Apparatus and method for monitoring progress of customer generated trouble tickets

• US 6,219,648 B1
• Filed: 03/31/1998
• Issued: 04/17/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jones, William R., Lindgren, Jeffrey S., Bollinger, David H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Voeltz, Emanuel Todd
• Assistant Examiner(s): Alvarez, Raquel
• Application Number:
  US09/050,990
• Time in Patent Office: 1,113 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/7, 705/8, 379/134, 379/371, 379/45, 379/93.08, 379/100.05, 379/100.06, 379/131, 379/290, 379/130, 340/691.3, 340/506, 340/527, 707/103, 700/80, 714/48, 714/52
• US Class Current: 705/7.39
• 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 customer generated 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 customer generated trouble tickets and determines whether each pending customer generated 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 customer generated 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 customer generated trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information. The parsing module also organizes the pending customer generated 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. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of data satisfying predetermined alerting criteria, the alerting system comprising:

a manager module that periodically monitors the data to determine whether the data satisfies the predetermined alerting criteria;

an alerting module that sends an alert to a recipient when the manager module determines the data satisfies the predetermined alerting criteria; and

a report generator that generates a report logging each alert sent by the alerting module along with corresponding alert information,

wherein the data comprises pending customer generated trouble tickets, in which the predetermined alerting criteria is at least one time interval, and in which each pending customer generated trouble ticket satisfies the alerting criteria when the trouble represented by the pending customer generated trouble ticket has not been resolved for a time period within the at least one time interval,

wherein the alerting module comprises an error manager module and a notification system which alerts the recipient, the error manager module informing the notification system of the alert recipient and the corresponding alert information, and transmitting information to the report generator.

2. The alerting system of claim 1, further comprising a parsing module which parses the data to remove extraneous and invalid information and which organizes the data into data records according to a predefined format, the parsing module transmitting to the manager module at a predefined interval, the data records organized according to the predefined format, for monitoring by the manager module.

3. The alerting system of claim 2, in which the predefined interval is the time required for organizing the data into one complete data record, and in which alerting the recipient comprises either emailing, paging, or transmitting messages across an electronic bonding gateway.

4. The alerting system of claim 2, in which the data comprises pending customer generated trouble tickets, and in which the parsing module determines whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket is related to a preceding pending customer generated trouble ticket, wherein if a relationship is determined, the parsing module does not generate a data record for the subsequent pending customer generated trouble ticket.

5. The alerting system of claim 1, in which the alert information comprises the alert recipient, a trouble ticket number corresponding to the pending customer generated trouble ticket causing the alert, and the time the alert was sent.

6. The alerting system of claim 1, in which the predetermined alerting criteria comprises a plurality of time intervals, each time interval corresponding to an escalation level, and in which a user defines at least one recipient for each escalation level.

7. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of data satisfying predetermined alerting criteria, the alerting system comprising:

a manager module that periodically monitors the data to determine whether the data satisfies the predetermined alerting criteria;

an alerting module that sends an alert to a recipient when the manager module determines the data satisfies the predetermined alerting criteria;

the predetermined alerting criteria comprising a plurality of time intervals, each time interval corresponding to an escalation level, wherein a user defines at least one recipient for each escalation level; and

configuration files comprising;

a center alert file which stores alert information particular to a service center, the alert information comprising alert recipient information for each escalation level; and

a center data file which stores ticket information particular to the service center, the ticket information specifying the alert criteria for each escalation level.

8. The alerting system of claim 7, in which the manager module discerns a service center associated with the data and determines if the data satisfies the alerting criteria corresponding to the customer service center by reading the data and querying the center data file corresponding to the service center identified in the data to determine whether the data should be monitored, wherein, if the data should be monitored, the manager module determines the alerting criteria from the center data file, and wherein if the data satisfies the alerting criteria, then the center data file queries the center alert file to determine the alert recipient.

9. The alerting system of claim 8, in which a user inputs updated alert information and updated ticket information into the configuration files at any desired time and the updated alert information and updated ticket information becomes effective when the manager module process the next trouble ticket.

10. The alerting system of claim 8, further comprising a system alert file which stores information relating to a system administrator who will receive an alert if a system error occurs, the system error comprising either the manager module receiving no data for predefined period, the parser discerning an invalid specific service center, the manager module receiving an invalid entry from the center alert file or the manager module receiving an invalid entry from the center data file.

11. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of pending customer generated trouble tickets that have not been resolved for at least a predetermined time corresponding to an escalation level, the time being selected by a customer service center, the alerting system comprising:

a manager module that periodically monitors the pending customer generated trouble tickets to determine whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level;

an alerting module that sends an alert to a recipient assigned to the escalation level when the manager module determines the pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level; and

a report generator which generates a report logging each alert by the alerting module.

12. The alerting system of claim 11, in which the alerting module comprises an error manager module and a notification system which sends the alert to the recipient, the error manager module informing the notification system of the alert recipient along with corresponding information, and transmitting report information to the report generator.

13. The alerting system of claim 11 further comprising a trouble ticket generating system which receives trouble ticket information from a plurality of sources and periodically transmits aggregated trouble ticket information to the manager module for monitoring.

14. The alerting system of claim 11, further comprising a parsing module which parses the pending customer generated trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information and which organizes the pending customer generated trouble tickets into data records according to a predefined format, the parsing module transmitting to the manager module at a predefined interval, the data records organized according to the predefined format, for monitoring by the manager module.

15. The alerting system of claim 14, in which the parsing module determines whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket is related to a preceding pending customer generated trouble ticket, and wherein if a relationship is determined, the parsing module generates only one data record for all related pending customer generated trouble tickets.

16. The alerting system of claim 11, further comprising a system alert file which stores information relating to a system administrator who will receive an alert when a system error occurs.

17. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of pending customer generated trouble tickets that have not been resolved for at least a predetermined time corresponding to an escalation level, the time being selected by a customer service center, the alerting system comprising:

a manager module that periodically monitors the pending customer generated trouble tickets to determine whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level;

an alerting module that sends an alert to a recipient assigned to the escalation level when the manager module determines the pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level; and

configuration files comprising;

a center file which stores alert information particular to a service center, the alert information comprising the alert recipient for the escalation level; and

a center data file which stores ticket information particular to the service center, the ticket information specifying which pending customer generated trouble ticket the manager module monitors and the alert criteria corresponding to the escalation level.

18. The alerting system of claim 17, in which the manager module discerns a service center associated with the pending customer generated trouble ticket and determines if the pending customer generated trouble ticket has achieved the escalation level defined by the customer service center by reading the pending customer generated trouble ticket and querying the center data file corresponding to the service center identified in the pending customer generated trouble ticket to determine whether the pending customer generated trouble ticket should be monitored, wherein if the pending customer generated trouble ticket should be monitored, the manager module determines the predetermined time corresponding to the escalation level from the center data file, and wherein if the pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the predetermined time, then the center data file queries the center alert file to determine the alert recipient.