Apparatus and method for monitoring progress of customer generated trouble tickets

• US 6,763,333 B2
• Filed: 12/11/2000
• Issued: 07/13/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lindgren, Jeffrey S., Bollinger, David H., Jones, William R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alvarez, Raquel
• Application Number:
  US09/732,893
• Publication Number:
  US 20010001143A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,310 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/8, 705/9, 700/80, 714/48, 714/52, 379/100.05, 379/100.06, 379/130, 379/134, 340/506, 340/527
• US Class Current: 705/7.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/016 After-sales
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

An alerting system is provided for proactively ensuring awareness of pending customer generated trouble tickets which have not been resolved for at least a predetermined time duration corresponding to an escalation level. A customer service center selects the time duration. The alerting system includes a manager module which periodically monitors the pending customer generated trouble tickets and determines whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time duration corresponding to the escalation level. The alerting system also includes an alerting module which sends an alert to a recipient assigned to the escalation level when the manager module determines the pending customer generated trouble ticket has not been resolved for the time duration corresponding to the escalation level. The alerting system may also include a parsing module which parses the pending customer generated trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information. The parsing module also organizes the pending customer generated trouble tickets into data records according to a predefined format. Subsequently, the parsing module transmits to the manager module at a predefined interval, the data records for monitoring by the manager module.

Claims

1. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of data satisfying predetermined alerting criteria, the alerting system comprising:

a manager, implemented by a processor, that periodically monitors the data to determine whether the data satisfies the predetermined alerting criteria;

an alter, implemented by a processor, that sends an alert to a recipient, the recipient being assigned to an escalation level when the manager determines a pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for a time corresponding to the escalation level; and

a parser, implemented by a processor, that parses the data to remove extraneous and invalid information and that organizes the data into data records according go a predefined format, the parser transmitting to the manager at a predefined interval, the data records organized according to the predefined format, for monitoring by the manager.

2. The alerting system of claim 1, further comprising a report generator which generates a report logging each alert sent by the alerter along with corresponding alert information.

3. The alerting system of claim 2, in which the alert information comprises the recipient of the alert, a trouble ticket number corresponding to the pending customer generated trouble ticket causing the alert, and a time the alert was sent for each escalation level,

wherein duplicate alerts for each escalation level are prevented.

4. The alerting system of claim 2, in which the alerter comprises an error manager and a notifier which alerts the recipient, the error manager informing the notifier of the recipient of the alert and the corresponding alert information, and transmitting information to the report generator.

5. The alerting system of claim 1, in which there are a plurality time intervals that each corresponds to one of a plurality of escalation levels, and in which a user defines at least one recipient for each escalation level.

6. The alerting system of claim 5, further comprising configuration files comprising:

a center alert file which stores alert information particular to a service center, the alert information comprising alert recipient information for each escalation level; and

a center data file which stores ticket information particular to the service center, the ticket information specifying the predefined time interval for each escalation level.

7. The alerting system of claim 6, in which the manager discerns the service center associated with the trouble ticket and determines if the trouble ticket has exceeded the time interval without one of service resolution and repair corresponding to the customer service center by reading the trouble ticket and querying the center data file corresponding to the service center identified in the trouble ticket to determine whether the trouble ticket should be monitored, wherein, when the trouble ticket should be monitored, the manager determines the time interval from the center data file, and wherein when the trouble ticket has exceeded one of the time intervals without one of service resolution and repair, then the center data file queries the center alert file to determine the recipient of the alert.

8. The alerting system of claim 7, in which a user inputs updated alert information and updated ticket information into the configuration files at any desired time and the updated alert information and updated ticket information becomes effective when the manager process a next trouble ticket.

9. The alerting system of claim 7, further comprising a system alert file which stores information relating to a system administrator who will receive an alert if a system error occurs, the system error comprising either the manager receiving no data for predefined period, the parser discerning an invalid specific service center, the manager receiving an invalid entry from the center alert file or the manager receiving an invalid entry from the center data file.

10. The alerting system of claim 1, in which the predefined interval is the time required for organizing the data into one complete data record, and in which the alert to the recipient comprises one of emailing, paging, and transmitting messages across an electronic bonding gateway.

11. The alerting system of claim 1, in which the pending trouble tickets further comprise pending customer generated trouble tickets, and in which the parser determines whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket is related to a preceding pending customer generated trouble ticket, wherein if a relationship is determined, the parser does not generate a data record for the subsequent pending customer generated trouble ticket.

12. An alerting system for proactively ensuring awareness of pending customer generated trouble tickets which have not been resolved for at least a predetermined time corresponding to an escalation level, the time being selected by a customer service center, the alerting system comprising:

a manager, implemented by a processor, which periodically monitors the pending customer generated trouble tickets to determine whether each pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level;

an alerter, implemented by a processor, which sends an alert to a recipient, the recipient being assigned to the escalation level when the manager determines the pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the time corresponding to the escalation level; and

a report generator, implemented by a processor, that generates a report logging each alert sent by the alerter.

13. The alerting system of claim 12, in which the alerter comprises an error manager and a notifier which sends the alert to the recipient, the error manager informing the notifier of the alert recipient along with corresponding information, and transmitting report information to the report generator.

14. The alerting system of claim 12, further comprising configuration files comprising:

a center alert file which stores alert information particular to a service center, the alert information comprising the alert recipient for the escalation level; and

a center data file which stores ticket information particular to the service center, the ticket information specifying which pending customer generated trouble ticket the manager monitors and the alert criteria corresponding to the escalation level.

15. The alerting system of claim 14, in which the manager discerns the service center associated with the pending customer generated trouble ticket and determines if the pending customer generated trouble ticket has achieved the escalation level defined by the customer service center by reading the pending customer generated trouble ticket and querying the center data file corresponding to the service center identified in the pending customer generated trouble ticket to determine whether the pending customer generated trouble ticket should be monitored, wherein if the pending customer generated trouble ticket should be monitored, the manager determines the predetermined time corresponding to the escalation level from the center data file, and wherein when the pending customer generated trouble ticket remains unresolved for the predetermined time, then the center data file queries the center alert file to determine the alert recipient.

16. The alerting system of claim 12 further comprising a trouble ticket generating system which receives trouble ticket information from a plurality of sources and periodically transmits aggregated trouble ticket information to the manager for monitoring.

17. The alerting system of claim 12, further comprising a parser which parses the pending customer generated trouble tickets to remove extraneous and invalid information and which organizes the pending customer generated trouble tickets into data records according to a predefined format, the parser transmitting to the manager at a predefined interval, the data records organized according to the predefined format, for monitoring by the manager.

18. The alerting system of claim 12, further comprising a system alert file which stores information relating to a system administrator who will receive an alert when a system error occurs.