AUTOMATED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING A PROCESS FOR THE SHOPPING AND SELECTION OF HUMAN ENTITIES

• US 20070198366A1
• Filed: 02/15/2007
• Published: 08/23/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intragroup Inc.
• Original Assignee: David Sciuk
• Inventors: SCIUK, DAVID
• Granted Patent: US 7,844,502 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/26.8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1053 Employment or hiring
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0203 Market surveys; Market polls
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0204 Market segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0643 Graphical representation of items or shoppers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access

Abstract

A system and method for automatically managing a multi-step process in which human providers are selected, typically for employment and dating services. The selection process includes background checking, testing, interviewing, and acceptance by the provider and selecting entity, through automated sequencing, coordinating, tracking, status reporting, and an optional human intervention. The invention includes a system and method for automatically scoring and ranking human providers by a set of selection criteria, typically multiple choice options. The system determines the relevance of the questions and answers and stores it in a continuously updating Knowledge-base. The answers may be spoken, written, or entered directly into the system. The system includes testing and interviewing human providers with respect to the selection criteria; and the resulting scoring information is stored and may be used in future assessments. The system requires a charging process for updating information based on usage or subscription to the system.

Claims

1. A system wherein a user places an order for at least one provider, and a degree of matching between each order-provider pairing is computed, the system comprising:

a data storage device to receive and store user information from at least one user, the user information including provider information that specifies provider criteria and order information that specifies order criteria for that particular order;

at least one virtual provider that is created by pairing provider information of a particular provider with order information of a particular order to create an informational pair;

a knowledge base which is stored in a data storage device which may be said data storage device, which is separate from the user information and separate from program code, and which contains information on which to base requests for information by the system to obtain the user information;

a scoring system that compares the provider information of a particular provider and the order information of a particular order within each respective informational pair, and that determines a score reflecting a degree of matching for each respective informational pair;

a management system that tracks each virtual provider of the at least one en virtual provider through a plurality of information gathering steps; and

a sequencing system that specifies contents of each step of the plurality of information gathering steps, the contents at least including instructions to at least one of (a) the user regarding the input of user information and (b) the provider regarding the input of provider information.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the sequencing system provides default content of an information gathering step.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the default content is modified by the user.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the score is computed from a predetermined formula which includes at least one of user-specified criteria, user-specified weighting factors, and user-specified relative importance of respective criteria.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the scoring system determines scores based in part on degree of clustering of keywords in information provided.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the degree of clustering of keywords in information provided is at least one of (a) information provided by at least one of the user, the at least one provider, and a third party and (b) information contained in at least one of an application, a biography, and a resume submitted by the at least one provider.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the scoring system considers the degree of matching through multiple steps including receiving and inputting user information and optionally requesting the user information.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a timer that allocates a pre-determined time to complete at least one of the information gathering steps.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the system sends an alarm indicating that a predetermined time period has lapsed without requisite action.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the alarm is sent to at least one individual recipient selected from the group consisting of the user, the provider, a third party, and an operator of the system, the alarm is classified as either a warning alarm or an urgent alarm, and the alarm is sent to the at least one individual recipient based on whether the respective at least one individual recipient has access to warning alarms or to urgent alarms.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a rescoring system that automatically corrects the scores based on correction factors.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the correction factors are derived from at least one of interviewing the provider, objective testing of the provider, and reference checking of the provider'"'"'s information.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising a device to request information which is one of (a) an avatar which is an animated image generated automatically by the system or (b) a simulated interviewer.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a device to accept verbal input, and wherein information is provided as verbal input and the system converts the verbal input to digital form.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising a device to request information which is one of (a) an avatar which is an animated image generated automatically by the system or (b) a simulated interviewer.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a device to accept verbal input, and wherein information is provided as verbal input and the system converts the verbal input to digital form.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising a reporting system that at least (a) sends status messages to the user regarding the status of a particular order in the system, and (b) sends status messages to providers regarding the status of the virtual providers relating to respective providers in the system.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a billing system that bills the user based on at least one of (a) number of providers that have been matched with said user, (b) number of orders during a period of time from said user, and (c) the number of iterations.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising a knowledge base containing information on which to base requests for information which are generated by the system.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the requests for information result in the system obtaining at least one of the user information, the provider information, the order information, and refinements of the foregoing.