Method and system to process issue data pertaining to a system

• US 8,407,317 B2
• Filed: 03/31/2009
• Issued: 03/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Embree, Kevin H., Silver, Ellen
• Primary Examiner(s): THIAW, CATHERINE B
• Application Number:
  US12/416,095
• Publication Number:
  US 20090199054A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,456 Days
• Field of Search: 709201-203, 709206-207, 709/219, 709223-224, 705/8
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/226 Validation
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/08 Auctions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0604 using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0686 Additional information in the notification, e.g. enhancement of specific meta-data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/067 using time frame reporting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A computer-implemented method to processes issue data in a system. A plurality of issue reports are received from respective reporting entities, each issue report being in respect of a system issue which requires a response activity. The issue reports are parsed to obtain priority criterion data relating to at least one priority criterion. The priority criterion is unrelated to the dates and/or times of the issue reports and may include visibility data, severity data, exposure data, and performance data relating to past performance of a reporting entity or a reported entity. The reported issues are then prioritized for order of response based at least partially on the associated criterion data.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising:

one or more processors to execute;

a prioritization engine to receive a plurality of issue reports from respective reporting entities, each issue report being indicative of a reported issue in the system which requires a corresponding response activity;

a priority criterion module to parse the plurality of issue reports to obtain priority criterion data relating to at least one priority criterion which is unrelated to respective dates or times of the plurality of issue reports;

a reconciliation and integration module to determine whether reported issues of the plurality of issue reports correspond to existing issue entries in an issue queue, and to reconcile and aggregate issue data for the reported issues with corresponding existing issue entries in the issue queue resulting in a reduced number of discreet entries in the issue queue,

the prioritization engine further to;

automatically prioritize the reported issues by applying to each reported issue an issue priority based at least partially on the associated priority criterion;

automatically prioritize the reported issues by applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of associated priority criteria data, the merged issue priority being a merge of a plurality of different priority types; and

communicate at least some of the reported issues to an agent to perform corresponding response activities, the response activities to be performed in order of their respective issue priorities.

2. The system of claim 1, in which the priority criterion data includes visibility data relating to a number of times a respective reported issue has been a subject of an issue report.

3. The system of claim 1, in which the priority criterion data includes severity data, the priority criterion module being configured to identify an issue type associated with a respective issue report, and to obtain the severity data based on the identified issue type, the severity data being from a severity value obtained from a table.

4. The system of claim 1, in which the priority criterion data includes exposure data relating to a potential loss associated with a respective reported issue, the exposure data being an exposure value obtained from a table.

5. The system of claim 1, in which the priority criterion data includes performance data indicative of a past performance of a reporting entity associated with a respective issue report, the priority criterion module being configured to identify the reporting entity and to retrieve the performance data from a database.

6. The system of claim 1, in which the priority criterion data includes performance data indicative of a past performance of a reported entity associated with a respective issue report, the priority criteria module being configured to identify the reported entity, and to retrieve the performance data from a database.

7. The system of claim 1, in which the prioritization engine is configured to prioritize the reported issues by applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of at least two of:

visibility data relating to the number of times the relevant reported issue has been a subject of an issue report;

severity data relating to a pre-defined severity of an associated issue type;

exposure data relating to a potential loss associated with the relevant reported issue;

performance data indicative of a past performance of a reporting entity;

or performance data indicative of a past performance of a reported entity.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the issue report being indicative of the reported issue in the system comprises issue reports directed to commerce issues in a networked marketplace.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of issue reports are parsed based on an issue action and a subject matter of a specific transaction of the reported issue of each of the plurality of issue reports.

10. A computer-implemented method to process issue data in a system, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of issue reports from respective reporting entities, each issue report being indicative of a reported issue in the system which requires a corresponding response activity;

using a processor, parsing the plurality of issue reports, to obtain priority criterion data relating to at least one priority criterion which is unrelated to dates or times of the plurality of issue reports;

determining whether reported issues of the plurality of issue reports correspond to existing issue entries in an issue queue;

reconciling and aggregating issue data for the reported issues with corresponding existing issue entries in the issue queue resulting in a reduced number of discreet entries in the issue queue;

using a processor, automatically prioritizing the reported issues by applying to each reported issue an issue priority based at least partially on the associated priority criterion;

applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of associated priority criteria data, the merged issue priority being a merge of a plurality of different priority types; and

communicating at least some of the reported issues to an agent to perform corresponding response activities, the response activities to be performed in order of their issue priorities.

11. The method of claim 10, in which the priority criterion data includes visibility data relating to a number of times a respective reported issue has been a subject of an issue report.

12. The method of claim 10, in which the priority criterion data includes severity data, the parsing including identifying an issue type associated with a respective issue report to obtain the severity data based on the identified issue type.

13. The method of claim 10, in which the priority criterion data includes exposure data relating to a potential loss associated with a respective reported issue.

14. The method of claim 10, in which the priority criterion data includes performance data indicative of a past performance of a reporting entity associated with a respective issue report, the parsing of the at least one issue report including identification of the reporting entity and retrieval of the performance data from a database.

15. The method of claim 10, in which the priority criterion data includes performance data indicative of a past performance of a reported entity associated with a respective issue report, parsing of the at least one issue report including identification of the reported entity and retrieval of the performance data from a database.

16. The method of claim 10, in which automatically prioritizing the reported issues includes applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of at least two of visibility data relating to the number of times the relevant reported issue has been a subject of an issue report;

severity data relating to a pre-defined severity of an associated issue type;

exposure data relating to a potential loss associated with the relevant reported issue;

performance data indicative of a past performance of a reporting entity;

or performance data indicative of a past performance of a reported entity.

17. The method of claim 10, further comprising defining an issue category tree structure having increasing levels of granularity, the reported issues being categorized using the issue category tree structure.

18. An apparatus which comprises:

receiving means for receiving a plurality of issue reports from respective reporting entities, each issue report being indicative of a reported issue in the system which requires a corresponding response activity;

parsing means for parsing the plurality of issue reports, to obtain priority criterion data relating to at least one priority criterion which is unrelated to respective dates or times of the plurality of issue reports;

determining means for determining whether reported issues of the plurality of issue reports correspond to existing issue entries in an issue queue;

reconciling and aggregating means for reconciling and aggregating issue data for the reported issues with the corresponding existing issue entries in the issue queue resulting in a reduced number of discreet entries in the issue queue;

prioritizing means for automatically prioritizing the reported issues by applying to each reported issue an issue priority based at least partially on the associated priority criterion and by applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of associated priority criteria data, the merged issue priority being a merge of a plurality of different priority types; and

communication means for communicating at least some of the reported issues to an agent to perform corresponding response activities, the response activities to be performed in order of their issue priorities.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions which, when implemented by one or more machines, cause the one or more machines to perform operations comprising:

receiving a plurality of issue reports from respective reporting entities, each issue report being indicative of a reported issue in the system which requires a corresponding response activity;

parsing the plurality of issue reports in respect of each reported issue, to obtain priority criterion data relating to at least one priority criterion which is unrelated to respective dates or times of the plurality of issue reports;

determining whether reported issues of the plurality of issue reports correspond to existing issue entries in an issue queue;

reconciling and aggregating issue data for the reported issues with corresponding existing issue entries in the issue queue resulting in a reduced number of discreet entries in the issue queue;

automatically prioritizing the reported issues by applying to each reported issue an issue priority based at least partially on the associated priority criterion;

automatically prioritizing the reported issues by applying to each reported issue a merged issue priority based at least partially on a combination of associated priority criteria data, the merged issue priority being a merge of a plurality of different priority types; and

communicating at least some of the reported issues to an agent to perform corresponding response activities, the response activities to be performed in order of their issue priorities.