Alerting Service Desk Users of Business Services Outages

• US 20150172152A1
• Filed: 12/12/2013
• Published: 06/18/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Aggarwal, Vijay K., Dickerson, Scott S., Whitehead, Edward D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,830,212 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0721 within a central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0604 using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/507 Filtering out customers affected by service problems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

An approach is provided in a service desk detects a current computer resource outage and identifies applications corresponding to the computer resource outage. The service desk uses historical service request entries to match the identified applications to users previously inquiring about the applications and, in turn, sends notifications to the users regarding the computer resource outage.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

identifying one or more applications corresponding to a computer resource outage;

comparing the identified one or more applications to one or more historical service request entries;

selecting one or more users that correspond to the identified one or more applications based upon the comparison; and

notifying the one or more users of the computer resource outage.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein, prior to the computer resource outage, the method further comprises:

receiving a service request from one of the one or more users in response to the user experiencing a computer resource issue, the computer resource issue corresponding to an earlier computer resource outage that occurred prior to the computer resource outage; and

generating a service request entry in response to receiving the service request, wherein the generated service request entry is one of the one or more historical service request entries;

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

determining whether the service request includes an error code;

in response to determining that the service request includes an error code;

identifying one of the one or more applications that correspond to the error code; and

including a first application identifier corresponding to the identified application in the service request entry; and

in response to determining that the service request fails to include an error code;

performing textual analysis on a problem description included in the service request;

selecting one of the one or more applications based upon the textual analysis; and

including a second application identifier corresponding to the selected application in the service request entry.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein, subsequent to the selection of the one or more users, the method further comprises:

receiving a login request;

determining that the login request corresponds to a first one of the one or more selected users corresponding to one of the one or more applications; and

displaying an outage notification on a user interface home screen in response to the determination.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

receiving an un-subscribe request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

disassociating the first user from the outage notification.

6. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

receiving a resolution notification request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

notifying the first user when the computer resource outage is resolved in response to receiving the resolution notification request.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the notifying includes sending a message to each of the selected one or more users.

8. An information handling system comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory coupled to at least one of the processors;

a set of computer program instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the processors in order to perform actions of;

identifying one or more applications corresponding to a computer resource outage;

comparing the identified one or more applications to one or more historical service request entries;

selecting one or more users that correspond to the identified one or more applications based upon the comparison; and

notifying the one or more users of the computer resource outage.

9. The information handling system of claim 8 wherein, prior to the computer resource outage, the processors perform additional actions comprising:

receiving a service request from one of the one or more users in response to the user experiencing a computer resource issue, the computer resource issue corresponding to an earlier computer resource outage that occurred prior to the computer resource outage; and

generating a service request entry in response to receiving the service request, wherein the generated service request entry is one of the one or more historical service request entries;

10. The information handling system of claim 9 wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:

determining whether the service request includes an error code;

in response to determining that the service request includes an error code;

identifying one of the one or more applications that correspond to the error code; and

including a first application identifier corresponding to the identified application in the service request entry; and

in response to determining that the service request fails to include an error code;

performing textual analysis on a problem description included in the service request;

selecting one of the one or more applications based upon the textual analysis; and

including a second application identifier corresponding to the selected application in the service request entry.

11. The information handling system of claim 8 wherein, subsequent to the selection of the one or more users, the processors perform additional actions comprising:

receiving a login request;

determining that the login request corresponds to a first one of the one or more selected users corresponding to one of the one or more applications; and

displaying an outage notification on a user interface home screen in response to the determination.

12. The information handling system of claim 11 wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:

receiving an un-subscribe request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

disassociating the first user from the outage notification.

13. The information handling system of claim 11 wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:

receiving a resolution notification request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

notifying the first user when the computer resource outage is resolved in response to receiving the resolution notification request.

14. The information handling system of claim 8 wherein the notifying includes sending a message to each of the selected one or more users.

15. A computer program product stored in a computer readable storage medium, comprising computer program code that, when executed by an information handling system, causes the information handling system to perform actions comprising:

identifying one or more applications corresponding to a computer resource outage;

comparing the identified one or more applications to one or more historical service request entries;

selecting one or more users that correspond to the identified one or more applications based upon the comparison; and

notifying the one or more users of the computer resource outage.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein, prior to the computer resource outage, the processors perform additional actions comprising:

receiving a service request from one of the one or more users in response to the user experiencing a computer resource issue, the computer resource issue corresponding to an earlier computer resource outage that occurred prior to the computer resource outage; and

generating a service request entry in response to receiving the service request, wherein the generated service request entry is one of the one or more historical service request entries;

17. The computer program product of claim 16 wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:

determining whether the service request includes an error code;

in response to determining that the service request includes an error code;

identifying one of the one or more applications that correspond to the error code; and

including a first application identifier corresponding to the identified application in the service request entry; and

in response to determining that the service request fails to include an error code;

performing textual analysis on a problem description included in the service request;

selecting one of the one or more applications based upon the textual analysis; and

including a second application identifier corresponding to the selected application in the service request entry.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein, subsequent to the selection of the one or more users, the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:

receiving a login request;

determining that the login request corresponds to a first one of the one or more selected users corresponding to one of the one or more applications; and

displaying an outage notification on a user interface home screen in response to the determination.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:

receiving an un-subscribe request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

disassociating the first user from the outage notification.

20. The computer program product of claim 18 wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:

receiving a resolution notification request from the first user in response to displaying the outage notification; and

notifying the first user when the computer resource outage is resolved in response to receiving the resolution notification request.