Methods and systems for aggregating presence information to provide a simplified unified presence

摘要

Methods and systems for providing simplified presence for a user are described. The user has a plurality of associated communication devices registered with a communications server, and each communication device enables at least one communication service class. The server has a user data entry associating the user with each of the plurality of communication devices. To hide the details of the user-associated devices from third parties, a virtual device is defined and associated with the user. Presence information received at the server from the various devices is aggregated together to create aggregated presence information that indicates at least the service classes available from the user-associated devices based on the received presence information. A virtual device presence document is generated containing the aggregated presence information and is provided to a presence server as presence information associated with the user.

主权项

1. A method for initiating a communication session between a first party and a second party using one of a plurality of communication service classes, wherein a communications server stores an association between the second party and a plurality of communication device interfaces, wherein each communication device interface has an associated device address and is capable of communicating using one of the plurality of communication service classes, and wherein the plurality of communication device interfaces comprises a first interface of a first communication device configured to communicate using a first communication service class over a first IP-based network, and a second interface of the first communication device configured to communicate using the first communication service class over a second IP network, the method comprising:
for each of the plurality of communication service classes, receiving at a presence server user presence information indicating the second party's availability to communicate via the communication service class on one or more of the communication device interfaces; for each of the plurality of communication service classes, communicating the user presence information from the presence server to the first party, wherein the communicated user presence information includes a virtual device address associated with the second party but excludes identification of any of the communication device interfaces and excludes the device addresses of the communication device interfaces; receiving at the communications server a message from the first party to request a communication session with the second party which identifies the first communication service class excluding the identification of any of the communication device interfaces; communicating the session request from the communications server to two or more of the communication device interfaces including the first interface and the second interface, based on rules stored on the communications server; receiving at the communications server instructions from the second party to initiate the communication session on the first interface; and initiating the communication session between the first party and the first interface using the communications server.