Methods and systems to avoid unproductive dispatches

• US 20070081633A1
• Filed: 09/29/2005
• Published: 04/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sbc Knowledge Ventures, L.P.
• Original Assignee: Sbc Knowledge Ventures, L.P.
• Inventors: Rives, David, Brewer, Jason
• Granted Patent: US 8,675,822 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/29.80
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Methods and systems are disclosed to dispatch service resources in a communication network. An example method disclosed herein receives a notice of error for a user service, identifies equipment associated with the user service, analyzes the equipment to generate a dispatch instruction, and automatically executes the dispatch instruction in response to the equipment analysis.

Claims

1. A method to dispatch service resources comprising:

receiving a notice of error for a user service;

identifying equipment associated with the user service;

analyzing the equipment to generate a dispatch instruction; and

automatically executing the dispatch instruction in response to the equipment analysis, wherein the dispatch instruction comprises a service type.

2. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein receiving a notice of error comprises receiving a telephone number associated with the user service.

3. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein identifying equipment associated with the user service comprises querying a database to correlate a user service identifier with the equipment associated with the user service.

4. A method as defined in claim 3 wherein the user service identifier comprises at least one of a telephone number, an account number, or an address.

5. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein analyzing the equipment comprises executing scripts to send equipment commands and receive equipment responses.

6. A method as defined in claim 5 further comprising querying a database for the received equipment responses and, if found, selecting a corresponding dispatch instruction.

7. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein automatically executing the dispatch instruction in response to the equipment analysis comprises forwarding the dispatch instruction to a service fleet dispatch system.

8. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein the service type comprises an authorization level or a technician level.

9. A method as defined in claim 8 wherein the authorization level is at least one of zero authorization or full authorization.

10. A method as defined in claim 8 wherein the technician level is at least one of a standard technician, an advanced technician, or a network engineer.

11. A method as defined in claim 10 wherein the standard technician includes a zero authorization level.

12. A method as defined in claim 10 wherein the advanced technician includes a full authorization level.

13. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein automatically executing the dispatch instruction comprises dispatching resources based on at least one of a geographic proximity, the service type, or a third party contractor type.

14. A resource dispatch system comprising:

a correlation engine to receive service identifiers of a network user experiencing a communication service error, wherein the correlation engine is configured to correlate a network element with the service identifiers; and

a dispatch engine to automatically analyze the network element and determine a dispatch instruction, wherein the dispatch instruction comprises a service type.

15. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 wherein the service identifiers comprise at least one of a telephone number, an account number, or an address.

16. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further comprising a dispatch instruction database to store a plurality of dispatch instructions.

17. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 16 wherein the dispatch instruction database further comprises a plurality of script routines for the network element.

18. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further including at least one script program to analyze the network element.

19. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 18 wherein the at least one script program comprises at least one of iHTML script, Cold Fusion, Python, or Perl.

20. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further comprising a user interface to receive the service identifiers of the network user and initiate scripts to automatically analyze the network element.

21. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further comprising a service fleet dispatch system, wherein the dispatch engine is configured to automatically forward the dispatch instruction to the service fleet dispatch system in response to determining the dispatch instruction.

22. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further including a plurality of network users.

23. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 further including a plurality of network elements.

24. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 wherein the service type is at least one of zero authorization level or full authorization level.

25. A resource dispatch system as defined in claim 14 wherein the service type is at least one of a standard technician, an advanced technician, or a network engineer.

26. An article of manufacture storing machine readable instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to:

receive a service identifier associated with a communication service;

determine a network element associated with the communication service;

analyze the network element associated with the communication service; and

report at least one instruction upon completion of the analysis of the network element, wherein the at least one instruction comprises a service type.

27. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 26 wherein the service identifier comprises at least one of a telephone number, an account number, or an address.

28. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 26 wherein the machine readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to query a database to determine a network element associated with the communication service.

29. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 26 wherein the machine readable instructions comprise a script program to send commands and receive responses from the network element.

30. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 27 wherein the machine readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to send at least one of ASCII format commands, SCPI commands, or TL1 commands.

31. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 26 wherein the service type comprises at least one of an authorization level or a technician level.

32. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 31 wherein the authorization level comprises at least one of no authorization or full authorization.

33. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 31 wherein the technician level comprises at least one of a standard technician, an advanced technician, or a network engineer.

34. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 26 wherein the machine readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to dispatch resources based on at least one of a geographic proximity, a service type, an authorization level, or a third party contractor type.