Searching Solutions for the Mobile WorkforceCollaborative Information Management for Mobile Workers

BT Innovation & Design

Géry Ducatel, Botond Virginas

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Content

• Context of what we are doing• History• Current solutions• Outlook

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Information Management for Mobile Workers

• Field engineers rely on mobile applications to– call colleagues/back-office– keep customers informed– access online documents– consult maps– report progress– Bill customers– submit timesheets, drivers’ log, etc

• Lack of application support drives performance down– Poor visibility on job history– no guidance– portal information not contextualised– job reports unexploited for sharing expert knowledge– poor data quality hampers analytics– hard to check/enforce schedule adherence– out-of-sync scheduler generates sub-optimal tours

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History

• Search Engine for User Manuals/Technical content– Based on lucene– Segment pages into smaller chunks– Good quality results– Personalised term association

• Query suggestion engine– Developed to support user forums

• Collaborative approach to Information Management– xMobile trial

2007 - 09

2009 - 11

2009

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Search engine

Technical Health and Safety

Reference DB

Information Transformation Layer

Component Layers

Web Interface

Content Analysis ModulesNatural

LanguageAugmented

Query suggestionsQuery

Modeling/EditorSemanticAnalysis

Ontology

Index

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<SENTENCE><NO_MEANING>I</NO_MEANING><NO_MEANING>can</NO_MEANING><NO_MEANING>not</NO_MEANING><VERB><RAW_VERB>get</RAW_VERB><BASE_FORM>get</BASE_FORM></NOUN><NO_MEANING>my</NO_MEANING><PRODUCT><PROPER_NOUN>BT Hub Phone 1010</PROPER_NOUN></PRODUCT><NO_MEANING>to</NO_MEANING><VERB><RAW_VERB>register</RAW_VERB><BASE_FORM>register</BASE_FORM></VERB><NO_MEANING>to</NO_MEANING><NO_MEANING>the</NO_MEANING><PRODUCT><PROPER_NOUN>BT hub</PROPER_NOUN></PRODUCT></SENTENCE>

I can not get my BT Hub Phone 1010 to register to the BT Hub

Query analysis:Strong verbs: get, registerStrong nouns:Products: BT Hub Phone 1010, BT Hub

Figure 3

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Query:

Computer representation:

I can not get my BT Hub Phone 1010 to register to

the BT Hub

1010 phone registrationinstallationringconnection

1015 phoneHome hubVision

securitybilling

Indexed content

Query Building Engine

telephone

routerpayphonefaxConsumables

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xMobile

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Anticipated Benefits Reduce data overload and

information gaps.

Fewer requests to legacy sources and calls to back-office.

Improvements in RFT, and CT.

xMobile Unique Selling Points

What it does• Improve information flow across the BT

field force

• Exploit Web2.0 social communication tools in field-engineering:

– Support information sharing– Speed-up information capture– Support access to existing data

• Anticipate future mobility platforms such as smart phones, tablets etc.

How it does it• A Wiki-based tool to support Openreach

field engineers with context sensitive information capture and delivery.

• Provides tagged task-reports and geo-coded notes.

• Map view allows location sensitive information delivery.

• Exploit current field information sources.

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xMobile Overview

- Query suggestion

- Entity Analysis

BT OR / THIRD PARTYCONTEXT / CONTENT

SERVICES

PR

ES

EN

TA

TIO

N

APPLICATION LOGIC

INT. DBs

BT ORDBs

xMobile

Fault diagnosis?

Job history?

Where's the team?

Take a photo

Wifi hotspots?

Experts to talk to?

Best docs to read?

CP product to recomm.

Reroute my calls

Expected end time?

Core func.

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xMobile

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Wiki Interface for Laptops (web based)

Job Description

Search eAssistantSearch H&S

Job History

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Search Documentation

Query Suggestions

Search technical info or H&S

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Conclusions

• Re-focus on Information retrieval– Looking for vertical applications– Search, and present, information

• Multimodal interaction– Intuitive and creative interfaces (smaller devices)

• Closer monitoring of job execution– Information about job progress– Contextual information– Communication opportunities

• Stronger IT presence with mobile workers– Job standardisation– More complex business processes

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Future Work

• Focus on Management of Knowledge– Capture information– Share Information– Integrate knowledge

• How to respond to rapid changes of the data• How to extract relevant information

– Entity Analysis– Removing duplication

• How to identify documentation gaps– Add new documentation– Remove obsolete content

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Thank you