A system for scheduling and initiating a telephone conference including an application server including: an interface and a parser operably coupled to the interface to extract information from received information. The system may further include a communication server that includes an event database operable to generate an event ID responsive to the received event information and store an event record, and a contact database comprising a plurality of contact records that determines if the plurality of contact records comprises either of the event host or the event participant. The system further includes a telephone interface operable to establish a conference call responsive to the event date and the event time and call each of the event host and the event participant.

Processing customer communications may include receiving a communication from a customer device via a messaging application. One example method of operation may include transmitting a message from a conference call server to a user device, receiving a response message from the user device, extracting the response message data, processing the response message data and identifying one or more conference call preferences, and transmitting a notification to the user device when a conference call date occurs.

Meeting and conferencing systems and methods are implemented in a variety of manners. Consistent with one embodiment of the present disclosure, a method for operating an audio conference system that includes at least one logic circuit and a caller interface involves receiving incoming telephony calls at the caller interface. A logic circuit is used to authenticate incoming telephony calls. Menu options are provided to authenticated, incoming telephony calls. In response to a selection of the menu options, an incoming telephony call is prompted to select a callback number. The logic circuit monitors for a trigger event. A participant is called back using the selected call back number in response to detecting the trigger event. The called-back participant is then placed into a conference.

A method of simplifying electronic communications between a plurality of users by communication implementation and management. Each user has an electronic identifier, which may be of a type, such as a website address, domain, LinkedIn address, etc. Each identifier is unique to each user. The methods disclosed facilitate communication amalgamation between otherwise disparate electronic platforms. In one embodiment, different conference calling platforms may be amalgamated with simultaneous call out to users. In other embodiments, a conference calling platforms may be amalgamated with an electronic communication platform which is not a conference calling platform to render the latter effectively operational as the former in a unified manner.

Initiating a conference call includes receiving a conference call request message from an initiating user specifying a plurality of other users and determining an availability of the other users to receive conference call invitations. A conference call is initiated between the initiating user and one or more of the other users that are determined to be available. The availability of one or more of the other users determined to be unavailable is monitored and interaction with a conference call invitation by one or more of the other users determined to be unavailable is enabled upon their monitored availability changing from unavailable to available. The interaction with the conference call invitation by the other users is conditioned on whether the conference call is still in progress.

Method and system for group calling in an IP-based communication system includes receiving an administrator identifier, receiving one or more invitee identifiers, initiating a first connection from a central location and initiating at least one or more second connections from the central location to join an administrator and at least one invitee. The administrator identifier and one or more invitee identifiers can be a telephone number or other identifiers associated with the communication system. To establish the group call, the administrator identifier and one or more invitee identifiers are received from the administrator. The first connection initiation is to the administrator and the second or more connection initiations are to the at least one invitee. System for making a group call includes a user interface adapted for use by the administrator, a database manager, a database, a load balancer and a group calling pool adapted for SIP-based group call setup.

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.

In order to facilitate group communication using characteristics of a prearranged group but not involving all members of the pre-arranged group, a parameter indicating that the group communication is not intended to all members of the pre-arranged group is added by an inviting group member sending a request to a group server, and the group server, in response to the parameter, is configured to not to invite all members to the group communication.

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 method is provided for resolving a call collision in a communication network. The method comprises, at a network node of the communication network: receiving a first call request message from a first user device to set up a call from the first user device to a second user device; checking whether the second user device has in turn sent a second call request message to set up a call from the second user device to the first user device; and ein the affirmative, routing the first call request message to a conference bridge.