Searching Solutions for the Mobile Workforce Collaborative Information Management for Mobile Workers BT Innovation & Design Géry Ducatel, Botond Virginas

© British Telecommunications plc Content Context of what we are doing History Current solutions Outlook

© British Telecommunications plc 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

© British Telecommunications plc 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

© British Telecommunications plc

Search engine Technical Health and Safety Reference DB Information Transformation Layer Component Layers Web Interface Content Analysis Modules Natural Language Augmented Query suggestions Query Modeling/Editor Semantic Analysis Ontology Index

© British Telecommunications plc I can not get get my BT Hub Phone 1010 to register register to the BT hub I can not get my BT Hub Phone 1010 to register to the BT Hub Query analysis: Strong verbs: get, register Strong nouns: Products: BT Hub Phone 1010, BT Hub Figure 3

© British Telecommunications plc Query: Computer representation: I can not get my BT Hub Phone 1010 to register to the BT Hub 1010 phone registration installation ring connection 1015 phone Home hub Vision security billing Indexed content Query Building Engine telephone router payphone fax Consumables

© British Telecommunications plc xMobile

© British Telecommunications plc 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.

© British Telecommunications plc xMobile Overview - Query suggestion - Entity Analysis BT OR / THIRD PARTY CONTEXT / CONTENT SERVICES PRESENTATION APPLICATION LOGIC INT. DBs BT OR DBs 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.

© British Telecommunications plc BT OR Databases BT OR Services Third-party Services Logical Architecture Context Tracking Data Mining Recom- menders Query/Tag Generator GeoManager TaskForce Attendance Planner eAssistantinformE Documenting Maps Lookup Reporting Alerts Comms Control Upselling Help Signature Capture Process Support Notes+ TADDS+ Auto Data Capture Google MapsBBC Met Context Logs Sched Logs+ Rules Profiles Rules Engine Thick/RIA/Thin Apps Back-end Databases Core AI Components Application Logic Notes TADDS Sched Logs Traffic 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? Info dependent Processes Core xMobile Information Automation opportunities Future work Colour coding Notifications

© British Telecommunications plc xMobile

© British Telecommunications plc Wiki Interface for Laptops (web based) Job Description Search eAssistant Search H&S Job History

© British Telecommunications plc Search Documentation Query Suggestions Search technical info or H&S

© British Telecommunications plc 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

© British Telecommunications plc 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

© British Telecommunications plc Thank you