System and method for providing automatic task assignment and notification

• US 9,953,282 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2007
• Issued: 04/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Shaouy, William P.
• Primary Examiner(s): Loftis, Johnna
• Assistant Examiner(s): Torricolopez, Alan
• Application Number:
  US11/849,738
• Publication Number:
  US 20090063242A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,885 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 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 10/063118 Staff planning in a project environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment

Abstract

A system and method of managing and prioritizing tasks amongst resources and, more particularly, to a system and method for providing automatic task assignment and notification amongst globally dispersed human resources. The system includes a change of management application configured to store a list of tasks and a task notifier configured to retrieve a list of geographically-dispersed resources and notify selected ones of the geographically-dispersed resources of a priority of completion of one or more tasks retrieved from the change of management application. The system further includes a message application configured to be polled by the task notifier to determine which of the geographically dispersed resources is at least one of online and currently working.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor operable to;

retrieve a list of geographically-dispersed resources, wherein a resource table associates each of the geographically-dispersed resources with a respective plurality of skills;

poll a message application to determine which of the geographically dispersed resources is online and currently working;

retrieve a list of tasks from a task table by;

determining that one or more tasks in the task table are associated with a respective plurality of required skills, and

retrieving the one or more tasks,

wherein the task table is accessible by the processor, and for each of the tasks, the task table includes an entry corresponding to a Task ID, a Priority, and Required Skills; and

wherein the Task ID is a pointer pointing to the change of management application, the priority value is an integer which designates a priority of a respective one of the plurality of the tasks, and the required skills are a set of skills that are required for a respective one of the plurality of the tasks;

determine that a first task of the list of tasks matches a first member of the geographically dispersed resources by comparing the respective plurality of required skills of the first task with the respective plurality of skills of the first member;

retrieve a list of current tasks assigned to the first member;

determine that each of the current tasks in the list of current tasks assigned to the first member is lower in priority than the first task; and

reassign ownership of the one of the first task to the first member, wherein;

a low-priority thread of the processor uses an infinite loop to poll a change of management application for a latest list of newly created or modified tasks which are yet to be started; and

the processor is further operable to add the newly created or modified tasks to the task table and associate each of the newly created or modified tasks with a plurality of required skills.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the message application is an instant message application polled through a web service interface.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the web service interface interfaces with the change of management application in order for the processor to communicate therewith.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor includes a rules engine configured to:

prioritize the plurality of tasks in the list of tasks; and

notify the first member of the geographically-dispersed resources about newly assigned tasks.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the resources table is accessible by the processor,

the resources table includes a name, a User ID, an Application User ID, and the respective plurality of skills.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to add information for any unstarted task that does not have a corresponding task in a tasks table.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is at least one of maintained, deployed, created and supported by a service provider on a fee or subscription basis.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is in a form of an entirely hardware embodiment.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is in a form of an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements.

10. A method for prioritizing tasks, comprising:

providing a computer infrastructure being operable to;

store, by a processor, a list of tasks, geographically-dispersed resources and skills;

retrieve, by the processor, the geographically-dispersed resources, wherein a resource table associates each of the geographically-dispersed resources with a respective plurality of skills;

determine, by the processor, that a first task included in a task table is associated with a respective plurality of required skills;

retrieve, by the processor, the first task from the task table;

determine, by the processor, that the respective plurality of skills of the first task match the respective plurality of skills of a first member of the geographically-dispersed resources;

notify, by the processor, the first member of the geographically-dispersed resources of a priority of completion of the associated with the first task by the task table;

retrieve, by the processor, a list of current tasks assigned to the first member of the geographically-dispersed resources;

determine, by the processor, that the current tasks in the list of current tasks assigned to the first member of the geographically-dispersed resources is lower in priority than the one of the first task;

reassign ownership of the one of the first task to the first member of the geographically-dispersed resources;

use a low-priority thread which uses an infinite loop to poll for a latest list of newly created or modified tasks which are yet to be started;

add the newly created or modified tasks to the task table and associate each of the newly created or modified tasks with a plurality of required skills;

receive a notification of an absence of a project manager; and

in response to the receiving the notification, retrieve the first task from a change of management application operable to store the list of tasks via a web service, wherein;

the change of management application is a standalone web application separate from the computer infrastructure;

the projector manager one of creates and modifies the tasks in the change of management application via the web service; and

a tech lead receives the tasks from the change of management application via the web service.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to poll a system to determine which of the geographically dispersed resources is at least one of online and currently working.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the computer infrastructure is at least one of maintained, deployed, created and supported by a service provider on a fee or subscription basis.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the steps of claim 10 are provided on a subscription, advertising, and/or fee basis.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the computer infrastructure is in a form of an entirely hardware embodiment.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the computer infrastructure is in a form of an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the computer infrastructure is operable to prioritize the task table.

17. A method comprising:

polling, by a processor, a list of geographically dispersed resources to determine which geographically dispersed resources are online and currently working, wherein the list associates each of the geographically dispersed resources with a respective plurality of skills;

retrieving, by the processor, a latest list of tasks from a task table by;

determining that required skills information associated with one or more tasks in the task table is not null; and

retrieving the one or more of the tasks;

prioritizing each of the retrieved tasks for selected ones of the geographically dispersed resources;

notifying, by the processor, the selected ones of the geographically dispersed resources of a newly assigned task and its priority;

determining, by the processor, that a first task of the latest list of tasks matches one of the geographically dispersed resources by comparing a respective plurality of required skills of the first task with the respective plurality of skills of the one of the geographically dispersed resources;

retrieving, by the processor, a list of current tasks assigned to the matched one of the geographically-dispersed resources;

determining, by the processor, that each of the current tasks in the list of current tasks assigned to the matched one of the geographically-dispersed resources is lower in priority than the one of the retrieved tasks;

reassigning, by the processor, ownership of the one of the retrieved tasks to the matched one of the geographically-dispersed resources,

using a low-priority thread which uses an infinite loop to poll for a latest list of newly created or modified tasks which are yet to be started;

adding the newly created or modified tasks to the task table and associate each of the newly created or modified tasks with a plurality of required skills;

receiving a notification of an absence of a project manager; and

in response to the receiving the notification, retrieving the one or more tasks from a change of management application operable to store the latest list of tasks via a web service, wherein;

the change of management application is a standalone web application separate from a computer infrastructure comprising the processor;

the projector manager one of creates and modifies the tasks in the change of management application via the web service; and

a tech lead receives the tasks from the change of management application via the web service.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising prioritizing a new task or tasks assigned to the selected ones of the geographically dispersed resources with a current task.

19. A computer program product comprising a tangible computer usable storage device having readable program code tangibly embodied in the storage device, the computer program product includes at least one component to:

store a list of tasks;

store a resource table associating a plurality geographically-dispersed resources with a respective plurality of skills;

determine that one or more tasks in the list of tasks have been associated with a respective plurality of required skills;

retrieve the one or more tasks from the list of tasks;

determine that the respective plurality of skills of a first task of the retrieved one or more tasks match a first member of the geographically dispersed resources by comparing the respective plurality of required skills of the first task with the respective plurality of skills of the first member;

retrieve a list of current tasks assigned to the matched first member of the geographically-dispersed resources;

determine that each of the current tasks in the list of current tasks assigned to the matched one of the geographically-dispersed resources is lower in priority than the one of the retrieved tasks;

reassign ownership of the one of the retrieved tasks to the matched first member of the geographically-dispersed resources,

use a low-priority thread which uses an infinite loop to poll for a latest list of newly created or modified tasks which are yet to be started;

add the newly created or modified tasks to the task table and associate each of the newly created or modified tasks with a plurality of required skills;

receive a notification of an absence of a project manager; and

in response to the receiving the notification, retrieve the one or more tasks from a change of management application operable to store the list of tasks via a web service,

wherein;

the change of management application is a standalone web application separate from the computer program product;

the projector manager one of creates and modifies the tasks in the change of management application via the web service; and

a tech lead receives the tasks from the change of management application via the web service.

20. A system comprising:

a processor operable to;

retrieve a list of geographically-dispersed resources, wherein a resource table associates each of the geographically-dispersed resources with a respective plurality of skills;

poll a message application to determine which of the geographically dispersed resources is online and currently working;

retrieve a list of tasks from a task table by;

determining that one or more tasks in the task table are associated with a respective plurality of required skills, and

retrieving the one or more tasks;

determine that a first task of the list of tasks matches a first member of the geographically dispersed resources by comparing the respective plurality of required skills of the first task with the respective plurality of skills of the first member;

retrieve a list of current tasks assigned to the first member;

determine that each of the current tasks in the list of current tasks assigned to the first member is lower in priority than the first task; and

reassign ownership of the one of the first task to the first member, wherein;

a low-priority thread of the processor uses an infinite loop to poll a change of management application for a latest list of newly created or modified tasks which are yet to be started; and

the processor is further operable to add the newly created or modified tasks to the task table and associate each of the newly created or modified tasks with a plurality of required skills;

wherein;

the system includes a change of management application, which is a standalone web application separate from the system;

a projector manager one of creates and modifies the list of tasks in the change of management application via a web service;

a tech lead receives the tasks from the change of management application via the web service; and

the processor is further operable to perform the retrieving the first task in response to receiving a notification of an absence of the project manager.