This invention relates generally to procurement of services, and more particularly to coordinating the group procurement of services.
When someone in an enterprise or other similar organization needs to hire temporary labor, particularly under great time pressure, often a suitable candidate cannot be found in time. Suitability, in such cases, may be defined in terms of qualifications to perform the work, or agreeing to meet corporate guidelines about the hourly rate or the hours of work, or in meeting any of a multitude of corporate hiring guidelines. These guidelines are usually embedded in the systems, where available, making the systems complex to use. An example of the complexity is that the approval of the hiring request becomes a multi-step process with iterative changes to requirements and takes a long time. Often, due to complexity of usage and increased cycle time of the systems, hiring personnel in an organization end up circumventing the system to be able to hire a person they desperately need to continue running their business or completing a project. Current hiring systems in these organizations thus may actually undermine corporate policies and create an atmosphere in which hiring personnel feel it necessary and right to work around rules.
What is clearly needed is a system and method that allows hiring personnel, in certain situations, particularly in the hiring of temporary labor, to automatically apply corporate hiring guidelines, notify the user when he is violating policies, and then allow him to flexibly override certain labor procurement procedures and corporate labor rules and policies.
One embodiment of the invention includes a method and system for flexible handling of rules and regulations in labor hiring, comprising of receiving a requisition form from a computing device, at least partially completed by a requestor; automatically performing a rules check on the requisition form; in response to a field entry on the form violating a predefined rule, returning the requisition form to the requestor to correct or providing the requisition form to a supervisor to override a field entry violating a predefined rule; and in response to no field entry on the form violating a predefined rule, transmitting the form to a service provider.
The present invention describes systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.
In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical, functional, and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.
Database 101 contains the human resources data of the system, including, but not limited to, both the rules for hourly rates, benefits, permissions, etc., as well as corporate policies regarding the qualifications of workers and other applicable aspects of hiring labor. A person requiring temporary labor would fill out an electronic hiring requisition form available at computer workstation 102. This form would then be processed through a rule and constraint checker 103. Checker 103 may have its own rules and constraints database 104, or it may rely on the human resources databases 101, or on both databases. Then after the processing is finished, the request may be sent to some or many temporary service providers 105a-n. In other cases, the request may be sent to a services exchange system as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/093,353, filed Mar. 29, 2005 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/096,635, filed Mar. 31, 2005, both of which are entitled Method and System for Anonymous Resale of Inventory and Profit-Making from Sale of Unused Inventory, and both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The processes described above can be stored in a memory of a computer system as a set of instructions to be executed. In addition, the instructions to perform the processes described above could alternatively be stored on other forms of machine-readable media, including magnetic and optical disks. For example, the processes described could be stored on machine-readable media, such as magnetic disks or optical disks, which are accessible via a disk drive (or computer-readable medium drive). Further, the instructions can be downloaded into a computing device over a data network in a form of compiled and linked version.
Alternatively, the logic to perform the processes as discussed above could be implemented in additional computer and/or machine readable media, such as discrete hardware components as large-scale integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC's), firmware such as electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM's); and electrical, optical, acoustical and other forms of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.
Whereas many alterations and modifications of the present invention will no doubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art after having read the foregoing description, it is to be understood that any particular embodiment shown and described by way of illustration is in no way intended to be considered limiting. Therefore, references to details of various embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the claims which in themselves recite only those features regarded as essential to the invention.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
5191523 | Whitesage | Mar 1993 | A |
5319542 | King et al. | Jun 1994 | A |
5331546 | Webber et al. | Jul 1994 | A |
5475740 | Biggs et al. | Dec 1995 | A |
5570283 | Shoolery et al. | Oct 1996 | A |
5655008 | Futch et al. | Aug 1997 | A |
5819092 | Ferguson et al. | Oct 1998 | A |
5832451 | Flake et al. | Nov 1998 | A |
5839114 | Lynch et al. | Nov 1998 | A |
5852812 | Reeder | Dec 1998 | A |
5893077 | Griffin | Apr 1999 | A |
5897620 | Walker et al. | Apr 1999 | A |
6018715 | Lynch et al. | Jan 2000 | A |
6023679 | Acebo et al. | Feb 2000 | A |
6195420 | Tognazzini | Feb 2001 | B1 |
6230204 | Fleming | May 2001 | B1 |
6295521 | DeMarcken et al. | Sep 2001 | B1 |
6304850 | Keller et al. | Oct 2001 | B1 |
6411940 | Egendorf | Jun 2002 | B1 |
6442526 | Vance et al. | Aug 2002 | B1 |
6477520 | Malaviya et al. | Nov 2002 | B1 |
6571213 | Altendahl et al. | May 2003 | B1 |
6622084 | Cardno et al. | Sep 2003 | B2 |
6715073 | An et al. | Mar 2004 | B1 |
6816882 | Conner et al. | Nov 2004 | B1 |
6839679 | Lynch et al. | Jan 2005 | B1 |
6847988 | Toyouchi et al. | Jan 2005 | B2 |
6959298 | Silverbrook et al. | Oct 2005 | B1 |
6961773 | Hartman et al. | Nov 2005 | B2 |
6965868 | Bednarek | Nov 2005 | B1 |
6980885 | Ye et al. | Dec 2005 | B2 |
7080096 | Imamura | Jul 2006 | B1 |
7117170 | Bennett et al. | Oct 2006 | B1 |
7136821 | Kohavi et al. | Nov 2006 | B1 |
7139728 | Rigole | Nov 2006 | B2 |
7222084 | Archibald et al. | May 2007 | B2 |
7272568 | Birch et al. | Sep 2007 | B1 |
7272626 | Sahai et al. | Sep 2007 | B2 |
7315824 | Chen et al. | Jan 2008 | B2 |
20020010612 | Smith et al. | Jan 2002 | A1 |
20020016729 | Breitenbach et al. | Feb 2002 | A1 |
20020103693 | Bayer et al. | Aug 2002 | A1 |
20020120478 | Tanaka | Aug 2002 | A1 |
20020156687 | Carr et al. | Oct 2002 | A1 |
20030036930 | Matos et al. | Feb 2003 | A1 |
20030036981 | Vaughan et al. | Feb 2003 | A1 |
20030040987 | Hudson et al. | Feb 2003 | A1 |
20030078800 | Salle et al. | Apr 2003 | A1 |
20030105711 | O'Neil | Jun 2003 | A1 |
20030110062 | Mogler et al. | Jun 2003 | A1 |
20030110136 | Wells et al. | Jun 2003 | A1 |
20030120477 | Kruk et al. | Jun 2003 | A1 |
20030120526 | Altman et al. | Jun 2003 | A1 |
20030182413 | Allen et al. | Sep 2003 | A1 |
20030200111 | Damji | Oct 2003 | A1 |
20030204474 | Capek et al. | Oct 2003 | A1 |
20030229529 | Mui et al. | Dec 2003 | A1 |
20030236722 | Kamel | Dec 2003 | A1 |
20040044556 | Brady et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040044600 | Chu et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040044644 | Brady et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040044673 | Brady et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040044681 | Brady et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040049413 | Momma et al. | Mar 2004 | A1 |
20040073615 | Darling | Apr 2004 | A1 |
20040117275 | Billera | Jun 2004 | A1 |
20040143498 | Umeda | Jul 2004 | A1 |
20040153348 | Garback | Aug 2004 | A1 |
20040167808 | Fredericks et al. | Aug 2004 | A1 |
20040193457 | Shogren | Sep 2004 | A1 |
20040210487 | Fujimoto et al. | Oct 2004 | A1 |
20040249684 | Karppinen | Dec 2004 | A1 |
20040260601 | Brief | Dec 2004 | A1 |
20040260603 | Marmotta | Dec 2004 | A1 |
20050004830 | Rozell et al. | Jan 2005 | A1 |
20050043996 | Silver | Feb 2005 | A1 |
20050060271 | Vig | Mar 2005 | A1 |
20050065821 | Kalies | Mar 2005 | A1 |
20050108069 | Shiran et al. | May 2005 | A1 |
20050119809 | Chen | Jun 2005 | A1 |
20050120052 | Miller et al. | Jun 2005 | A1 |
20050132006 | Horvitz et al. | Jun 2005 | A1 |
20050138175 | Kumar et al. | Jun 2005 | A1 |
20050165629 | Bruns | Jul 2005 | A1 |
20050197915 | Biwer et al. | Sep 2005 | A1 |
20050216375 | Grendel et al. | Sep 2005 | A1 |
20050273345 | Castillejo | Dec 2005 | A1 |
20050283389 | Widjaja et al. | Dec 2005 | A1 |
20060010023 | Tromczynski et al. | Jan 2006 | A1 |
20060037016 | Saha et al. | Feb 2006 | A1 |
20060100909 | Glimp et al. | May 2006 | A1 |
20060101467 | Buco et al. | May 2006 | A1 |
20060123088 | Simmons et al. | Jun 2006 | A1 |
20060143087 | Tripp et al. | Jun 2006 | A1 |
20060190314 | Hernandez | Aug 2006 | A1 |
20060212321 | Vance et al. | Sep 2006 | A1 |
20060224423 | Sun et al. | Oct 2006 | A1 |
20060283935 | Henry et al. | Dec 2006 | A1 |
20070005406 | Assadian et al. | Jan 2007 | A1 |
20070174154 | Roberts et al. | Jul 2007 | A1 |
20070239548 | Sears | Oct 2007 | A1 |
20080004964 | Messa | Jan 2008 | A1 |
20080065408 | Salonen | Mar 2008 | A1 |
20080091481 | Messa | Apr 2008 | A1 |
20090006142 | Orttung | Jan 2009 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
2291463 | Jun 2001 | CA |