Patent Application
20200302367
The present disclosure relates generally to providing quantitative data of performance metrics at varying levels of granularity to inform certain enterprise operations.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Organizations, regardless of size, rely upon access to information technology (IT) and data and services for their continued operation and success. A respective organization's IT infrastructure may have associated hardware resources (e.g. computing devices, load balancers, firewalls, switches, etc.) and software resources (e.g. productivity software, database applications, custom applications, and so forth). Over time, more and more organizations have turned to cloud computing approaches to supplement or enhance their IT infrastructure solutions. For example, organizations may use cloud computing approaches to store performance metric data (e.g., metrics and/or performance data) related to the quality of services and/or products provided by service providers (e.g., vendors).
A summary of certain embodiments disclosed herein is set forth below. It should be understood that these aspects are presented merely to provide the reader with a brief summary of these certain embodiments and that these aspects are not intended to limit the scope of this disclosure. Indeed, this disclosure may encompass a variety of aspects that may not be set forth below.
The present approach is generally directed to improving the efficiency of certain enterprise operations by generating and efficiently displaying performance data for a service provider (e.g., vendor). In some embodiments, the performance may be displayed with different granularities of the data on a dashboard. For example, the performance data may be displayed with a performance score, where the score is based on a weighted total of different combinations of the performance data. Moreover multiple additional performance scores may be displayed that provide an increased level of detail to further inform employees above the quality of a vendor. In some embodiments, the performance score and/or the additional performance score may include an indication of whether the performance score and/or the additional performance score has improved over time based on a comparison to a performance score and/or the additional performance score from an earlier date. By providing more levels of detail regarding the quality of a products and/or service provided by the vendor, employees may more efficiently select service providers that provide products that are used in certain enterprise-related operations or negotiate effective contracts. As such, providing a variety of levels of detail related to the service provider may improve the efficiency of the enterprise as a whole.
Various refinements of the features noted above may exist in relation to various aspects of the present disclosure. Further features may also be incorporated in these various aspects as well. These refinements and additional features may exist individually or in any combination. For instance, various features discussed below in relation to one or more of the illustrated embodiments may be incorporated into any of the above-described aspects of the present disclosure alone or in any combination. The brief summary presented above is intended only to familiarize the reader with certain aspects and contexts of embodiments of the present disclosure without limitation to the claimed subject matter.
Various aspects of this disclosure may be better understood upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings in which:
One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and enterprise-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
As used herein, the term “computing system” refers to an electronic computing device such as, but not limited to, a single computer, virtual machine, virtual container, host, server, laptop, and/or mobile device, or to a plurality of electronic computing devices working together to perform the function described as being performed on or by the computing system. As used herein, the term “medium” refers to one or more non-transitory, computer-readable physical media that together store the contents described as being stored thereon. Embodiments may include non-volatile secondary storage, read-only memory (ROM), and/or random-access memory (RAM). As used herein, the term “application” refers to one or more computing modules, programs, processes, workloads, threads and/or a set of computing instructions executed by a computing system. Example embodiments of an application include software modules, software objects, software instances and/or other types of executable code. As used herein, “performance data” is data indicative of evaluated metrics relating to a service provider, such as an evaluation by an employee or a measure of the service provider's ability to provide deliverables (e.g., services and/or products), such as whether or not the service provider fulfilled a contract (e.g., in a timely manner), customer service satisfaction, quality of products and/or services, availability of the service provider, stability (e.g., variance in the metrics), and the like. As used herein, “vendor performance analytics” refers to analyzed performance data.
Enterprises may utilize products provided by different service providers (e.g., vendors) to accomplish a variety of operations. The employees tasked with purchasing a product and/or service may compare multiple service providers when deciding on which service provider to purchase the product and/or service from. For example, vendor managers and performance analysts may compare vendor performance analytics such as custom service experience, pricing, number of contracts, and the like, to inform the decision of which vendor to purchase the product from. Current implementations for providing performance analytics are inefficient as the vendor managers and/or the performance analysts may manually search for, gather, and calculate performance analytics from approximately 20,000 vendors for regular meetings (e.g., annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly meetings and the like) as well as for ad-hoc requests. In addition, current implementations do not surface analytics in way that is meaningful to the vendor manager or aligns with company objectives.
The present approach is generally directed to the efficient and effective dissemination of vendor performance analytics by displaying a hierarchal organization of vendor performance analytics referred to as levels of performance. More particularly, the present approach is directed to presenting quantitative information related to a vendor and/or service provider at varying levels of granularity. For example, the hierarchal organization may include a first level of performance and may include an overall performance score associated with the vendor that is generally calculated based on retrieved performance data from a database. The hierarchal organization may include one or more second levels of performance that breakdown components (e.g., vendor performance scores) making up the first level of performance. Additionally, the hierarchal organization may include third levels of performance that breakdown the components making up each second level of performance. In some embodiments, the hierarchal organization may include additional levels of performance that each generally further breakdown a respective previous level of performance with increasing levels of granularity. In some embodiments, the various levels of performance may be displayed on a dashboard. As such, the vendor dashboard may display broad and more detailed descriptions of the performance analytics for each vendor. In some embodiments, the dashboard may include a window that displays performance analytics of each vendor over time. In this manner, a vendor manager may efficiently determine a favorable vendor to purchase a product from based on a variety of performance analytics.
With the preceding in mind, the following figures relate to various types of generalized system architectures or configurations that may be employed to provide services to an organization in a multi-instance framework and on which the present approaches may be employed. Correspondingly, these system and platform examples may also relate to systems and platforms on which the techniques discussed herein may be implemented or otherwise utilized. Turning now to
For the illustrated embodiment,
In
To utilize computing resources within the platform 16, network operators may choose to configure the data centers 18 using a variety of computing infrastructures. In one embodiment, one or more of the data centers 18 are configured using a multi-tenant cloud architecture, such that one of the server instances 26 handles requests from and serves multiple customers. Data centers 18 with multi-tenant cloud architecture commingle and store data from multiple customers, where multiple customer instances are assigned to one of the virtual servers 26. In a multi-tenant cloud architecture, the particular virtual server 26 distinguishes between and segregates data and other information of the various customers. For example, a multi-tenant cloud architecture could assign a particular identifier for each customer in order to identify and segregate the data from each customer. Generally, implementing a multi-tenant cloud architecture may suffer from various drawbacks, such as a failure of a particular one of the server instances 26 causing outages for all customers allocated to the particular server instance.
In another embodiment, one or more of the data centers 18 are configured using a multi-instance cloud architecture to provide every customer its own unique customer instance or instances. For example, a multi-instance cloud architecture could provide each customer instance with its own dedicated application server and dedicated database server. In other examples, the multi-instance cloud architecture could deploy a single physical or virtual server 26 and/or other combinations of physical and/or virtual servers 26, such as one or more dedicated web servers, one or more dedicated application servers, and one or more database servers, for each customer instance. In a multi-instance cloud architecture, multiple customer instances could be installed on one or more respective hardware servers, where each customer instance is allocated certain portions of the physical server resources, such as computing memory, storage, and processing power. By doing so, each customer instance has its own unique software stack that provides the benefit of data isolation, relatively less downtime for customers to access the platform 16, and customer-driven upgrade schedules. An example of implementing a customer instance within a multi-instance cloud architecture will be discussed in more detail below with reference to
Although
As may be appreciated, the respective architectures and frameworks discussed with respect to
By way of background, it may be appreciated that the present approach may be implemented using one or more processor-based systems such as shown in
With this in mind, an example computer system may include some or all of the computer components depicted in
The one or more processors 202 may include one or more microprocessors capable of performing instructions stored in the memory 206. Additionally or alternatively, the one or more processors 202 may include application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and/or other devices designed to perform some or all of the functions discussed herein without calling instructions from the memory 206.
With respect to other components, the one or more busses 204 include suitable electrical channels to provide data and/or power between the various components of the computing system 200. The memory 206 may include any tangible, non-transitory, and computer-readable storage media. Although shown as a single block in
To illustrate this,
The illustrated embodiment of the vendor dashboard 420 includes a vendor title 422, a vendor summary ribbon 424, vendor information tabs 426, 428, 430, and 432, a performance window 433, and a vendor information window 436. As discussed further below, the vendor dashboard 420 generally shows a variety of levels of performance data in an efficient manner to improve selection of vendors. For example, the vendor dashboard 420 may provide a summary of the performance of a vendor, a performance score associated with the performance, and various breakdowns on the performance score. In some embodiments, the various breakdowns of the performance score may be organized spatially, such that less granular information is presented initially, and increasingly granular information is present later (e.g., positioned low in the window) or though access of tabs.
In the illustrated vendor dashboard 420, the level of detail of information related to the vendor increases vertically downward. It should be noted that any spatial arrangement of the data could be used, such as left to right, or having the level of detail decreasing vertically downward. The vendor summary ribbon 424 may provide a summary of information regarding the vendor (e.g., indicated by the title) such as a quantified performance score 425, a qualitative vendor rank or tier, the type of vendor, a vendor managers name, and a status. In the illustrated vendor dashboard 420, information tabs 426, 428, 430, and 432 are disposed below the summary ribbon 424. The information tabs 426, 428, 430, and 432 may provide more detail regarding certain information regarding the vendor that is displayed in the summary ribbon 424.
For example, when the information tab 426 is displayed and/or selected, a performance window 433 is displayed. The illustrated performance window 433 includes a first level performance card 434 displaying a performance score 425 (e.g., ‘90%’), a time-based performance change (e.g., ‘up 15 (10%) since November 10), and a graph showing the change of the performance score 425. In general, the performance score 425 is a quantitative evaluation of the quality and/or health of a vendor that is determined based on data (e.g., stored in the database 104).
The illustrated performance window 433 also includes a performance score breakdown card 438 that generally describes factors that contribute to the performance score 425. The performance score 425 in the illustrated performance window 433 is calculated based on two second levels of performance 439a (e.g., ‘average performance score of service offerings’) and 439b (e.g., ‘vendor satisfaction rating’) and a respective predetermined weight 440a and 440b for each of the second levels of performance. In some embodiments, the predetermined weight and/or the types and number of second levels of performance may be assigned by a vendor manager based on, for example, performance characteristics indicative of a reliability of a vendor. In some embodiments, the users may configure the levels of performance.
In general, each level of performance may have an associated score that is calculated based on a combination of data (e.g., performance data) from one or more additional levels of performance. The illustrated performance window 433 includes second level performance cards 441a and 441b that correspond to the second levels of performance 439a and 439b displayed in the performance score breakdown card 438. In general, a second level performance card 439 may display quantitative and/or qualitative scores indicative of the second level performance. For example, in the illustrated performance window 433, the second level of performance 439a has a quantitative score of 90% shown in the second level of performance cards 441a and the second level of performance 439b has a quantitative score of 89% shown in the second level of performance cards 441b. Additionally, each second of level performance card 441a and 441b displays a change, such as a percentage or value change, of the displayed qualitative score from some earlier date (e.g., ‘November 101’ as shown) to inform a vendor manager about, for example, trends in the quality of the vendor associated with the performance card 441.
In
The vendor information window 436 generally provides a description of the vendor's company, contact information, and certain contract and service offering information. For example, the illustrated vendor information window 436 shown in
In some embodiments, the vendor dashboard 420 may include more information than could display on a screen such that the vendor manager can read it. Additionally or alternatively, the vendor dashboard 420 may have each level of performance cards (e.g., the first level of performance card 434, the second level of performance card(s) 439, and any additional level of performance cards) organized vertically or horizontally such that one level of performance card is viewable at a time. In any case, the vendor dashboard 420 may include a scroll bar 444 to facilitate viewing the rest of the vendor dashboard 420 that may include features organized in a horizontal or vertical manner. Alternatively, the processor 202 may be configured to scroll through the vendor dashboard based on interaction between a user and a touchscreen display.
In some embodiments, a subset of the performance data having the highest and/or lowest scores may be displayed on the performance window 433, which may better inform a vendor manager on the quality and/or health of the vendor associated with the performance window 433.
In some embodiments, the vendor manager may desire further granular data regarding performance data indicated in a performance card.
Moreover, each service provided in the list may be a selectable item. As a result of an employee selecting an item from the performance list 464, additional data related to the item may be displayed. For example,
Further still, a vendor may wish to access more granular information. The illustrated detailed service window 480 includes a selectable item 482 that may provide a service window 484, as shown in
Referring briefly to
Referring briefly to
As discussed herein, the present approach is generally directed to the efficient and effective dissemination of vendor performance analytics by displaying a hierarchal organization of vendor performance analytics referred to as levels of performance. In some embodiments, the hierarchal organization may include additional levels of performance that each generally further breakdown a respective previous level of performance with increasing levels of granularity. In some embodiments, the various levels of performance may be displayed on a dashboard. As such, the vendor dashboard may display broad and more detailed descriptions of the performance analytics for each vendor. In some embodiments, the dashboard may include a window that displays performance analytics of each vendor over time. In this manner, a vendor manager may efficiently determine a favorable vendor to purchase a product from based on a variety of performance analytics. Further, they enable the contract management team to negotiate more effective contracts based off of historical performance. Or they reallocate penalties should the vendor breach a contractual performance metric based off of historical performance.
The specific embodiments described above have been shown by way of example, and it should be understood that these embodiments may be susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. It should be further understood that the claims are not intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed, but rather to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of this disclosure.
The techniques presented and claimed herein are referenced and applied to material objects and concrete examples of a practical nature that demonstrably improve the present technical field and, as such, are not abstract, intangible or purely theoretical. Further, if any claims appended to the end of this specification contain one or more elements designated as “means for [perform]ing [a function] . . . ” or “step for [perform]ing [a function] . . . ”, it is intended that such elements are to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f). However, for any claims containing elements designated in any other manner, it is intended that such elements are not to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f).
