Method and system for strategic services enterprise workload management

• US 6,574,605 B1
• Filed: 11/17/1999
• Issued: 06/03/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Citibank (South Dakota) NA (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Citibank (South Dakota) NA (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Inventors: Sanders, Barbara, Gau, Jet, Robb, Curtis
• Primary Examiner(s): Hafiz, Tariq R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jeanty, Romain
• Application Number:
  US09/441,443
• Time in Patent Office: 1,294 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7, 705/8, 705/9, 705/34, 705/38, 705/40, 379/265.01, 379/265.02, 379/265.06
• US Class Current: 705/7.26
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063116 Schedule adjustment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

The invention provides a system and method for strategic services enterprise workload management and more particularly to an automated method and system for enterprise workload management that enables an organization such as a financial institution to route any channel service to customer service representatives at any capable service site. Thus, the invention enables an organization to provide service to its customers at any time and by any communications or service channel a customer, chooses, wherein the enterprise workload management knows all work in process for a customer so that when a customer is identified, that customer will be routed to the first available agent that can best satisfy both the customer'"'"'s intent and the organization'"'"'s intent.

Claims

1. A method for strategic services enterprise workload management, comprising:

maintaining a repository of enterprise resources information for a plurality of service professionals in a plurality of service channels;

receiving work performance information for the service professionals;

maintaining a repository of historic work performance information for the service professionals;

receiving information related to new and active work items for the service professionals;

maintaining a repository of summary inventory of the new and active work items;

maintaining a repository of contact context information related to the new and active work items;

automatically generating work schedules for the service professionals according to pre-defined forecasted demand and an enterprise business calendar and based at least in part on information from the repository of enterprise resources information and the repository of historic work performance information;

automatically balancing assignments among the service channels according to pre-defined prioritization parameters and based at least in part on information from the repository of enterprise resources information, the automatically generated work schedules, information from the historic repository of work performance, and information from the repository of summary inventory of the new and active work items;

reallocating the service professional enterprise resources according to the balanced work assignments; and

generating a process improvement report based on information from the repository of context information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the enterprise resources information includes detailed information about a skill set possessed by each of the service professionals.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving work performance information for the service professionals includes receiving up-to-date work mode changes for each of the service professionals, and maintaining the repository of enterprise resources information includes editing the repository of enterprise resources directory in accordance to the received up-to-date work mode changes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein maintaining a repository of historic work performance information for the service professionals includes maintaining the historic work performance information in at least quarter-hourly and half-hourly historical data segments.

5. A system for strategic services enterprise workload management, comprising:

a resource manager for maintaining a repository of enterprise resources information for a plurality of service professionals of an organization;

a workload monitor for receiving the resources information from the resource manager and maintaining a repository of historic work performance information for the service professionals;

an inventory manager for receiving information related to new and active work to items for the service professionals, receiving inventory update information from the workload monitor, and maintaining an inventory of the new and active work items;

a predictive scheduler for receiving the historic work performance information from the workload monitor and creating work schedules for the service professionals based at least on the historic work performance information;

a workload manager for receiving at least a plan of record from the predictive scheduler, generating workload notifications and prioritization, and generating distribution instructions for the new and active work items; and

a contact history manager for receiving contact history information from the inventory manager and sending the contact history information to a remote data warehouse.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the historic work performance information is based at least on the resources information received from the resource manager.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the inventory manager further includes a repository of summary inventory of the new and active work items.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the resource manager comprises:

a resource database for maintaining the repository of enterprise resources information.

9. The system of claim 5, wherein the resource manager comprises:

a status update broker for updating the enterprise resources information in the resource database.

10. The system of claim 5, wherein the resource manager comprises:

a resource editor for editing the enterprise resources information in the resource database.

11. The system of claim 5, wherein the resource manager comprises:

a resource information provider for providing database retrieval services to at least the predictive scheduler.

12. The system of claim 5, further comprising:

a plurality of work sites for performing the new and active work items in accordance to at least the distribution instructions generated by the workload manager.

13. The system of claim 5, further comprising:

a plurality of work-item management sites for receiving the distribution instructions from the workload manager.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein each of the work-item management sites comprises:

an enterprise workload management (EWM) agent for receiving the distribution instructions from the workload manager;

a route engine for gathering work items received by the each of the work-item management sites;

a transfer manager for generating summary information about the work items received by the each of the work-item management sites.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the EWM agent receives the distribution instructions from the workload manager via the inventory manager.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the EWM agent receives the work-item summary information from the transfer manager.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the EWM agent forwards the work-item summary information to the inventory manager.