1 Alert-based e-Business Process Management and Decision Support Dickson K.W. Chiu Senior Member,...

1

Alert-based e-Business Process Management and

Decision Support

Dickson K.W. ChiuSenior Member, IEEE

[email protected], [email protected]

Alert-based Process Mgmt and DSS 2

Agenda

Introduction and Background Case-study: Medical House-call

System Some Design Details Applicability and Advantage

Alert-based Service Speedup Ongoing Related Research Future Work and Summary

3

Introduction and Background


New Requirements of e-Business Process Management and Decision Support

Process execution often requires human decision making in the execution

In a highly dynamic environment, processes may raise the requirement for urgent attention, especially when there is a competition of resources.

The priority and urgency of the process is captured with the concept of an alert.

Such situations demand to improve the response time of some currently executing instances – service improvement.

Alert-based information and process management to facilitate decision support improvement.


Strategic Information Management

Strategic Information Systems help organizations do things better and to win aligned with business goals and strategies

Directive 1 - Highly competitive and dynamic Active and timely response to business events for management

decisions Timely and effective communications and coordination of personnel

(esp. management) Business processes integration with stringent urgency requirements

(within the enterprise and with business partners) Directive 2 - Service excellence

Service-oriented economy Quality value-added services provided over the Internet (e-Services)

Alert Management System (AMS) Alerts - urgent / critical messages Routing, monitoring, and logging the alerts Find suitable human attention / services dynamically


Project Background Motivated by exception handling requirements in

workflow management systems (WFMS) D.K.W. Chiu, Q. Li and K. Karlapalem. A Meta Modeling

Approach for Workflow Management System Supporting Exception Handling. Information Systems, 24(2):159-184, 1999.

D.K.W. Chiu, Q. Li and K. Karlapalem. Web Interface-Driven Cooperative Exception Handling in ADOME Workflow Management System. Information Systems, 26(2):93-120, 2001.

D.K.W. Chiu, K. Karlapalem, Q. Li and E. Kafeza. Workflow Views Based E-Contracts in a Cross-Organization E-Service Environment. Distributed and Parallel Databases, 12(2-3):193-216, 2002.

S.C. Cheung and D.K.W. Chiu. Cross-Organizational Process Exceptions. RGC Grant (HKUST 6170/03E)

Capture the essences of workflow development and management methodology

Light-weight system integration platform


Initial Research on This TopicFocus on B2B e-Services D.K.W. Chiu, Benny Kwok+, Ray Wong+, E. Kafeza and S.C.

Cheung. Alert Driven E-Services Management, 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS37), 1/2004, (BEST PAPER AWARD, Decision Technologies Track). (+PTMSc student)

Focus on medical applications D.K.W. Chiu, Benny Kwok+, Ray Wong+, E. Kafeza, S.C.

Cheung, and M. Kafeza. Alert Driven Healthcare Process and Data Integration, IEEE HICSS37, 1/2004. (+PTMSc student)

Journal version: conceptual model / management of medical personnel

E. Kafeza, D.K.W. Chiu, S.C. Cheung, and M. Kafeza. Alerts in Mobile Healthcare Applications: Requirements and Pilot Study, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 8(2):173-181, 6/ 2004.


Continuing Research on This Topic

Application on e-Learning Dickson K.W. Chiu and Samuel P. M. Choi. Alert Driven

Communications Management for Distance Learning, IEEE International Conference on e-Technology, e-Commerce and e-Services (EEE05), Hong Kong, 4/2005, pp 570-575.

Analysis of alert-based service speed-up E. Kafeza, D.K.W. Chiu, and K. Karlapalem. Improving the

Response Time of Business Processes: An Alert-based Analytical Approach, HICSS39, 1/2006.

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Case-study: Medical House-call System


Case Study – Medical House-call System

Both human and computerized systems are involved Business partners have different degree of computerization Web Services supports both type of interactions in a unified

framework

Web Services


Use Case Diagram

Both human and computerized systems are involved Business partners different degree of computerization Web Services supports both type of interaction in a unified

framework

Nurse / Helper

DoctorPatient

Make House Call

Find Doctor for Notification

Confirm Doctor and Patient

Report Absence of DoctorHandle Absence of Doctor

Find Administrative Staff

Payment

Find Nurse / Helper

Request Help

Finish Consultation

Send Information

Update Doctor Status

Call Center

Administrative Staff

Report Updated Status


Overall Approach Objective: robust, efficient, cost effective, simple, and user

friendly AMS to improve communications Detailed requirements were elicited and formulated into an

alert conceptual model Sketched an overall system architecture Worked out the detailed mechanisms for each components

of the system Alert management policies from business goals and

strategies could be adapted to handle various situations Prototyping with phases:

establish a computerized call center to manage all the alerts, replacing the current manual system

extend the system to connect to business partners to form a service grid

include further intelligence into the system, e.g., advanced capability reasoning, scheduling with mobile location dependent information, service negotiation, integration with traffic routing


Role of Alerts in Strategic IS / DSS

Strategic Information Systems and DSS

Event /Exception Handling

Information /Process

Requirements

Alerts Managed by AMS

Web Services and Mobile Devices

What are Alerts? Different from general events, alerts

have more specific attributes, e.g., urgency and process requirements.

Different from exceptions, they need not relate to abnormal behaviors.

asynchronously received through business events / exceptions / incoming requests

synchronously generated by internal business application

handled by the AMS by requesting services from:

internal information systems management / human attention external e-Service providers

3R – Retry, Reroute, Reassign

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Some Design Details


Alert Conceptual Model (UML Class Diagram)

Schedule

Response

Flexible Task

Role

1..*

require

Specific Task

1..*

Human1..*1..*Web Service

Provider

Service Agent

0..n

1

0..n

11..*1..*

Capability Profile

11

specify

Devices* 1..** 1..*

Service Access Points1..*1..*

Alert

0..1

1

0..1

1

0..*0..*

send send

AMS Task

0..*1 0..*1


Alert Life Cycle

Send alert

Log Alert

Check if response received by deadline

Check if service performed upon service due

Find matching service provider

Generate new alert to admin staff

[ no ]

Increase Alert Urgency

[ no ]

Determine device / web service access point

[ yes ]

[ yes ]

[ flexible task ]

[ specific task ]/ personnel


Alert Urgency Elevation Defining the policies according to which the

urgency of the alert will be “elevated” Example

dtdtdtTdtdtT CriticalVery

dtdtTdtT Critical

dtTTt Very Urgen

(default) T Urgent

)(002

32121

211

1

t

t

t

t

tU

Urgency Level Action

Urgent default – notify the selected agent

Very Urgent Submit a second alert to the same agent, notifying about the approaching deadline

Critical Redirect the alert to another agent that has the best response time

Very Critical Send the alert to several agents and accept the results of the one that response first, notify an administrator


System Architecture

Database

ApplicationLogic

Alert Management

System

Web / WAP Access

Ale

rt

Web Service Server

XSLT ProcessorWeb Front -end

Ale

rt

Web Services Programmatic

Access

Public UDDIRegistry

Alert

Triggered Action

Alert Input

XSLT Style Sheets

Desktop Laptop PDA Mobile

Patient Doctor Nurse/Helper

Call Center

Administrative Staff

HospitalsMedicalPartners

Internet

Medical House -Call System

Alert


Sample Screen – Doctor Selection


Sample Alert AcknowledgementUser Interface


Status Monitoring


Alert Web Services Summary Service Name: requestAlert

Input: AlertID, RequestorID, AlertMessage, Roles, Urgency, ResponseRequired ( TRUE | FALSE ), Deadline

Response: AlertID, ServicePartnerID, Ack (Confirmed | Denied | Deferred), ResponseMessage, AlertReceiptTime

Service Name: cancelAlert Input: AlertID, RequestorID Response: Ack (Confirmed | Denied | Deferred )

Service Name: checkAlertStatus Input: AlertID, RequestorID Response: Alert Status

Service Name: listActiveAlerts Input: (TaskID | ServicePartnerID),, RequestorID Response: List of pending alerts associated

Service Name: receiveDeferredResponse Input: Item AlertID, ServicePartnerID, ResponseMessage,

AlertReceiptTime Response: Ack (Confirmed, NotConfirmed )

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Applicability and Advantage

TechnicalManagement


Applicability – Process of the Call Center

Receive / enter call

Call ambulance

Find doctor

Find nurse

[ nurse required ]

Contact hospital

Gather patient record

Send patient record

Order medicine for patient

Perform House Call

Send patient to hospital

Billing

[ Hospitalization requested / required ]


Applicability – Example Process for Data Integration

Get sources for medical claims from insurance company

Request patient records from doctors

Request drug history from phramacies

Request patient records from hospitals

Combine the records


Applicability to Strategic IS – Decision Process Improvement

AMS is a unified platform supporting operational, tactical, and strategic decision making

seek different level of attention depending on alert’s nature alert “elevation”

Improves communications and coordination of management / personnel

Anytime anywhere multi-platform alerts for management decisions

Right person at right time with right information Automatic retry of calls and routing Accountability - logging and monitoring Mobile workforce management

Captures management knowledge and experience Alert management policies Addressing urgency requirements Avoiding errors and help handle exceptions


Applicability to Strategic IS – Service Improvement

Improves e-Services provision Automation of call center which is a bottleneck in the whole

e-Service process Productivity improvement and cost reduction Clients / partners can request service via Web, mobile

devices, and even an emergency button Timely services

Business partners & service personnel form a service grid

B2B system integration - convergence of disparate business functionalities

Increase in business opportunities Relationships improvement

more “transparent” business process operations quality services

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Alert-based Service Speedup


Service Speedup Based on Alerts Exceptions to first-come-first-served policy:

earlier execution of selected process Measure the trade-off of speed-up, its cost, and the effect to

others. Aim at speed-up for alerted activities that requested speed-

up within the requested amount However might not be able to achieve speed-up for all Even some speed up, some slow down

Search problem (n!)p combinations for p services; queue length n exhaustive search infeasible algorithms developed are mainly for static cases inapplicable for

dynamic scheduling We propose a tailored polynomial time heuristics

Maximum Position First (MPF) MPF SiMilar Duration (MPF-MD)


Maximum Position First (MPF) algorithm

Achieve as much speed-up as possible for all activities that have requested speed-up

Putting in the first queue positions those tasks that are further behind in the queue

Those in the back of the queue are served first and they are pushed as much forward as possible

Swap front positions with back ones Swap could be more than the requested Drawback: when small amounts of speed-up are

requested, activities are speeded up more than required, forcing the rest to slow down unnecessarily.


MPF SiMilar Duration Algorithm (MPF-MD)

Swapping positions with other tasks that are ahead in the queues and have similar duration

If more than one qualified element, selects the element with the smaller position

Not so disruptive Cost factors


Comparing Different Speedup Algorithms

Different algorithms cater for different situations Multiple step speed-up algorithms will try to

achieve the required speedup as much as possible over time

One step algorithms will achieve as much speed-up as possible and as soon as possible

MPF algorithm may slow-down other speeded-up activities

MPF-SD algorithm can guarantee that no activity that requested a speed-up is slowed-down - milder version of one-shot MPF

“Locking” policy where tasks that belong to activities that are delayed beyond a threshold are exempted from being swapped

33

Ongoing Related Research


Ongoing Related Research – Cross-organizational Process Management

Follow-up Research Question: What (and when) are urgent / exceptions? How important / urgent are they?Advanced match-making

An ER^EC Framework for e-Contract Modeling, Enactment and Monitoring, Data and Knowledge Engineering, 51(1): 31-58, 2004.

Workflow View Driven Cross-Organizational Interoperability in a Web Service Environment, Information Technology and Management, 5(3/4):221-250, 2004.

An Architecture for E-Contract Enforcement in an E-service Environment. HICSS36, 1/2003 (best paper nominee)

Developing Workflow-based Information Integration (WII) with Exception Support in a Web Services Environment, HICSS37

Systematic Interaction Management in a Workflow View Based Business-to-business Process Engine, HICSS38 (journal version submitted to ACM ToIT)


Ongoing Related Research – m-Services (IS availability, adaptability)

A Three-Tier View Methodology for adapting M-services, IEEE Trans on System, Man & Cybernetics, Part A, 33(6):725-741, Nov 2003.

Business process adaptation at all 3-tiers based on platform capability with views

front-end user-interface view application logic / process (workflow) view back-end database view

Conceptual model and implementation framework Formal consistency criteria for adaptation Service negotiation case study Research Direction

location dependent and context-based services (ICEC 2006 paper) Alerts applied for multi-platform notification Agent-based (mobile) workforce management

H.F. Leung, D.K.W. Chiu & S.C. Cheung RGC Grant CUHK 4190/03E Wrapper for existing Web sites to become e-/m-services

Integrating Legacy Sites into Web Services with WebXcript, IJ Cooperative IS, 14(1):25-44, 2005. (*FYP students)


Ongoing Related Research – CRM and Enterprise Content Management

An Event Driven Approach to Customer Relationship Management in an e-Brokerage Environment. HICSS36, 1/2003. (FYP) (Journal version conditionally accepted to Decision Support Systems)

Turn knowledge into actions Complaints, abnormal transactions, (changes in)

customers’ behavior => alerts An Integrated Web Services Architecture for

Financial Content Management, HICSS37, 1/2004, (best paper nominee). (PTMSc) (journal version submitted to EJIS)

Timeliness requirement of financial content approval and distribution

Privacy and Access Control in Financial Enterprise Content Management, HICSS38, 1/2005

A Watermarking Infrastructure for Enterprise Document Management, HICSS36, 1/2003.


Ongoing Related Research – Agent based Computing

AMS provides platform for intelligent communication support Agent-based (mobile) workforce management

H.F. Leung, D.K.W. Chiu & S.C. Cheung RGC Grant CUHK 4190/03E A Multi-Agent Infrastructure for Mobile Workforce Management in a

Service Oriented Enterprise, HICSS38, Jan 2005 A Multi-Modal Agent Based Mobile Route Advisory System for Public

Transport Network, HICSS38, Jan 2005 Next Generation Multi-platform Tourist Assistance Systems: A

Multi-agent and Semantic Web Approach, ICEC 2006 Making Personalized Recommendations to Customers in a

Service-oriented Economy: a Quantitative Decision Model Based on Reputation and Risk Attitude, ICEC 2006

adapt agent reputation model to real-life service provision strategy Legal Issues in Agents for Electronic Contracting, HICSS38,

1/2005 Constraint-based Negotiation in a Multi-Agent Information

System with Multiple Platform Support, HICSS37, 6/2004. Workflow Management Systems as Meta-Agents in a Multi-Agent

Information System. AOIS-2001, 6/2001.


Ongoing Related Research – Negotiation Support Systems

Alerts for process support and offer / bid notification D.K.W. Chiu, S.C. Cheung, P.C.K. Hung, S.Y.Y. Chiu* and K.K.

Chung*. Developing e-Negotiation Process Support with a Meta-modeling Approach in a Web Services Environment, Decision Support Systems, 40:(1)51-69, 2005. (*FYP students)

Meta-model applicable for 3 kinds of e-Negotiation process(1) Bargaining (2) Auction (3) Request for Proposal

Implementation framework with Web services (FYP prototype) Focus on technology support for effective negotiation Constraint-based Negotiation in a Multi-Agent Information

System with Multiple Platform Support, HICSS37, 1/2004. On e-Negotiation of Unmatched Logrolling Views, HICSS36,

1/2003 (best paper nominee). (journal version under revision for JMIS)

Facilitating e-Negotiation Process with Semantic Web Technologies, HICSS38, 1/2005


IS Case Studies with MSc Students

Web Services course papers HKUST Web-service Based Information Integration for Decision

Support: A Case Study on e-Mortgage Contract Matchmaking Service, HICSS39, 1/2006.

e-Government Integration with Web Services and Alerts: A Case Study on an Emergency Route Advisory System in Hong Kong, HICSS39, 1/2006.

Cooperative Brokerage Integration for Transaction Capacity Sharing: A Case Study in Hong Kong, HICSS39, 1/2006.

Credibility Relationship Management in a Web Service Integration Environment, 4th ICIS Workshop on e-Business, 12/2005.

Enhancing Availability of Information and Towards Freedom of News Distribution: Supporting Small-scale News Agencies with a Web-Service Infrastructure. (submitted)

Developing a Distributed e-Monitoring System for Website and Web Services: An Experience Report with Free Libraries and Tools. (submitted)

More to come…

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Future Work and Summary


Future Work

Other application domains – tourism, CRM, … Interfacing and platform-specific issues Location dependent applications

Workforce management Mobile CRM

Analysis and simulation of alert-based speed-up Inter-relations among alerts Failure of commitments and their relation to

contract enforcement Impact of cancellations, other possible exceptions


Summary A conceptual model for specifying alerts based on the

requirements of business processes and a set of routing parameters

A mechanism for (re-)routing alerts and increasing their urgency when alerts are not acknowledged or processed within deadline

A practical architecture for the AMS based on contemporary Web Services and mobile technologies – supports human and programmatic interfaces

Improved information and process management for decision support

Improved service provision through speed-up Flexible, reusable, light-weight AMS plugged into other

systems Looking for research collaborations (esp. domain knowledge,

say, logistics, tourism) for cross-disciplinary research and empirical studies in more depth and wider scope


Q&A

Thank you!


Service Provider Matchmaking

Algorithm searches for those personnel / service providers that can play the role required for the alert

Selects those that have a response time that is less than the deadline

If the matching is successful, one personnel / service provider is selected according to a user-supplied cost function

In case no matching is available, the algorithm upgrades the alert by expanding the roles whenever possible


System Architecture

Database

The Outgoing Alert Monitor

Process / AlertDefinition Module

Alert Management System (AMS)

Process Execution Module

alerts

Role Matching Module

Urgencies Strategy Definition Module

Service ProviderMonitoring Module

Incoming Alerts

Inco

min

g A

lert

Mo

nito

r

Outgoing Alerts

Re

spo

nse

of

Inco

min

g A

lerts

Web ServicesServer

AMS

Web Server

Counterparty

AMS

Web Server

Counterparty

AMS

Web Server

Web ServicesProvider

Internet

Responses for Outgoing Alerts

Incoming Alerts

Responses for Incoming Alerts

ICQ, SMS, Email alerts

Use

r Inte

rface

Medical House-Call System Workflow and Application Logic

Web, WAP, SMS, email reply

ExecuteAlert Handlers Create

Alerts

Call CenterPersonnel

Human Service Providers


Evaluation by Medical Professionals

AMS Advantages Make sure that an alert can reach the person who has

to be notified The inclusion of multiple mobile devices and platforms

helps both the medical professions and the patients The implementation of an urgency policy that uses

concurrently multiple devices to communicate the alert can increase the probability to inform the person on time

An automated alert can make sure that the information is passed accurately and completely

Capability to choose the kind of received information, reception devices, and desired time slots

Infrastructure Benefits Total solution healthcare chain workflow integration Save much paper work and administration guides call center operators to choose the right medical

professionals to minimize possible specialty mismatch


Advantage of an AMS

The urgency requirements, associated interactions with service providers, and the monitoring required by the administrators can be systematically and modularly captured into an AMS, instead of scattering around in the main workflow specification.

The logic for sending, routing, and monitoring these alerts is supported in the AMS and can be heavily reused.

AMS evolves from the exception handling and user-interface mechanisms of our ME-ADOME WFMS, by factoring out and extending, in particular, urgency requirements.

Physical execution of individual tasks of regular processes is outside the scope of the AMS and is in capture in the application logic of individual information systems which can be a WFMS as well

An AMS is light-weight and highly coherent, but loosely coupled with other sub-systems, enabling it to be plugged into any information system that needs such services


Evaluation by Medical Professionals

AMS Advantages Make sure that an alert can reach the person who has

to be notified The inclusion of multiple mobile devices and platforms

helps both the medical professions and the patients The implementation of an urgency policy that uses

concurrently multiple devices to communicate the alert can increase the probability to inform the person on time

An automated alert can make sure that the information is passed accurately and completely

Capability to choose the kind of received information, reception devices, and desired time slots

Infrastructure Benefits Total solution healthcare chain workflow integration Save much paper work and administration guides call center operators to choose the right medical

professionals to minimize possible specialty mismatch


Alert Log Module Table State

Pos 0 1 2 3 4 5

Service1 1,1 2,1 3,1 6,1 5,1 4,1Service2 4,4 1,5 2,4 2,5 3,4 1,4Service3 5,4 6,4 3,5 4,5 1,7 2,7Service4 5,5 6,5 3,7 5,7 4,7 6,7 6 patients (activities A1 to A6) each having tasks

t1: have given blood and wait for the results, t2: given their insurance and wait for credit verification t3: given permission for date retrieval and wait for the creation

of their medical history (it might involve retrieval by several health care resources)

t4: wait to see the same specific physician

Total 24 tasks that are waiting to be served


Task Durations and Positional Values

Pos 0 1 2 3 4 5

dagent1 5 7 2 5 1 8

dagent2 8 3 7 3 6 1

dagent3 9 3 5 2 4 1

dagent4 4 6 2 6 2 8Pos 0 1 2 3 4 5

pvagent1 0 5 12 14 19 20

pvagent2 0 8 11 18 21 27

pvagent3 0 9 12 17 19 23

pvagent4 0 4 10 12 18 20

ijkjkj

kj

ttt

tijst dtpv :

1 )( , where dtkj is the duration of task tkj


Activity Position Value and Vector

If an activity has submitted more than one task to a given web-service, then we deduct the duration added by the previous tasks

Represents the total waiting time - metrics The set of positional values of all the activities

in a given table form its positional vector PV

p

i ik

kjijjLTst tpvtpvApv1

)()()(

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