Patent Issued for System and method for workflow management (USPTO 11790318): Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.
2023 NOV 06 (NewsRx) -- By a
Patent number 11790318 is assigned to
The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors:
“Field of the Invention
“The present invention relates to a method and system for workflow management, and more importantly, to a method and system for managing and monitoring task distribution and fulfillment.
“Discussion of the Related Art
“Businesses must acquire and manage large amounts of information for decision making, planning, and operating the business. Each enterprise implements business processes for collecting and managing the information required for that particular enterprise. These business processes typically specify the individuals responsible for generating information, for reviewing and approving the information, and for accessing and using the information for specified purposes.
“In general, existing workflow management systems are “task/queue oriented.” That is to say, a task is assigned to a worker and the tasks in the worker’s queue are monitored and prioritized so that the tasks get completed. In order to distribute the tasks to the workers, managers spend a vast amount of time balancing their associates’ workload. Project managers, for example, sometimes find it difficult to identify the most important task in the queue. Indeed, far too much reliance is placed on an individual’s memory and on manual steps for distribution of work. Moreover, just because a task is assigned to a worker does not mean that the task gets completed, or completed on time. While monitoring systems exist that monitor work assigned to a worker to ensure completion of the task, these systems are reactive in nature. That is to say, typically, these systems alert the manager when a task sits in a queue too long (e.g., the worker has too much work, falls behind, or is not available to work, etc.) while other workers are available to complete these tasks. The manager must then spend the time to re-distribute the tasks to other workers who may or may not have other tasks in their queues. It may also be necessary to alert the worker to which the newly assigned task has been sent if it requires immediate attention, which in turn would delay the tasks in the newly assigned worker’s own queue. A direct consequence of such a system is that customer commitments and/or critical deadlines may be missed.
“Using disability claim processing as an example, processing disability claims is a significant part of the business activities of insurance companies. However, it is to be understood that workflow management is not limited to just disability claim processing or just to the insurance industry. Efficient processing of claims provides benefits not only in retaining and attracting customers, but also in minimizing costs. In the past, insurance companies have serviced all claims in the same manner, regardless of complexity.
“Due to the complexities and multiple separate tasks that are associated with most claims, the tasks contained within an individual claim need to be prioritized when a claim is being processed. Accordingly, what is needed is a system that can separate a project into individual tasks, prioritize the tasks, and distribute the tasks to associates who in turn carry out the tasks, and capture all of the work performed by the associates. It is therefore desirable to develop systems and methods for the management of work flow whereby work distribution decisions are governed by an associate’s need for work, rather than by a predetermined schedule that creates work to be categorized and distributed.”
In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Accordingly, the present invention is directed to a method and system for workflow management that substantially obviates one or more problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art. Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
“To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, a system includes a data storage medium to store a plurality of user profiles and at least one work project, each of the work project including at least one task that is characterized by a task definition, and a processor to receive a request for work from a user, the processor including a task management engine to allocate the at least one task to the user based on the user profile and the task definition in response to the request for work.
“In another aspect, a method includes defining and storing a plurality of user profiles in a data storage medium, defining and storing a work project in the data storage medium, the work project including at least one task that is characterized by a task definition, receiving a request for work from a user at a processor, determining, via the processor including a task management engine, which of the at least one task can be worked by the user requesting work based on the user profile and the task definition, and allocating, via the processor, the at least one task to the user requesting work based on the determining step.
“In yet another aspect, a computer program product includes a computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed on a computer, configure the computer to perform a method including the steps of defining and storing a plurality of user profiles in a data storage medium, defining and storing a work project in the data storage medium, the work project including at least one task that is characterized by a task definition, receiving a request for work from a user, determining which of the at least one task can be worked by the user requesting work based on the user profile and the task definition, and allocating the at least one task to the user requesting work based on the determining step.
“It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.”
The claims supplied by the inventors are:
“1. A system, comprising: a data storage medium configured to store a plurality of profiles of users of an organization and a plurality of tasks; and a processor programmed to: provide remote access to the users of the organization over a network so any one of the users can view, access and complete tasks through a graphical user interface; display tasks assigned to a user in the graphical user interface; determine whether the user has any active task; based on determining that the user does not have any active task, automatically activate a button for initiating a request for work in the graphical user interface; identify tasks from the plurality of tasks stored in the data storage medium after the user clicks the button to initiate the request for work; automatically allocate to the user a task with a greatest priority from the identified tasks; set a status threshold relative to an escalation time on the allocated task so as to redistribute the allocated task when the status threshold is met; automatically display the allocated task to the user in the graphical user interface; determine whether the allocated task approaches the status threshold; automatically display an alert in the graphical user interface to alert the user when the allocated task approaches the status threshold before re-distribution occurs; and based on determining that the user has at least one active task, automatically deactivate the button for initiating the request for work in the graphical user interface.
“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of tasks are characterized by task definitions.
“3. The system of claim 1, wherein each assigned task displayed in the graphical user interface indicates its status, and scheduled date.
“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the assigned tasks include a first active task in a hold status indicating that the first active task is placed on hold, and a second active task in a status that requires assistance indicating that an additional action is required from another user.
“5. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of user profiles comprises work preferences, and wherein the work preferences include one or more of preferred customer, preferred team, preferred location, and preferred work project.
“6. The system of claim 1, wherein each user profile comprises work preferences associated with the user, and wherein the processor is further programmed to allocate to the user the task with the greatest determined priority based on the work preferences.
“7. The system of claim 2, wherein the task definition includes escalation rules.
“8. The system of claim 7, wherein a selection priority is used to allocate at least one task to the user based on the escalation rules.
“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor displays, in the graphical user interface, another button to let the user enter a task retroactively after the task is completed for storage into the data storage medium.
“10. The system of claim 2, wherein the identified tasks are tasks that the user is eligible to perform based on the user profile and the task definitions of the identified tasks.
“11. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor determines the task with the greatest priority from the identified tasks by: automatically determining a priority for each of the identified tasks wherein greater priority is given first to tasks with escalation status then to fixed schedule tasks with an earliest deadline then to tasks matching work preferences associated with the user.
“12. The system of claim 1, wherein the data storage medium incudes a repository to track the tasks allocated to the user.
“13. A method, comprising: defining and storing a plurality of profiles of users of an organization in a data storage medium; defining and storing a work project in the data storage medium, the work project including at least one task; providing remote access to the users of the organization over a network so any one of the users can view, access and complete tasks through a graphical user interface; displaying, in the graphical user interface presented to a user, tasks assigned to the user; determining whether the user has any active task; based on determining that the user does not have any active task, automatically activating a button for initiating a request for work in the graphical user interface; receiving, by a processor, the user’s request for work after the user clicks the button; automatically identifying, by the processor and in response to the request for work, a plurality of tasks that the user is eligible to perform based on the user profile; automatically allocating to the user, by the processor, a task with a greatest determined priority from the identified plurality of tasks; setting a status threshold relative to an escalation time on the allocated task so as to redistribute the allocated task when the status threshold is met; automatically displaying the allocated task to the user in the graphical user interface; determining whether the allocated task approaches the status threshold; automatically displaying an alert in the graphical user interface to alert the user when the allocated task approaches the status threshold before re-distribution occurs; and based on determining that the user has at least one active task, automatically deactivating the button for initiating the request for work in the graphical user interface.
“14. The method of claim 13, wherein each of the at least one task is characterized by a task definition, wherein the data storage medium includes a repository to track tasks allocated to each user.
“15. The method of claim 13, wherein each assigned task indicates its status and scheduled date, and the assigned tasks includes: a first active task in a hold status indicating that the first active task is placed on hold; and a second active task in a status that requires assistance indicating that an additional action is required from another user.
“16. The method of claim 13, further comprising: displaying, in the graphical user interface, another button to let the user enter a task retroactively for storage into the data storage medium after the task is completed.
“17. The method of claim 13, wherein the processor determines the task with the greatest determined priority from the identified plurality of tasks by: automatically determining a priority for each of the identified tasks, wherein greater priority is given first to tasks with escalation status, then to fixed schedule tasks with an earliest deadline, then to tasks matching work preferences associated with the user.
“18. The method of claim 13, wherein each of the plurality of user profiles includes work preferences, wherein the processor is further programmed to allocate to the user the task with the greatest determined priority based on the work preferences.”
URL and more information on this patent, see: Burke, Susan. System and method for workflow management.
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