Outbound Hunt Group for Sequential Contact Address Resolution

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing communication systems often fail to establish sessions due to unresponsive or unreachable contacts, leading to user frustration and inefficiency in locating a particular user, as they must repeatedly attempt to connect through various contact addresses.

Innovation Solution

The implementation of an outbound hunt group feature in communication devices, which allows users to create a list of contacts to be called sequentially, leveraging the device's address book and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for efficient session establishment.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If a user manually attempts to contact each address in a contact list sequentially, then the user can locate the target contact, but the process is time-consuming and inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontact location efficiencyVSAvoidtime to establish communication session

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system pre-configures a hunt group with a ordered list of contact addresses and call parameters before needed. When a user initiates a call to a hunt group number, the system automatically executes the pre-planned sequential calling sequence without requiring real-time user intervention, thus resolving the contradiction between thorough contact searching and time efficiency

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

2Reliability

If the system automatically cycles through multiple contact addresses to establish a session, then the chance of successful connection increases, but the system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesession establishment success rateVSAvoidcall routing system complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a hunt group as an intermediary entity that mediates between the user's single call initiation and the multiple potential contact addresses. The hunt group contains the complex logic of sequential calling, retry attempts, and contact cycling, while presenting a simple single-number interface to the user, thus resolving the contradiction between reliable session establishment and system simplicity

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Ease of operation

If the user must remember and type contact addresses manually, then precision in contacting the right address is maintained, but the ease of operation decreases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecontact initiation convenienceVSAvoidcontact address management burden

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system provides self-service by automatically managing the hunt group contact list and calling sequence. The user simply needs to dial the hunt group number, and the system autonomously handles address selection, cycling through contacts, and retry logic without requiring the user to manually manage or recall contact addresses, thus resolving the contradiction between operational ease and information management

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Data Source

PatentUS8972866B2Outbound hunt groups

Publication Date: 2015.03.03 VERIZON PATENT & LICENSING INC

AI summary

A system may include a communications device configured to select a contact from an address book, the contact including information descriptive of a user and including at least one address of the user. The communications device may be further configured to associate an outbound hunt group with the contact, the outbound hunt group configured to provide a list of addresses to be called in sequence to locate the user.