Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1 – 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
For claim 1, last 2 lines of item b, it is not clear as what is meant by “the ACD-skill of the different-agent is not mapped to a skill in the WFM application” and it is not clear as to how this limitation combines with the other limitations. For example, are there ACD-skills that do not exist in the WFM application?
Item V recites that when the impact level is negative, the request of change is automatically granted. However, for item (iv)-b, when the impact level is positive, the status of the “request of change” is unclear.
Claim 10 is rejected for the same reasons as shown for claim 1 above.
Dependent claims 2-9 are rejected because they depend on rejected base claim 1.
Regarding Claim 9, it is noted that claim 1 requires deactivating “all other ACD‑skills” of the different agent for the time interval. Dependent claim 9 recites “deactivating one or more other ACD‑skills … which have negative impact‑level.” The use of “one or more” is confusing. For example, would the “one or more” be randomly selected and deactivated. (e.g., deactivate just a random one of the skills which have negative impact level)?
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Medina (US 20080075268 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Medina discloses a computerized-method (PP 50, server 30 executes the functions) for managing skills in an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) application (see ACD 44, Fig. 1) due to a request of change to a scheduled-shift of an agent (PP 4, agent requesting schedule change, vacation) , the method comprising:
receiving the request of change to a scheduled-shift from the agent via a User Interface (UI) (workstation 28, Fig. 1) of a Workforce Management (WFM) application (see WFM in PPs 5 and 6, and WFM spectrum 30 in Fig.1)
retrieving all skills associated to the agent from the WFM application (see skills A, B and C in PP 78)
for each skill of all skills associated to the agent, retrieving from the ACD application one or more mapped ACD-skills and a corresponding Service Level Agreement (SLA) threshold (see determining the service level and example in PP 70, 50%, 94% and 90% service level),
Medina teaches (PP 16) that an agent who has a set schedule has the option to modify it in a fashion which optimally meets forecasted man power requirements. If the WFM system forecasts a manpower overage for the agent's skill (predicted impact level is “negative” - based on applicant’s definition), then the agent will be offered downtime adjustment (e.g., time off will be automatically granted), but if the WFM system forecasts manpower shortfalls (predicted impact level is “positive” -based on applicant’s definition), the agent will be offered uptime adjustments (e.g., time off is not an option). Medina teaches that in this way, the needs of the company for optimal manpower efficiency and the needs of the agent for flexibility are both simultaneously addressed, see also “accepting & approving schedule change” 290, Fig. 12.
In PP21, Medina teaches calculating a manpower delta between the forecasted manpower requirement and the determined manpower availability, and offering a downtime adjustment to an agent currently scheduled if the calculated manpower delta shows less manpower is required. (SLA threshold). Wherein the forecasting of the manpower requirement may be for at least one of one skill, and two or more skills, the determination of manpower availability is based upon the scheduled skills (time interval), the calculation of manpower delta is based upon the scheduled skills, the offer of a downtime adjustment (time off) is based upon the scheduled skills. The “manpower requirement” (optimal level) taught throughout Medina is read as the claimed SLA threshold.
In PP 21, Medina also teaches that the method may comprise assessing a scheduled skill and a trained skill of agents, wherein accepting the downtime adjustment by at least one agent (request of a change of schedule), adjusting the work schedule based upon the accepted downtime adjustment, recalculating at a pre-determined interval, or on demand, the manpower delta (impact level) between the forecasted manpower requirement (SLA threshold) and the determined manpower availability. The method may additionally comprise summing the current schedules of agents who are scheduled to work multiple skills concurrently by a combination of skills to which they are scheduled, allocating a scheduled skill combination count to a component skill and determining a manpower availability based upon the summed current schedules based upon an allocated skill.
Medina provides an example (PP 0070, FIG. 3) of allocating 40 agents to Skill A and 100 agents to Skill B which results in both skills having 90% of the required number of agents allocated to them. The purpose of allocation is simply to determine the difference between the number of agents currently scheduled and the number of agents required. Allocation is not static. Anytime a forecast is modified or an agent's schedule is modified, the allocation may become sub-optimal (read as the claimed “predicted impact-level of the ACD is ‘positive’” -based on applicant’s definition). Then dynamically reallocate agents as changes are made to either schedules or forecasts. Reallocating an agent from Skill B to skill A is read as “deactivating skill B and activating skill A” and the forecast will become optimal again (“setting the predicted impact level to ’negative’”).
Furthermore, Medina teaches (PP78) a thorough allocation of every skill such as skill A, B or C is currently/originally scheduled to exactly 100% of the goal. When there is a change [such as schedule change] which may result in a drop of percentage (positive impact – as defined by applicant) for skill B, the present invention would automatically reallocate (activate/deactivate skills) based upon the change to the forecast. For example, the reallocation may result in all of the B-C skilled agents being reallocated from C to B, and some of the A-B skilled agents being reallocated from A to B (activating B/deactivating A, C). Bringing back the allocation to 100% of the original/current goal is read as “setting the predicted impact-level of the ACD-skill as negative”.
In PP71, Medina discloses that the agent may be taking calls for any of the skills in the Skill Combo during the interval scheduled (read as routing “inbound-interactions to the different agent” based on the scheduled skill.)
Claim 10 is rejected for the same reason as claim 1. See for example ACD 44 and WFM 30 and workstation 28.
Regarding claim 2, Medina teaches that the request of change to the scheduled- shift of the agent comprising at least one of: (i) time-off request; and (ii) shift-trade request (see PP 004, employees may wish to take vacation time, or to schedule changes, and see “uptime” and “downtime” in PP16).
Regarding claim 4, Medina teaches determining that the predicted impact-level is negative when a number of agents which are scheduled to the time-interval and assigned the ACD-skill is equal or higher than required staffing level; and
determining that the impact-level is positive when the number of agents which are scheduled to the time-interval and assigned the ACD-skill is lower than required staffing level to mitigate the corresponding SLA threshold.
PP 16, if the WFM system forecasts a manpower overage (negative impact - according to applicant’s definition-, number of agents is equal or higher the required staffing) for the agent's skill, then the agent will be offered downtime adjustment, if the WFM system forecasts manpower shortfalls (positive impact -according to applicant’s definition-, number of agents is lower than required), the agent will be offered uptime adjustments. In this way, the needs of the company for optimal manpower efficiency (mitigate the corresponding SLA threshold). See further discussion of the “required manpower” in PPs 21, 22 and 70 ).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 7, 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Medina (US 20080075268 A1).
Claim 7 recites an extremely obvious scenario for selecting a different agent that has the needed skill (the ACD-skill) deactivated and has other skills activated but overstaffed (“negative predicted impact level”). This is within the teachings of Medina which teaches activating the needed skill for the other agent and deactivating all other skills. For example, this would read on a scenario wherein an agent in Medina (PP78) may have skills A, B and C and then automatically reallocate (activate/deactivate skills) based upon the change to the forecast. For example, the reallocation may result in relocating an agent with A, B and C skills to skill B (activating B and deactivating A and C when A and C are overstaffed). This is an obvious expected scenario for using the other agent to cover for the needed skill for providing optimal service.
Claim 8 is basically ejected for the same reason as claim 1 above. Further, an agent who may obviously have skills A, B and C can have both skills A and C deactivated because they have “negative impact” (not required).
Claim 9 is rejected for the same reasons as discoed above with respect to claims 1 and 7. Basically, claim 9 recites “deactivating one or more other ACD-skills” which reads on the scenario when the other agent has the needed skill (“the ACD-skill”) and other skills. Based on the demand/need for the other skills, it would have been obvious to deactivate the ones with less demand to maintain optimal level (mitigate the ACD-skill).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Medina (US 20080075268 A) in view Wicaksono (20160088153 A1).
Claim 3 recites that the SLA threshold is an Average Time to Answer (ATA) in a preconfigured percentage of inbound interactions.
The use of “average wait time” is notoriously well known in the art and has been used as a performance measure or goal in ACDs for many years. Numerous references such as Wicaksono teach this feature. Wicaksono teaches the use of ACD 110 and WFM system 115 (Fig. 1) and teaches utilizing "the average wait time" (read as the claimed "Average Time to Answer") for WFM forecast and for handling employees’ schedules, see PP 33 and 34.
Thus, it would have been extremely obvious to utilize this feature in Medina as suggested by Wicaksono in order to optimize the service level, for example, by setting an optimal service level to include a certain average wait time.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Medina (US 20080075268 A) in view of Iknoian (US 7499869 B2)
Claim 5 recites when there is no different-agent that has been automatically selected to mitigate the ACD-skill corresponding SLA threshold, the request of change to the scheduled-shift of the agent is denied and a deny-notification is sent to the agent.
On one hand, Medina teaches (PP 0084 and Fig, 12) that automated scheduling 280 comprises starting 282, creating a forecast 284, reallocating 286 scheduled agents, calculating 288 uptime and downtime targets, accepting and approving 290 schedule changes and modifying 292 the forecast. As discussed above with respect to claim 4, Medina teaches that as long as the number of agents allocated to the skill is above the dump target 152 the system will offer downtime (“approve change/reduction in hours) and as long as the number of agents allocated to the skill is below the fill target 151 the system will offer uptime [downtime will not be offered] (PP 75). Not offering downtime is analogous to denying the shift change and being below the target is analogous to not having a different agent to cover for the agent requesting shift change.
On the other hand, Iknoian (PP 17, abstract) teaches that changes to schedule may be accepted or rejected based on employees availability and conflict. Managers may accept or reject requests and utilize employee unavailability times to schedule particular workers to a shift and readily observe conflicts and schedule around these conflicts using a schedule screen that shows the workers, their unavailability times and scheduled times.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of this application to use the feature of detecting “shortfall” (as taught my Medina) or detecting unavailability conflict (as taught by Iknoian) in Medians so that the request for schedule change is denied when there is no other available agent to cover for the agent. Inherently (or at least obviously) , the denial of a shift change is communicated to the agent requesting the change. Note that this is an old and well-known feature (when no coverage, deny leave request). This will ensure continued coverage at an optimal service level in the ACD. This basically reads on the well-known situation when an employee requests time off or vacation and there is no other employee available to provide coverage. Obviously, the request should be denied to ensure optimal workforce availability.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Medina (US 20080075268 A1) in view of Schwartz (US 9679265 B1) and further in view of Hook et al (20170330147 A1).
Regarding claim 6, Medina teaches that workstation 28 and monitor 32 display:
* the request of change to the scheduled-shift and one or more time-intervals in marked format when the predicted impact-level of at least one ACD-skill is positive; See PP 51 of Medina “Agent's computer workstation 28 provides means for the agents to access and/or print their work schedules, and PP 60 “the workstations may provide this functionality …. and it may be desired to have all schedule functions (such as schedule changes) performed on the workstations. PP 16, if the WFM system forecasts manpower shortfalls (positive impact -according to applicant’s definition-), the agent will be offered uptime adjustments (marked format). Schwarts also teaches (col. 6, line 27-54) that FIG. 8 depicts an interface which could be used to support worker-initiated schedule changes. The claimed "format" reads on "could be removed", "could be added" which depends on the possible existence of "staffing gap" (e.g., “positive impact”).
* As for the claimed “upon receiving via the UI of the WFM a user selection of an approval icon, automatically granting the request of change to the scheduled-shift of the agent and changing the scheduled-shift of the agent that is stored in a database associated to the WFM application based on the request of change to the scheduled-shift,” see “automatic approval” as discussed throughout Schwarts and in the “summary” of the invention which states that processing of requests for schedule changes, such as through a computer configured to generate a scheduling interface with information on potential changes, and to automatically approve or deny some or all of the changes requested through such an interface.
Both Medina and Schwarts teach that relevant collection of items may be displayed on the agent’s screen to facilitate the request for schedule change, but do not explicitly teach displaying “the selected different-agent for each ACD-skill of the at least one ACD-skill that the predicted impact-level is positive”.
Numerous references such as Hook teach the feature of swapping shifts among agents (i.e., an agent who wants to take some time off may swap shift with another agent with the same skill). For example, Hook teaches [starting at PP 81] providing agents with their schedule preferences whenever feasible to increase employee satisfaction and reduce attrition, and also create a marketplace where agents can trade schedules amongst team members to promote work-life balance (see FIG. 13 and Fig. 15). So the agents manage their own schedules to cover the workload assigned to their team in order to maintain appropriate staffing levels to meet demand and maintain quality and fairness on each line of business, provide a mechanism to manage workload balancing for real-time and long-term applications, and provide data to a Global Data Warehouse for analytic purposes such as finding overlapping overstaffed and understaffed intervals in order to find load balancing opportunities.
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at filing time of the current application to display and use the shift trading feature as taught by Hook in combination with the items displayed by Medina and Schwarts for all the reasons discussed in detail by Hook such as workload balancing and employee satisfaction. Obviously, all the needed and relevant information such as hours, availability, etc. should be displayed in a certain format to enable the agent to efficiently handle the request for schedule change.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Stepanov (US 11,736,615) teaches in PP 57 that the agent assignments 233 may be generated by the schedule engine 230 of the scheduler 170 for an interval by assigning agents 120 to queues 125 based on the skills associated with each agent 120 and the required staffing 231 needed to meet a desired service level for the interval.
Palava (US 11201964 B2) teaches in PP 73 forecast modeling techniques and algorithms to calculate skill and staffing requirements for branch/location based on customer demand and traffic patterns, including the availability of pooled employee resources across multiple locations. Multi-Skill Scheduling creates a timetable of blended agent activities that balances forecasted demand against agent availability. Schedules are based on the skill mix and proficiency level of agents who have been trained to perform various activities, support different products, or have the ability to handle more than one communication channel. PP 74 refers to intra-day management tools that provide the capability to gauge real-time service-level impacts and help determine the actions required to ensure service levels are met on an ongoing basis. Adaptive Real-Time Scheduling tools are self-learning applications that use rules to automate the process of identifying unanticipated changes in demand and finding and acquiring the resources to address the staffing overage or underage. This module may identify variances from plan, identify the skills and resources needed to handle the re-forecasted volumes, and automate the process of addressing the variances by interacting directly with employees, using self-service tools to resolve the misalignment in real time. Real-Time Adherence tools capture and compare current agent activity and status data from the automatic call distributor (ACD) (in contact centers), or work allocation and management solutions (in back offices) to schedule information. This comparison allows managers to recognize what agents are doing relative to scheduled activities, and then address any deviations from the plan. It enables managers to identify impacts on shrinkage.
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/AHMAD F. MATAR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2693