Analysis leading to automatic action

• US 8,156,388 B2
• Filed: 11/24/2008
• Issued: 04/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Symbol Technologies, LLC (Zebra Technologies Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc. (Zebra Technologies Corporation)
• Inventors: Herrod, Allan
• Primary Examiner(s): Lohn, Joshua
• Application Number:
  US12/276,799
• Publication Number:
  US 20100131792A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,233 Days
• Field of Search: 714/25, 714/46, 714/48, 714/57, 714/100
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0742 in a data processing system embedded in a mobile device, e.g. mobile phones, handheld devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements

Abstract

A system and methods for detecting an operational problem on a mobile device and automatically resolving the problem with a coordinated execution of repair tasks on the mobile device and on the plurality of servers communicatively connected to the mobile device providing for a complex solution to an operational problem. The system can archive a history of corrective actions and their outcome for later analysis and reporting.

Claims

1. A system for automatically correcting an operational problem on at least one of a mobile device linked to a server and the server, the system comprising:

an action coordinator component encoded with instructions, which when executed by a processor in the server generates a workflow task list comprising a plurality of workflow tasks for execution on at least one of mobile device and the server when an operational problem is new and selects an existing workflow task list from a workflow archive when the operational problem previously occurred;

a mobile device action component encoded with instructions, which when executed by a processor in the mobile device reports an operational problem on the mobile device to the action coordinator component and executes the workflow tasks designated by the action coordinator component on the mobile device; and

a management system action component encoded with instructions, which when executed by the processor in the server reports an operational problem on at least one of the mobile device and the server to the action coordinator component and executes the workflow tasks designated by the action coordinator component on the server.

2. The system of claim 1, the action coordinator component further comprises a workflow generator component for creating the workflow tasks based on a problem report.

3. The system of claim 1, the action coordinator component further comprises a workflow factoring component for factoring the workflow tasks into factored workflow tasks for the mobile device and factored workflow tasks for the server.

4. The system of claim 3, the mobile device action component further comprises a workflow engine component for executing the factored workflow tasks for the mobile device.

5. The system of claim 1, the action coordinator component further comprises a workflow coordination component for coordinating the execution of the mobile device factored workflow tasks with the server factored workflow tasks.

6. The system of claim 5, the workflow coordination component can update the factored workflow task lists based on feedback from previously executed tasks.

7. The system of claim 1, the action coordinator component further comprises a workflow report component for creating and distributing status reports of the outcome of the workflow problem resolution.

8. The system of claim 1, the mobile device action component further comprises a problem detection component for detecting operational problems on the mobile device.

9. The system of claim 1, the mobile device action component further comprises a problem analysis component for collecting data associated with the operational problem and analyzing the data.

10. The system of claim 9, the problem analysis component further comprises archiving the operational problem data for future analysis.

11. The system of claim 1, the operational problem comprises utilization of the mobile device.

12. The system of claim 1, the mobile device action component further comprises a status report component for transmitting the operational problem data and analysis to the server.

13. The system of claim 1, the management system action component further comprises a problem detection component for detecting operational problems on the server or the mobile device.

14. The system of claim 1, the management system action component further comprises a problem analysis component for collecting data associated with the operational problem and analyzing the data.

15. The system of claim 1, the management system action component further comprises a status report component for transmitting the operational problem data and analysis to a plurality of servers.

16. The system of claim 1, the management system action component further comprises a workflow engine component for executing the factored workflow tasks for the server.

17. The system of claim 1, the action coordinator component and the management system component execute on the same server.

18. A method, stored in a memory and executing on a processor in a device, for automatically correcting an operational problem on at least one of a mobile device linked to a server and the server, the method comprising:

detecting the operational problem on at least one of the mobile device and the server;

collecting and analyzing data associated with the operational problem for transmission to the server;

generating a workflow task list comprising a plurality of workflow tasks for execution on at least one of the mobile device and the server when the operational problem is new;

selects an existing workflow task list from a workflow archive when the operational problem previously occurred;

factoring the workflow task list into a mobile workflow task list for the mobile device and a server workflow task list for the server;

delivering the mobile workflow task list and the server workflow task list to the mobile device and the server, respectively; and

coordinating execution of the mobile workflow task list on the mobile device and the server workflow task list on the server.

19. The method of claim 18, the mobile device archives the collected data and analysis if communications to the server is unavailable and transmits the collected data and analysis to the server after communications are reestablished.

20. The method of claim 18, the operational problem is detected from at least one of the mobile device and the server.