Notification of time-critical situations occurring at destination facilities

• US 7,054,822 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2001
• Issued: 05/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Ecolab USA Incorporated (Ecolab, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Ecolab, Inc.
• Inventors: McCall, John E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dixon, Thomas A.
• Application Number:
  US09/923,200
• Publication Number:
  US 20030033396A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,758 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/5, 705/6, 705/8, 705/9
• US Class Current: 705/7.15
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A network advisory system that provides advisory information to a field service provider and/or a management system is disclosed. The network advisory system receives collected data from one or more destination facilities and analyzes the information to generate advisory information. If the advisory information is deemed time-critical, the information is automatically transmitted to a management system to alert the system that a time-critical situation is resident at a destination facility. The management system may determine one or more appropriate field service providers to address the time-critical situation. If the advisory information is not deemed time-critical, the information may be stored by the network advisory system until access by a requesting entity—either a management system or a field service provider.

Claims

1. A network advisory system interacting with a management system, the network advisory system comprising:

means for receiving collected data related to the service being provided by one or more field service providers managed by the management system, wherein the collected data is business data associated with a specific customer account for which the service is being provided;

means for analyzing the collected data to determine whether the collected data indicates a time-critical situation associated with the specific customer account;

means for mapping the collected data to time-critical advisory information when the collected data indicates a time-critical situation; and

means for presenting the time-critical advisory information to the management system, wherein the presenting means presents the time-critical advisory information to a field service provider upon receiving a request from the management system instructing the presenting means to provide the time-critical advisory information to the field service provider.

2. A network advisory system as defined in claim 1 further comprising:

means for storing the time-critical advisory information, wherein the presenting means retrieves the time-critical advisory information stored in the storing means and transmits the time-critical advisory information to a requesting entity accessing the network advisory system via a communication device.

3. In a computer network having a server computer operable to communicate with a management system through a network device, a method for providing advisory information to a field service provider, the advisory information generated from collected data being associated with a service being provided at a destination location wherein the collected data is business data associated with a specific customer account for which the service is being provided, the method comprising:

determining whether the collected data identifies a time-critical situation associated with the specific customer account;

when the collected data identifies a time-critical situation, mapping the collected data to time-critical advisory information;

responsive to the operation of mapping the collected data to time-critical advisory information, presenting the time-critical advisory information to the management system via the network device;

receiving a request from the management system to present the time-critical advisory information to the field service provider; and

presenting the time-critical advisory information to the field service provider.

4. A method as defined in claim 3, wherein the time-critical advisory information is in the form of a script.

5. A method as defined in claim 3, wherein the management system presents the time-critical advisory information to the field service provider.

6. A method as defined in claim 3 further comprises selecting one or more appropriate field service providers to receive the time-critical advisory information and wherein the operation of presenting the time-critical advisory information comprises presenting the time-critical advisory information to each of the one or more field service providers.

7. A computer program product readable by a computing system and encoding a computer program of instructions that, when executed by the computing system, performs a computer process for providing advisory information to a management system in a computer network having an advisory module operable to communicate with the management system through a network device, the management system managing operations of one or more field service providers employed to provide a service, the computer process comprising:

receiving collected data related to the service being provided by the one or more field service providers, wherein the collected data is business data associated with a specific customer account for which the service is being provided;

determining whether the collected data indicates a time-critical situation associated with the specific customer account;

when the collected data indicates a time-critical situation, mapping the data conclusion to time-critical advisory information; and

responsive to the operation of mapping the data conclusion to time-critical advisory information, establishing a communication session with the management system, wherein the time-critical advisory information is presented to the management system through the network device during the established communication session;

receiving an instruction from the management system requesting that the time-critical advisory information be provided to a field service provider; and

presenting the time-critical advisory information directly to the field service provider.

8. A computer program product as defined in claim 7, wherein the computer process further comprises:

when the collected data is associated with a non time-critical situation, mapping the data conclusion to non time-critical advisory information; and

storing the non time-critical advisory information in a storage module.

9. A computer program product as defined in claim 7, wherein the computer process further comprises:

producing a copy of the time-critical advisory information; and

storing the copy of the time-critical advisory information in the storage module.

10. A computer program product as defined in claim 7, wherein the operation of determining whether the collected data is associated with a time-critical situation comprises:

analyzing the collected data against an escalation rule to determine whether the collected data satisfies time-critical criterion.

11. In a computer network having an advisory module operable to communicate with a management system through a network device, the management system managing operations of one or more field service providers employed to provide a service, a method for providing advisory information to the management system, the method comprising:

receiving collected data related to the service being provided by the one or more field service providers, wherein the collected data is business data associated with a specific customer account for which the service is being provided;

determining whether the collected data indicates a time-critical situation associated with the specific customer account;

when the collected data indicates a time-critical situation, mapping the data conclusion to time-critical advisory information;

responsive to the operation of mapping the data conclusion to time-critical advisory information, establishing a communication session with the management system, wherein the time-critical advisory information is presented to the management system through the network device during the established communication session;

receiving an instruction from the management system requesting that the time-critical advisory information be provided to a field service provider; and

presenting the time-critical advisory information directly to the field service provider.

12. A method as defined in claim 11, further comprising:

when the collected data is associated with a non time-critical situation, mapping the data conclusion to non time-critical advisory information; and

storing the non time-critical advisory information in a storage module.

13. A method as defined in claim 12, further comprising:

producing a copy of the time-critical advisory information; and

storing the copy of the time-critical advisory information in the storage module.

14. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein the operation of determining whether the collected data is associated with a time-critical situation comprises:

analyzing the collected data against an escalation rule to determine whether the collected data satisfies time-critical criterion.

15. A method as defined in claim 11, wherein the presenting act comprises:

transmitting time-critical advisory information to a network device used by the management system in interacting with the advisory module via the computer network.

16. A method as defined in claim 15, wherein the network device is a computing module and the advisory information is in the form of a script.

17. A method as defined in claim 16, wherein the script is in a form selected from the group consisting of an audio script, a textual script, a binary script and an audio/visual script.

18. A method as defined in claim 17, wherein the management system is a computing system communicating with the advisory module via a computer-based language.

19. A method as defined in claim 17, wherein the management system is a person receiving natural language scripts from the advisory module.