Computer support network with customer portal to monitor incident-handling status by vendor's computer service system

• US 20050198556A1
• Filed: 11/08/2004
• Published: 09/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Lee, Noreen K., Flocken, Philip A., Brothers, William, Tripp, Travis Scott, Hawkins, Joshua D., Shaughnessy, Jay
• Granted Patent: US 7,373,553 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/726
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0778 Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test

Abstract

Customer support personnel can access via a vendor'"'"'s portal an automated support vendor website to view the status of a fault incident that is being handled by the vendor'"'"'s automated support system. In an illustrated embodiment, the customer can actually alter the status of the fault incident while it is being handled on the vendor'"'"'s site.

Claims

1. A computer support network comprising:

a vendor service computer system for receiving and analyzing data relating to support incidents, said service computer system providing solutions to a customer to address said incidents, said vendor service computer system assigning states to an incident as it is being handled; and

a customer system running service software for detecting faults, gathering data concerning detected faults, and communicating said data to said vendor system, customer system accessing said solutions once they are provided by said vendor, said service software providing a portal providing for said customer to monitor the state of an incident being handled by said vendor service computer system.

2. A computer support network as recited in claim 1 wherein said service software further provides for said customer to alter the state of said incident via said portal.—

via portal or software directal