Abstract: A telephone system allows a user to provide new services to terminations in a telephone network. A server having program sequences for controlling its operation connects the terminations and the telephone network. Using certain of its program sequences, the server monitors the occurrence of a request event at one of the terminations. A processor, distinct from the server, controls the server by accessing a directly accessible database to extract a state transition rule to provide control information corresponding to the response event. Information is returned to the terminations in response to the control information. The database storing the state transition rules is directly accessible by the user for changing the state transition rules to modify the services without changing the program sequences of the server. State transition rules within the database may be inserted, deleted or modified using conventional database management techniques.