Autonomic relevancy building

• US 7,451,142 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2005
• Issued: 11/11/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Burton, Mary Catherine, Liu, William S., Read, Jason Thomas, Halliday-Reynolds, Elizabeth A., Arellanes, Paul Thomas, Yakesch, Douglas Dwaine
• Primary Examiner(s): Cottingham; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Arjomandi; Noosha
• Application Number:
  US11/207,075
• Publication Number:
  US 20070043718A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,181 Days
• Field of Search: 707/5, 707/102, 707/103
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A method and system for autonomic relevancy building using information obtained from clients to improve customer support. Upon receiving a client request for product support information, product support information objects representing the requested product support information in an information library are identified. Relevant product support information corresponding to the identified relevant product support information objects are provided to the client. Data regarding whether or not the information provided to the client is relevant may be obtained from the client through implicit feedback (such as, system usage), explicit feedback (such as, user feedback), metadata information, or any combination thereof. Relevancy associations may be created between the product support information objects based on the relevancy data. Relevancy weights may also be assigned to each relevancy association based on the relevancy data, wherein the relevancy weights designate a certainty of each relevancy association.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for autonomic relevancy building, the computer implemented method comprising:

receiving a request for product support information from a client;

responsive to receiving the request, identifying product support information objects representing the requested product support information in an information library using the received request;

responsive to identifying the product support information objects, providing relevant product support information corresponding to the product support information objects to the client;

obtaining, based on user input received from the client after the client is provided with the relevant product support information, relevancy data from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein the relevancy data obtained from the client indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client;

creating relevancy associations between the product support information objects in the information library based on the relevancy data obtained from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein a relevancy association is propagated to a nearby node in a context-scenario organization model, wherein the context-scenario organizational model comprises the product support information objects, a hierarchical tree structure of product nodes representing products provided by a business organization, and the relevancy associations which interlink certain of the product support information objects with certain of the product nodes, and wherein the nearby node that the relevancy association is propagated to is a parent node to a particular product node in the hierarchical tree structure of product nodes that the relevancy association directly pertains to.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the relevancy associations of the product support information objects based on the relevancy data obtained from the client that indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning relevancy weights to the relevancy associations based on the user input, wherein the relevancy weights designate a certainty of each relevancy association.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the user input comprises both (1) system usage of a data processing system used by the client in requesting the product support information and (2) real-time user feedback that is received, by the computer implemented process, from the client using the data processing system in direct response to the client being provided with the relevant product support information by the computer implemented process.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein system-usage relevancy associations are based on which of the relevant product support information provided to the client is selected by the client.

6. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein user-feedback relevancy associations are based on user comments regarding whether the provided product support information was helpful.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 6, wherein user feedback relevancy associations are based on at least one of positive, negative, and neutral responses from clients.

8. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein relevancy associations based on user feedback are weighted more than relevancy associations based on system usage.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 4, wherein information obtained from user feedback supersedes information obtained from system usage.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the information library includes a context-scenario organizational model that comprises the product support information objects, a hierarchical tree structure of product nodes representing products provided by a business organization, and the relevancy associations which interlink certain of the product support information objects with certain of the product nodes, wherein each product support information object has a plurality of weighted relevancy associations with other product support information objects in the information library.

11. A data processing system for autonomic relevancy building, the data processing system comprising:

a bus;

a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device contains computer usable code;

at least one managed device connected to the bus;

a communications unit connected to the bus; and

a processing unit connected to the bus, wherein the processing unit executes the computer usable code, in response to receiving a request for product support information from a client, to identify product support information objects representing requested product support information in an information library using the received request, provide relevant product support information corresponding to the product support information objects to the client, obtain, based on user input received from the client after the client is provided with the relevant product support information, relevancy data from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein the relevancy data obtained from the client indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client, and create relevancy associations between the product support information objects in the information library based on the relevancy data obtained from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein a relevancy association is propagated to a nearby node in a context-scenario organization model, wherein the context-scenario organizational model comprises the product support information objects, a hierarchical tree structure of product nodes representing products provided by a business organization, and the relevancy associations which interlink certain of the product support information objects with certain of the product nodes, and wherein the nearby node that the relevancy association is propagated to is a parent node to a particular product node in the hierarchical tree structure of product nodes that the relevancy association directly pertains to.

12. The data processing system of claim 11, wherein the computer usable code further comprises code to update the relevancy associations of the product support information objects based on the relevancy data obtained from the client that indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client.

13. The data processing system of claim 11, wherein the computer usable code further comprises code to assign relevancy weights to the relevancy associations based on the user input, wherein the relevancy weights designate a certainty of each relevancy association.

14. A computer program product of computer usable program code stored on a tangible computer readable medium comprising:

computer usable program code for receiving a request for product support information from a client;

computer usable program code for identifying, responsive to the computer usable program code for receiving the request, product support information objects representing the requested product support information in an information library using the received request;

computer usable program code for providing, responsive to the computer usable program code for identifying the product support information objects, relevant product support information corresponding to the product support information objects to the client;

computer usable program code for obtaining, based on user input received from the client after the client is provided with the relevant product support information, relevancy data from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein the relevancy data obtained from the client indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client; and

computer usable program code for creating relevancy associations between the product support information objects in the information library based on the relevancy data obtained from the client regarding the relevant product support information provided to the client, wherein a relevancy association is propagated to a nearby node in a context-scenario organization model, wherein the context-scenario organizational model comprises the product support information objects, a hierarchical tree structure of product nodes representing products provided by a business organization, and the relevancy associations which interlink certain of the product support information objects with certain of the product nodes, and wherein the nearby node that the relevancy association is propagated to is a parent node to a particular product node in the hierarchical tree structure of product nodes that the relevancy association directly pertains to.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, further comprising:

computer usable program code for updating the relevancy associations of the product support information objects based on the relevancy data obtained from the client that indicates whether or not the relevant product support information provided to the client is relevant to the client.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, further comprising:

computer usable program code for assigning relevancy weights to the relevancy associations based on the user input, wherein the relevancy weights designate a certainty of each relevancy association.

17. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the user input comprises both system usage and real-time user feedback that is received from the client using the computer in direct response to the client being provided with the relevant product support information.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein system-usage relevancy associations are based on which of the relevant product support information provided to the client is selected by the client.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein user-feedback relevancy associations are based on user comments regarding whether the provided product support information was helpful.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein user-feedback relevancy associations are based on at least one of positive, negative, and neutral responses from clients.