MULTIMEDIA B2B OPPORTUNITY AND ERROR DETECTION AND RESOLUTION ENGINE

• US 20080104596A1
• Filed: 12/27/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Carrier, Brian, Quatrano, Stephen, Buonanno, Mark, Swailes, Michael, Shenefiel, Chris
• Granted Patent: US 8,548,861 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method and system for automatically handling exceptions in a business-to-business transaction. E-commerce internet gateways through which the business-to-business transaction passes are monitored for exceptions. When an exception is detected, an intelligent contact manager automatically determines and then locates the representative(s) authorized to resolve this exception. A unified communication system is then utilized to automatically contact and notify the authorized representative(s) of the exception. A web collaboration system is then utilized to automatically establish a collaboration session between representatives of the business-to-business transaction so that the exception can be readily resolved.

Claims

1-36. -36. (canceled)

37. An apparatus comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory coupled to the processors comprising instructions executable by the processors, the processors operable when executing the instructions to;

forward packetized workflow procurement process communications exchanged between a customer endpoint and a supplier endpoint over first and second networks, the packetized workflow procurement process communications representing one or more purchasing transactions exchanged between transactional parties;

monitor the packetized workflow procurement process communications to determine whether final receipts are sent between the transactional parties to indicate consummation of the purchasing transactions, and when the purchasing transactions are not consummated, identify one or more exceptions associated with disrupting consummation of the purchasing transactions;

generate a notification indicating a failure condition for the identified transactions when the identified exceptions correspond to a flagged type;

access a database that lists both potential distributees for the generated notification including agents corresponding to the transactional parties and business information corresponding to the agents;

generate, using the database and according to the business information, a ranked listing of the agents for intelligently distributing the generated notification; and

distribute the generated notification to one or more of the agents intelligently according to the ranked listing to resolve the identified exceptions.

38. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

determine whether the identified exceptions correspond to a first flagged type that occurs when a sending application does not receive a confirmation within a predetermined time period, a second flagged type that occurs when either the first or second network are unable to transfer one or more of the packetized workflow procurement process communications, or a third flagged type that occurs when the packetized workflow procurement process communications include an out of bounds security parameter;

generate the notification when the identified exceptions correspond to one or more of the flagged types; and

format the generated notification to indicated the determined flagged

39. The apparatus of claim 38 wherein the processors are further operable to compare the determined flag type to the business information for ranking the agents for intelligent distribution of the generated notification.

40. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein the processors are further operable to:

receive fulfillment offers from a plurality of vendors;

rank the suppliers according to proposed prices and delivery times included in the fulfillment offers to select a supplying one of the transactional parties;

send the selected supplying one of the transactional parties a purchasing request; and

identify the exception of the flagged type when the selected supplying one of the transactional parties does not respond to the purchasing request in a predetermined amount of time.

41. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

determine whether the identified exceptions require involvement from more than one of the agents;

establish a collaboration session between the required agents independently of any requests from the required agents when the identified exceptions require involvement from more than one of the agents; and

send the generated notification to the required agents automatically and independently of any prompting from the required agents.

42. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

send one or more messages to a highest ranked one of the agents included in the ranked list;

observe any responses from the highest ranked agent to determine whether the highest ranked agent can be located; and

send the same or other messages to a second highest ranked one of the agents included in the ranked list when the responses are not observed.

43. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

identify a customer segment associated with a purchasing one of the transactional parties; and

rank the listing of potential distributees for the generated notification based on the identified customer segment.

44. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

analyze the business information included in the database to identify a location for contacting a highest ranked one of the agents included in the ranked listing; and

send one or more messages to the highest ranked agent, the messages addressed to the identified location.

45. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

identify a portion of the business information in the database that forecasts customer volume; and

rank the listing according to the portion of the business information that forecasts customer volume to effectively allocate agent resources.

46. The apparatus of claim 37 wherein the processors are further operable to:

analyze the business information to identify respective job skills belonging to the agents and availability schedules for the agents; and

generate the ranked listing of the agents according to whether the identified agent job skills correspond with the failure conditions and according to whether the identified availability schedules for the agents correspond to a current time.

47. A method comprising:

forwarding packetized workflow procurement process communications exchanged between a customer endpoint and a supplier endpoint over first and second networks, the packetized workflow procurement process communications representing one or more purchasing transactions exchanged between transactional parties;

detecting one or more exceptions that disrupt the purchasing transactions by analyzing the packetized workflow procurement process communications during the forwarding of the packetized workflow procurement process communications;

identifying a listing of agents associated with the transactional parties using a database, the database providing business information that indicates job skills respectively belonging to the agents and schedules for the agents;

filtering the identified agent listing according to whether the respective job skills correspond to the detected exceptions;

filtering the identified agent listing according to whether the respective schedules correspond to a time that the exceptions are detected; and

establishing a session with at least one agent selected from the filtered agent listing, the session used for indicating the detected exception to the selected agent and resolving the exceptions that disrupted the purchasing transaction.

48. The method of claim 47 further comprising, before establishing the session, filtering the identified agent listing according to a customer segment associated with the customer endpoint.

49. The method of claim 47 further comprising:

identifying an Interactive Voiced Response (IVR) system used by the agents included in the identified agent listing;

observing load information that indicates both a first amount of load currently experienced by a first portion of the IVR system that is associated with a first subset of the agents and a second different amount of load currently experienced by a second portion of the IVR system that is associated with a second subset of the agents; and

filtering the identified agent list according to the observed load information before establishing the session.

50. The method of claim 49, wherein one of the subsets of the agents is filtered from the identified agent list when a respective portion of the IVR system is overloaded.

51. The method of claim 47 further comprising, before establishing the session, filtering the identified agent listing according to data that forecasts different contact-volume amounts for the different agents included in the identified agent listing such that the session is not established with one of the agents that is forecasted to be overloaded.

52. The method of claim 51 further comprising automatically selecting between a number of different media types for establishing the session with the at least one agent according to a respective one of the schedules.

53. The method of claim 52 wherein the different media types include email systems, fax systems and telephone systems.

54. A system comprising:

means for monitoring packetized communications being forwarded through an internet gateway to determine whether one or more business to business purchasing transactions are consummated, and when the purchasing transactions are not consummated according to the monitoring, identifying one or more exceptions associated with disruption of the purchasing transactions;

means for accessing a network database storing business data responsive to identifying the exceptions, the business data indicating;

skill information for making skill-based routing decisions when selecting one or more appropriate persons to authorize a response to the detected exceptions;

scheduling information for making scheduling-based routing decisions when selecting the appropriate persons to authorize the response to the detected exception; and

load balancing information for making Interactive Voice Response (IVR) infrastructure-load routing decisions when selecting the appropriate persons to authorize the response to the detected exceptions;

means for selecting one or more appropriate persons to authorize the response to the detected exceptions according to the business data;

means for using a unified communication system to automatically notify the appropriate persons of the detected exceptions;

means for receiving a confirmation acknowledging notification of said detected; and

means for automatically establishing a web collaboration session after receiving the confirmation.

55. The computer system of claim 54 wherein the network database and the business data are formatted according to the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

56. The computer system of claim 55 wherein the network database and the business data are formatted according to an extensible markup language protocol.