Using alerts to bring attention to in-store information

• US 7,890,370 B2
• Filed: 04/30/2008
• Issued: 02/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Target Brands Inc. (Target Corporation)
• Inventors: Lund, Stephanie W., Busch, Eric P., Eberhardt, Carlos R., Neuenschwander, Robb S., Sawyer, Donald L., Whitsitt, Michael S., Tetter, Ryan R., Van Epern, Lucas W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart; Matthew S
• Assistant Examiner(s): CRAWLEY, TALIA F
• Application Number:
  US12/112,861
• Publication Number:
  US 20090276280A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,021 Days
• Field of Search: 340/506, 340/525, 705/16
• US Class Current: 705/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems

Abstract

A method is provided that uses alerts to bring in-store information that is of interest to the attention of team members working in a retail store. To send an alert to a team member logged in to a device data, data from a source is evaluated against business rules. An event is generated when a piece of data satisfies the business rules. The event indicates that the piece of data is of interest. A task is activated for the event and assigned to the team member acting in a role associated with the source of the event. An alert is sent to the device that the team member is logged in to indicating that the team member has been assigned the task.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

evaluating point-of-sale data using a plurality of event rules, the event rules identifying pieces of point-of-sale data that trigger events;

generating an event when one of the pieces of point-of-sale data satisfies the event rules, wherein the event is associated with a business area and a source of data;

determining, by a processor, that a task should be activated for the event;

assigning, by the processor, the task to a user acting in a user role of the business area associated with the event based on the source of data, wherein the user role is associated with the task;

sending, by the processor, an alert to at least one client device that the user in the user role of the business area has logged in to, the alert indicating that the user has been assigned the task;

activating, by the processor, a new task for the event when the user fails to perform the task assigned to the user role associated with the business area before an expiration time for the task;

assigning, by the processor, the new task to a different user of the user role associated with a different business area; and

sending, by the processor, a new alert to at least one client device that the different user of the user role of the different business area has logged in to, the new alert indicating that the different user has been assigned the new task.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the point-of-sale data is generated by a plurality of different point-of-sale applications running on a plurality of different point-of-sale registers.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the point-of-sale data comprises real-time sales transaction data, menu driven data inputted into point-of-sale registers by a cashier via a selectable menu list, workflow stopping data and historical process transaction data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the event against open tasks associated with the source using closing task rules to determine if the event is instructive of closing any of the open tasks;

flagging at least one open task as closed based on the comparison; and

updating the at least one flagged open task to indicate it is closed.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that a task should be activated for the event comprises:

comparing the event against other open events using a duplicate rule to determine whether the event already exists, wherein the duplicate rule defines a matching level from a set of hierarchical matching levels that was previously assigned to the event to perform the comparison.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising activating the task for the event if the duplicate rule indicates the event is not a duplicate of other open events.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the alert to at least one client device that a user in the user role of the business area has logged in to further comprises sending the alert to a client device that a user in the user role in another business area has logged in to.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending a new alert to a supervisor if no user is logged in to the user role in any of the business areas in a store.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the new task along with the event and the task assigned to the user role associated with the business area in an event/task database.

10. A system comprising:

event rules identifying point-of-sale data that triggers events;

at least one event generator configured to apply the point-of-sale data to the event rules and to generate an event when one of the event rules triggers the event from a piece of point-of-sale data, wherein source information is associated with the event;

an electronic task handler configured to;

create a task for a position in a business section of a store based on the event, the task marked as open;

assign the task to a user acting in the position of the business section of the store associated with the source information;

send an alert to at least one client device that the user in the position of the business section of the store is logged in to, the alert indicating that the user has been assigned the task;

activate a new task for the event when the user fails to perform the task assigned to the user acting in the position of the business section the store before an expiration time for the task;

assign the new task to a different user acting in the position of the business section of the store; and

send a new alert to at least one client device that the different user acting in the position of the business section of the store has logged in to, the new alert indicating that the different user has been assigned the new task.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a database configured to save the event along with the task, the saved event and task including an indication that the task was assigned to the user.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising a task retriever configured to:

retrieve open tasks for the at least one client device from the database based on the user position and the business section of the store for the user logged in to the client device;

score the open tasks using scoring rules; and

send the open tasks to the at least one client device in a prioritized order based on the score for each of the open tasks.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the task retriever is further configured to update the prioritized order of the open tasks for the at least one client device upon at least one of the open tasks being closed.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the task retriever is further configured to access the database for detailed information regarding one of the open tasks assigned to the user position of the business section of the store and configured to send the detailed information to the at least one client device.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the alert is sent to the at least one client device via an instant message communicator such that the alert is pushed to the at least one client device.