Patent Application
20100042560
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for dynamically assembling solution records based on the context and the environment parameters associated with a system for which the solution being is generated, thereby providing a model for building context aware solution records that are dynamically composed sequences of solution steps which are tagged with contextual dependencies.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current problem solving scripts and solution procedures are rigid text documents which do not accommodate for context specific approaches to solving a problem. These problem solving scripts and solution procedures often represent a standardized, generic solution to a family of problems. For example, if a problem to be solved is a blocked Lotus Notes™ account, the most common cause is that an associated user forgot the password to the account and exceed the number of times provided for attempting to login with the wrong password. Thus, the most common solution procedure would include steps for resetting the user's password. However, there are cases when, prior to beginning employment at a company, an account is created for a new employee a significant amount of time prior to the employee start date. Consequently, a recovery procedure for unlocking a Lotus Notes™ account would be required to allow the new employee access to the Lotus Notes™ account. The recovery procedure needs to take into account the type of machine being used, the user profile, and previously installed software. As shown above, while two problems may result in the same action, the solutions to these problems may require different steps. Therefore, solutions for solving problems must accommodate the different contexts in which the problems occur.
The problems associated with static problem solving scripts and solution procedures are significant as companies move toward self enablement, that is, empowering users with self help techniques to reduce calls to help desks. To empower users to solve their own problems without support from a help desk support agent, companies have started to open up parts or all of their solution databases to end users. However, as noted above, the problem solving scripts and solution procedures in these databases are inflexible and static and they are limited to standard encoded procedures. Thus, each new solution to a given problem is rewritten by a dedicated subject matter expert each time a new device or software is introduced to the market or a new conflict between configurations settings is detected.
Current approaches of documenting solutions, including best practices solutions, are limited in that they do not include the full scope of problems. These approaches also do not go beyond taking into account a user's machine. Despite the enormous amount of information that is embedded in today's problem resolution records and available in the solution databases, there is no mechanism to encode the problems and solutions in a structured way. As a result, no steps of one solution can be easily reused to solve another problem. Furthermore, there is a loss of knowledge as specific user and environment context parameters are not often recorded in the problem resolution record; and therefore, they do not appear in the solution databases.
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and a method for building context aware solution records that are dynamically composed sequences of solution steps which are tagged with contextual dependencies.
An embodiment of the invention is directed to a method including receiving help requests to solve a problem on a computer, generating a core problem description and retrieving at least one of contextual or environmental parameters associated with the computer. The method also includes assembling a formalized problem description. The method further includes obtaining previously stored formalized solution steps associated with the problem from a database and building a customized solution including context aware solution records that are tagged with at least one of contextual or environmental dependencies. The method also includes transmitting the customized solution to the computer for execution and monitoring the execution of the customized solution.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to an apparatus including a receiving configured to receive help requests to solve a problem on a computer, a generating configured to generate a core problem description and retrieve at least one of contextual or environmental parameters associated with the computer and an assembling unit configured to assemble a formalized problem description. The apparatus also includes an obtaining configured to obtain previously stored formalized solution steps associated with the problem from a database and build a customized solution including context aware solution records that are tagged with at least one of contextual or environmental dependencies. The apparatus further includes a transmitting unit configured to transmit the customized solution to the computer for execution and a monitoring configured to monitor the execution of the customized solution.
Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a computer program embodied on a computer readable medium, the computer program comprises program code for controlling a processor to execute a method including receiving help requests to solve a problem on a computer, generating a core problem description and retrieving at least one of contextual or environmental parameters associated with the computer, assembling a formalized problem description, obtaining previously stored formalized solution steps associated with the problem from a database and building a customized solution including context aware solution records that are tagged with at least one of contextual or environmental dependencies, transmitting the customized solution to the computer for execution, and monitoring the execution of the customized solution.
It should be clear to one skilled in the art that the embodiments summarized above are simply provided as examples of embodiments of the present invention.
Embodiments in which the present invention is applied for building context aware solution records that are dynamically composed sequences of solution steps which are tagged with contextual dependencies is described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
An embodiment of the present invention is directed to dynamically assembling solution records based on the context and the environment parameters associated with a system for which the solution being is generated. A formal model representing solution steps, enriched with contextual dependencies is provided. Based on a problem definition of the user and the environmental context, planning techniques are employed to assemble a sequence of solution steps to be applied automatically or by a help desk agent. Consequently, solution tickets are generated in an automatic fashion.
An embodiment of the present invention also provides a model for building context aware solution records that are dynamically composed sequences of solution steps which are tagged with contextual dependencies. The system employs goal-oriented inferencing from planning technologies for selecting the solution steps and assembling the sequence of their execution, allowing different compositions to result from different context parameters. For example, the context parameters may be resources availability, time constraints and the user location. Contextual changes during the execution of the solution may trigger further re-composition, causing the solution procedure to evolve dynamically.
The system automatically generates a checklist of steps to be performed. The system also records any exceptions to solution steps. An embodiment of the present invention may provide the time estimate duration of each step, based on past execution. As outlined in more detail below, an embodiment of the invention provides the problems and solutions in a formal model and provides for contextual tagging of solutions.
Solution engine 108 obtains previously stored formalized solution steps (shown as 111 of
In Step 2040, solution engine 108 obtains formalized solution steps from solution registry 112 to build a customized solution. The customized solution is executed on the user's computer. In Step 2050, monitoring engine 110 monitors the execution of the customized solution.
Embodiments of the present invention, therefore, increase reuse of existing solutions tickets by mining solution tickets according to established standard procedures. The present invention also allows for a more structured entry of solutions on the front end. The present invention further provides for a solution process monitoring. Contact centers using the present invention may also allocate experts at the right points during the ticket resolution lifecycle. Embodiments of the present invention also provide for handing exceptional cases during ticket resolution, that is, dynamic composition of a solution based on existing solution steps, where each step is tagged by certain problem, precondition or state. This of course leads to more flexible solution procedures. Contact centers using the present invention may separate solution steps performed by the user for those performed by an agent. Embodiments of the present invention, therefore, build a rich history of contextual dependencies and solution steps and provide for end user education.
As should be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art, the components illustrated in
Although the present invention has been shown and described with respect to certain embodiments, it should be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to the inventive device and the method of the instant invention without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. It is intended that the present invention cover modifications and variations of the inventive testing device and method provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
