Apparatus and method for monitoring progress of customer generated trouble tickets

• US 20040210469A1
• Filed: 05/12/2004
• Published: 10/21/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/1997
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jones, William R., Lindgren, Jeffrey S., Bollinger, David H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,610,213 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

An alerting system is provided for proactively ensuring awareness of pending trouble tickets which have not been resolved for at least a predetermined time duration corresponding to an escalation level. A customer service center selects the time duration. The alerting system includes a manager module which periodically monitors the pending trouble tickets and determines whether each pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time duration corresponding to the escalation level. The alerting system also includes an alerting module which sends an alert to a recipient assigned to the escalation level when the manager module determines the pending trouble ticket has not been resolved for the time duration corresponding to the escalation level. The alerting system may also include a parsing module which parses the pending trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information. The parsing module also organizes the pending trouble tickets into data records according to a predefined format. Subsequently, the parsing module transmits to the manager module at a predefined interval, the data records for monitoring by the manager module.

Claims

1. A method of using a computer to evaluate pending trouble tickets, the method comprising:

evaluating each pending trouble ticket to determine whether a time duration exceeds a time threshold, the time duration comprising a length of time the pending trouble ticket has not been resolved;

requesting an alert be sent to a recipient when the time duration of the pending trouble tickets exceeds the time threshold; and

logging each alert sent along with corresponding alert information,

wherein the time duration further comprises a plurality of time thresholds, each time threshold corresponding to an escalation level associated with at least one recipient.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

informing a notification system of the alert recipient and the corresponding alert information; and

transmitting information to a report generator.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

parsing the pending trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information;

organizing the pending trouble tickets into data records according to a predefined format; and

transmitting, at a predefined interval, the data records organized according to the predefined format.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the predefined interval is the time required for organizing the data into one complete data record, and the alert comprises one of emailing, paging, and transmitting messages across an electronic bonding gateway.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the parsing determines whether each pending trouble ticket is related to a preceding pending trouble ticket, and when a relationship is determined, a data record is not generated for the subsequent pending trouble ticket.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the alert information further stores at least one of the alert recipient, a trouble ticket number corresponding to the pending trouble ticket causing the alert, and the time the alert was sent.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

determining when the pending trouble ticket has achieved the escalation level by reading the pending trouble ticket.

8. A method of operating a computer alerting system to evaluate pending trouble tickets, the method comprising:

evaluating the pending trouble tickets to determine whether each pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for a predetermined time corresponding to an escalation level;

requesting an alert be sent to a recipient assigned to the escalation level when it is determined that the pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for the predetermined time which exceeds a time threshold corresponding to the escalation level; and

storing alert information, the alert information including at least the alert recipient for the escalation level, and ticket information specifying which pending trouble ticket is being evaluated.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:

determining when the pending trouble ticket has achieved the escalation level by reading the pending trouble tickets.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the time threshold comprises a plurality of time thresholds corresponding to a plurality of escalation levels.

11. The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

determining the alert recipient when the pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for the predetermined time.

12. A computer readable medium for storing a computer program that evaluates pending trouble tickets, the computer readable medium comprising:

code that parses the pending trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information and that organizes the data into data records according to a predefined format;

code that evaluates the pending trouble tickets to determine whether each pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for a predetermined time corresponding to an escalation level; and

code that requests an alert be sent to a recipient, the recipient being assigned to an escalation level, when the pending trouble ticket remains unresolved for a time which exceeds a time threshold corresponding to the escalation level.

13. The computer readable medium according claim 12, further comprising:

code that logs each alert sent along with corresponding alert information.

14. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, wherein the alert information comprises the recipient of the alert, a trouble ticket number corresponding to the pending trouble ticket causing the alert, and a time the alert was sent for each escalation level.

15. The computer readable medium according to claim 13, further comprising:

code that informs the recipient of the alert and the corresponding alert information; and

code that transmits the alert information to a report generator.

16. The computer readable medium according to claim 12, wherein the time threshold comprises a plurality of time thresholds that each correspond to one of a plurality of escalation levels, and in which a user defines at least one recipient for each escalation level.

17. The computer readable medium according to claim 16, further comprising:

code that stores configuration files including a center alert file which contains alert information particular to a service center, the alert information comprising alert recipient information for each escalation level, and a center data file which contains ticket information particular to the service center, the ticket information specifying the time threshold for each escalation level.

18. The computer readable medium according claim 17, further comprising

code that determines the service center associated with the trouble ticket;

and

code that determines when the trouble ticket has exceeded the time threshold without one of service resolution and repair corresponding to the customer service center by reading the trouble ticket and querying the center data file corresponding to the service center identified in the trouble ticket to determine whether the trouble ticket should be evaluated,

wherein, when the trouble ticket should be evaluated, the time threshold originates from the center data file, and wherein when the trouble ticket has exceeded the time threshold without one of service resolution and repair, then the center data file queries the center alert file to determine the recipient of the alert.

19. The computer readable medium according to claim 18, further comprising:

code that updates alert information and ticket information into the configuration files at any desired time and the updated alert information and updated ticket information becomes effective when the next trouble ticket is processed.

20. The computer readable medium according claim 12, wherein when a pending trouble ticket is related to a preceding pending trouble ticket, a data record is not generated for the subsequent pending trouble ticket.