Process management system

摘要

In a connection management system for setting up connections in a communications network, run-time negotiation is carried out to avoid feature interaction. Users of the network are provided with user agents 107 (intelligent software) which have access to user profiles. When a calling user wants to set up a particular connection configuration, which may involve service features such as ring back later on busy, their user agent 107 sends a connection configuration proposal to the user agent 107 for a called user. The two user agents 107 then negotiate to establish a mutually acceptable connection configuration, if one is available. The negotiation is based on alternative connection configurations stored in order of preference in the respective user profiles. These are proposed and counter-proposed by the user agents 107 in descending preference order until the mutually acceptable configuration is reached or the connection fails. Preferred embodiments include connection scheduling capability.