Systems and techniques for transferring electronic data between users of a communications system by receiving, at an instant messaging host, a video file from a sender and intended for a recipient; authenticating the video file; and sending the video file to the intended recipient.

Disclosed embodiments provide improved communication between a caller and multiple parties. A caller performs a call spray operation on a group of contacts using an electronic communication device such as a mobile telephone. The call spray operation attempts to contact an electronic device associated with each contact in the group of contacts. If one of the contacts answers and is deemed to be a live user, then the remaining contacts that did not answer each receive a message on their associated electronic device indicating which of the contacts answered the caller with a live user. In this way, a group of people can be conveniently contacted and kept up to date with the status of the communication with the caller.

The present invention comprises a method and apparatus for receiving, modifying and transmitting electronic communications. In one or more embodiments, the invention comprises a method performed by a server computer system that receives communications addressed to e-mail addresses created by the server computer system for recipients from senders having existing e-mail addresses. The server system creates modified e-mail messages by removing the sender's existing e-mail address and inserting an e-mail address created by the server computer system for that sender, wherein the created e-mail address identifies a name of the sender. The server computer system then transmits the modified e-mail message to an existing e-mail address of the recipient.

A communications device is disclosed. The communications device comprises a memory configured to store instructions and a processor configured to execute the instructions to receive data representing a message provided by a caller, determine at least an attribute of the message based on the received data, generate one or more options based on the attribute of the message, and present the one or more options to the caller to prompt the caller to take an additional action related to the message.

Systems and methods are provided for limiting the number of persistent voice connections for a user and for configuring dynamic connections to appear from the user's perspective as if they were persistent connections. When the user initiates a call over a dynamic connection the user's voice is stored until the connection is established at which time the user's voice will continue to be stored and will also be transmitted over the connection until the voice being stored and the voice being transmitted become the same.

A software application for recommending workforce resource allocation in a communication center based on requirements of events represented in a communication-center queue has a first interface for accessing information from the queue; a second interface for accessing information from a data source about workforce availability and state information; a processing component for processing queue information and workforce information; and a message generation and delivery component for generating a workforce allocation recommendation based on processing results and sending the recommendation to a target entity. In a preferred embodiment, the application periodically accesses the queue and the data source to obtain the most recent information for processing and generates periodic recommendations based on real-time requirements of events and availability states of resources, the recommendations sent ahead of time before the resources are required.

A computer-implemented method to store messages is disclosed. The method may include obtaining a minimum message length for stored messages. The minimum message length may be greater than zero. The method may further include determining an amount of available storage space allocated for storage of user messages on a computer-readable medium. The method may also include, in response to a communication session not being established between a user of a first communication device and a second communication device and in response to the amount of available storage space being greater than zero but being insufficient to store the minimum message length, not storing a user message and providing an indication that there is no available storage space.

A communications device is disclosed. The communications device comprises a memory configured to store instructions and a processor configured to execute the instructions to receive data representing a message provided by a caller, determine at least an attribute of the message based on the received data, generate one or more options based on the attribute of the message, and present the one or more options to the caller to prompt the caller to take an additional action related to the message.

Disclosed embodiments provide improved communication between a caller and multiple parties. A caller performs a call spray operation on a group of contacts using an electronic communication device such as a mobile telephone. The call spray operation attempts to contact an electronic device associated with each contact in the group of contacts. If one of the contacts answers and is deemed to be a live user, then the remaining contacts that did not answer each receive a message on their associated electronic device indicating which of the contacts answered the caller with a live user. In this way, a group of people can be conveniently contacted and kept up to date with the status of the communication with the caller.

A system and method for transforming a voicemail message into a chat session between a first party and a second party. The method comprises receiving, at a remote server, a voice message from the first party which is destined for the second party. The server transcribes the voice message, which involves transforming the voice message into a text. The server then initiates the chat session between the first party and the second party, by sending the text and audio as a multi-media instant message (IM) to the first party and to the second party. The IM appears as an outgoing message on a first computing device associated with the first party, and as an incoming message on a second computing device associated with the second party.