Telephone-based personnel tracking system

Claim 1

A method for tracking employees and generating employee reports, the method comprising: receiving telephone calls by a computer system from calling telephones located at various work sites; detecting ANI (Automatic Number Identification) data which precedes the telephone calls; receiving form the calling telephones employee identification codes, wherein each code identifies a respective calling employee; providing an employee identification code data base containing valid employee identification codes; verifying the employee identification codes being received form the calling telephones against the valid employee identification codes stored in the employee identification code data base; creating telephone call records comprising those of the received telephone calls which have been verified against the valid employee identification codes and stamping each telephone call record with a time and date mark; and generating a report containing information which defines for each given telephone call record the location from which the telephone call record was received based on the ANI data associated with the given telephone call record, the time and date of the telephone call and the identity of the employee.

Claim 2

A method for tracking employees and generating employee reports, the method comprising: receiving telephone calls by a computer system from calling telephones located at various work sites; detecting ANI (Automatic Number Identification) data which precedes the telephone calls; receiving form the calling telephones employee identification codes, wherein each code identifies a respective calling employee; providing an employee identification code data base containing valid employee identification codes; verifying the employee identification codes being received form the calling telephones against the valid employee identification codes stored in the employee identification code data base; creating telephone call records comprising those of the received telephone calls which have been verified against the valid employee identification codes and stamping each telephone call record with a time and date mark; and generating a report containing information which defines for each given telephone call record the location from which the telephone call record was received based on the ANI data associated with the given telephone call record, the time and date of the telephone call and the identity of the employee.

Claim 17

A system for tracking the arrival and departure times of employees at various work sites, the system comprising: a computer system and means for coupling the computer system to a telephone network; means for receiving telephone calls at the computer and for detecting ANI (Automatic Number Identification) data which precedes the telephone calls; means for receiving from calling telephones employee identification codes, wherein each employee identification code defines a given employee and is entered by the given employee into a respective one of the calling telephones; an employee identification data base containing valid employee identification codes; means for verifying said employee identification codes against said identification data base and accepting valid telephone calls based on predetermined criteria for validating telephone calls; a telephone location data base containing information relating said ANI data to the locations of the telephones; means for creating a computer record of each accepted telephone call and for stamping each telephone record with a time and a data; and means for creating a report containing information which defines the locations from which the telephone calls were made, the time and date of the telephone calls, and the identity of the telephone caller.

Claim 18

A system for tracking the arrival and departure times of employees at various work sites, the system comprising: a computer system and means for coupling the computer system to a telephone network; means for receiving telephone calls at the computer and for detecting ANI (Automatic Number Identification) data which precedes the telephone calls; means for receiving from calling telephones employee identification codes, wherein each employee identification code defines a given employee and is entered by the given employee into a respective one of the calling telephones; an employee identification data base containing valid employee identification codes; means for verifying said employee identification codes against said identification data base and accepting valid telephone calls based on predetermined criteria for validating telephone calls; a telephone location data base containing information relating said ANI data to the locations of the telephones; means for creating a computer record of each accepted telephone call and for stamping each telephone record with a time and a data; and means for creating a report containing information which defines the locations from which the telephone calls were made, the time and date of the telephone calls, and the identity of the telephone caller.