CUTE (Columbia University Telecommunication service Editor) CU IRT

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Click here to play a movie (2'26", 9.3M) showing how to create a telecommunication service using our service editor, CUTE.

User Manual for CUTE (Columbia University Telecommunication service Editor)

  • 1. Basic knowledge of telecommunication services
  • 2. CUTE overview
  • 3. Start CUTE
  • 4. Check call conditions in CUTE
  • 5. Perform actions in CUTE
  • 6. Further processing after performing an action
  • 7. Detailed information of conditions
  • 8. Detailed information of actions

    1. Basic knowledge of telecommunication services

    Before using CUTE, a user needs to have some basic understanding of telecommunication services. A telecommunication service can change the default bahavior of phones to provide convenience to users. In common, when an incoming call arrives at a user's phone, the phone rings until the user picks it up. Telecommucation services can change this behavior. For example, if the user is in a meeting and does not want to be disturbed, she can enable the "Do Not Distrub (DND)" service. The DND service can automatically reject calls so the user will not hear the ring tone during the meeting. The user may further customize the DND service, for example, by checking the name of the caller, she can allow only her boss to call her during the meeting.

    2. CUTE overview

    The task of CUTE is to help users to create and customize their telecommunication services. In CUTE, a telecommunication service is viewed as how a user makes her decisions on a telecommunication event, such as an incoming call. CUTE can guide users to make their decisions based on certain conditions, e.g., checking whether a call is from a specific people or not. Users' decisions usually involve one or several actions, such as rejecting a call, to handle the telecommunication event. The figure below shows a fragment of CUTE's drawing board with a service that automatically rejects calls from Bob Smith.

    3. Start CUTE

    To start CUTE, a user can simply run 'cute.exe' on a Windows machine, or 'cute' on Unix/Linux. The first dialog the user will see is as below.



    The dialog shows three tasks the user can work on. The user can also choose not to use this dialog now or in the future for service creation. The name of the tasks self-explains their meanings. The user can choose one task, for example, 'Handle incoming calls', to start her service creation process, and an 'incoming call' icon () will appear on CUTE's drawing board.



    The incoming icon links to a list of available operations that the user can select to handle incoming calls. The user can choose to check the conditions of the call, or to perform some actions for handling the call.

    4. Check call conditions in CUTE

    When the user chooses a condition to check, e.g., 'check the caller/callee', an addressbook icon () appears with a small dialog asking for detailed information of the checking.



    For example, if the user wants to check whether a call is from Bob Smith or not, she can specify the field to check as the "name" of the "caller", and input the value "Bob Smith".



    She can then click the "Ok" button and see the addressbook icon () with a description beside it, as well as two branches for additional processing. One branch handles the situation for calls from Bob Smith, and the other handles calls from others. The user can use the same way described in this section to do further checking, or use the way described in the next section to perform actions. The more detailed information about each condition checking can be found in the Detailed information of conditions section of this manual.

    5. Perform actions in CUTE

    Condition checking itself cannot provide any convenience to users. The most important thing of call handling is to perform actions to deal with calls.



    CUTE allows users to specify a number of actions, such as automatically accepting, rejecting, and forwardng calls. A user can also choose "Default call handling" so her phone will behave in normal as what described in the section Basic knowledge of telecommunication services.



    If the user chooses an action, e.g., "Reject the call" action, the rejecting call icon () will appear with a small dialog for configuring the action. The user can specify the reason for rejecting a call. The more detailed information about each action can be found in the Detailed information of actions section of this manual.

    6. Further processing after performing an action

    One action can be followed by further actions or condition checkings based on the result of the action. For example, a user would like to have a service to automatically "call 12129397000" at a specific time. If the call fails, the user wants to send an email to "bob@example.com". In CUTE, after the user adds the "call" action, the user will see a dialog asking for further processing options, as shown in the figure below.



    For example, the user may choose to handle the busy status of the call. After the user clicking the 'Handle selected options' button, the user will see a branch with available operations for further processing as shown in the figure below. The more detailed information about the further processing options of actions can be found in the Detailed information of actions section of this manual.



    7. Detailed information of conditions

    For an incoming call, a user can check seven different conditions, namely "Check the caller/callee", "Check the call time", "Check the subject of the call", "Check the priority of the call", "Check the language of the call", "Check location", and "Check status".

    Check the caller/callee



    A user can check who makes a call, and who should accept the call. For example, the user can create a service to automatically reject calls from Bob Smith by checking the name of the caller.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see an address checking icon () with a configuration dialog. On the dialog, she can choose whom to check (caller/callee), and what to check (address/name/phone#). The address can be an email address or a SIP address. (If the user does not know what is a SIP address, it does not matter. In many cases, putting "sip:" before a person's email address will be the person's SIP address. For example, sip:bob@example.com is a SIP address).

    Check the call time



    A user can check when a call arrives for call handling. For example, the user can automatically reject all Sunday morning calls.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a time checking icon () with a configuration dialog. The checking can be recurred. For example, if the user wants to do the checking every Sunday, she can set the recurrrence as "weekly".

    Check the subject of the call



    A user can check the subject of a call for call handling. For example, the user can automatically reject calls if their subject is "Advertisement".

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a string checking icon () with a configuration dialog. The user can input the subject to check.

    Check the priority of the call



    A user can check the priority of a call for call handling. For example, the user can automatically accept emergency calls.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a priority checking icon () with a configuration dialog. There are four different priorities, namely "emergency", "urgent", "normal", and "non-urgent". The user can choose to check whether the priority of a call is "equal-to", "greater than", or "less than" a specific priority value.

    Check the language of the call



    A user can check the language of a call for call handling. For example, the user can automatically reject non-English speaking calls.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a language checking icon () with a list of languages. The user can choose one or more languages to check against.

    Check the status of the user



    A user can check her own status for call handling. For example, she can automatically reject calls when she is busy.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a status checking icon (). She can make call decisions based on her presence, activity, mood, placetype, privacy, and idle status. Different status have different set of values. For example, the available values for presence status are "online" and "offline", while the available values for privacy status are "private" and "public".

    Check the location of the user



    A user can check her own physical location for call handling. For example, she can automatically accept calls when she is in home.

    When the user chooses this operation, she will see a location checking icon (). She can configure her civic location information and make call decisions based on the location.

    8. Detailed information of actions

    CUTE provides several actions for users to handle calls. In addition, CUTE also allows users to perform non-call related actions, such as sending emails, and controlling networked appliances.

    Answer an incoming call



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the accept icon () with a label "accept the call". The action will automatically accept incoming calls.

    Reject an incoming call



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the reject icon () with a configuration box asking her for the reason to reject the call. The action will automatically reject incoming calls, and tell the caller about the reason.

    Forward an incoming call to another phone



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the call forwarding icon () with a configuration box asking for where to forward the call. The action will automatically forward incoming calls to the configured address.

    Play customized ring tone



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the alerting action icon () with a configuration box asking for the ring style. For customized ring style, the configuration box will also ask the audio file to play. The action will automatically play the user configured ring tone.

    Make an outgoing call



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the calling action icon () with a configuration box asking for the target of the call. The action will automatically place an outgoing call.

    Send an instant message



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the instant messaging action icon () with a configuration box asking for the target, and the content of the message. The action will automatically send an instant message to the target address.

    Disconnect a call



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the disconnecting call action icon (). The action will automatically disconnect ongoing calls.

    Transfer a call to another phone



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the transferring call action icon () with a configuration box asking for the target address to transfer calls. The action will automatically transfer ongoing calls to the target address.

    Send an email



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the email action icon () with a configuration asking for the target address, subject, and content of the email. The action will automatically send an email to the target address.

    Control networked appliances



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the control action icon () with a configuration for the address of the networked appliance that need to be controlled. A networked appliance can be a lamp, a microwave, a stereo, and etc. The action can automatically send a control command to the networked appliance.

    Wait for a period of time



    When a user chooses this action, she will see the wait action icon () with a configuration box asking for how long to wait. The action can cause the user's phone to wait for a period of time before executing subsequent actions.


  • Last updated by Xiaotao Wu