferred
embodiment, the window priority levels are designated by priority numbers
arranged in reverse numerical order with windows of higher priority having
lower priority numbers. A window selected to be active, on the other hand,
overlaps all other windows regardless of their relative priority.
When a user generates a command on the keyboard 36, FIG. 2, of the data
display terminal 32 to activate one of the plurality of windows 40, 42,
44, 46 and 48, the PDI circuit 30, FIG. 4, reads the command, activates
the window associated with the command and presents the activated window
in the forefront of the display screen 34, i.e. it overlaps all other
windows to the extent needed. Since an active window has priority over the
other windows, regardless of the numeric priority of the other windows, in
response to a window being activated upon user command, it is displayed on
top of any window it overlaps. The other windows that are not activated,
i.e. nonactive windows, if displayed in overlapping format are displayed
according to their assigned numeric priority. The entire window size
(every line) designated by the user is displayed in the forefront of the
screen 34, FIG. 3, upon the window being activated. Each of the lines
associated with the activated window is displayed and overlaps other
windows regardless of the numeric priority level assigned to the other
windows. Thus, an activation of a window provides for viewing the entire
window size assigned by the user. As noted, the particular information or
text which actually appears on the lines of the activated window are
obtained from the associated buffers 40', 42', 44', 46' and 48' of the 2
Mbyte DRAM 52, FIG. 4, for is displayed in the forefront of the display
screen 34, FIG. 2.
Referring to FIG. 3, in the preferred embodiment, the status window 40
displays information regarding the status of the user who signs-in on the
data display terminal 32, FIG. 2; the general information window 42, FIG.
3, displays information regarding the status of telemarketing agents
stationed at the internal telephonic units 18, FIG. 1, within the
automatic call distributor 10; the work window 44, FIG. 3, displays user
friendly information describing the various functions of an entered
command; the output window 46 displays information in response to the
execution of a command, and the command or input window 48 displays the
command text entered at the terminal keyboard 36, FIG. 2, by the user.
In the preferred embodiment, the status window 40 is displayed on line one
with a solid line 38 separating the status window 40 and the general
information window 42 displayed at line two. The general information
window 42 begins at line three. The command window 48 is the bottom window
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