Re-engineering of Service Order Management solutions on a new technology platform

New product complemented existing functionality with many new essential features and was designed as a set of distributed components that communicate over the Internet by means of an ASP interface, Hand Held Devices, Telephone Interface and external Interfaces such as PMS Interface.

System Functionality

Service Order Optimization System was designed as a simple solution to satisfy need of service departments (engineering, housekeeping etc) to capture requests and intelligently handle them. Whether a service order is created via telephone or at the computer, hotSOS’s unique response rules engine instantly notifies the right person or team for the job. Flexible options for automatic dispatching include next available person, round robin and others. All dispatching can be automated so that hotline agents can focus on getting to the next guest call rather than worrying about whom to contact for the job. The

System supports three major request types:

• Un-scheduled works (for example, burned-out lamp replacement)
• Guest-related works (for example, automatic generation of service orders in case of guests check-in/check-out/moving); smooth integration with Property Management System (PMS) allows to personalize the service and take into account quests’s preferences
• Scheduled preventive maintenance works (for example, lifts and escalators maintenance); the system provides adjustable schedules and automatic notifications upon orders assignment

The System provides the following functional features:

• Full automation of all processes related to requests centralization and processing
• Message exchange with line-level employees via all available communication channels (pocket PCs, NEXTEL phones, alpha-numeric pagers, blackberry e-mail devices etc.); virtual dispatcher IVR enables staff to report service requests and defects from any touch-tone telephone
• Personified guests service because of data exchange with PMS (personal data, room status, quest preferences etc)
• A wide range of predefined hotel configuration templates available for further adaptation to hotel specifics (such as adjusting number of rooms, list of typical requests etc)
• 5 level hierarchic user management (hotel, region, brand, company, provider (ASP) with flexible user access permissions

Implementation Highlights

• Aplana’s specialists suggested a web-services technology and MS .NET framework as a core point of the concept. The system is implemented as a set of distributed components that communicate over the Internet by means of an ASP interface, Hand Held Devices, Telephone Interface and external Interfaces such as PMS Interface. It supports all available communication channels (Internet and wireless networks) for speed information exchange with employees with ability to transfer request using one or several channels (configurable options) and is integrated with a voice processing system based on Intel Dialogic. The following deployment and maintenance features were implemented:
• Quick and smooth integration with other IS using a standardized web-service interface, interfaces to most popular PMS solutions, such as MICROS-FIDELIO, LMS, SMS are included in the standard product release
• A fully automated workstation upgrade: when a new version becomes available, the system upgrades all thick clients automatically (Figure 2)
• Interactive user support over the Internet (Linktivity WebInteractive service)§ Secured Internet connection between server and workstations (HTTPS) and high system performance even using a dial-up lines (Web-services attachments)
• Interface Usability Testing to guarantee end-user’s convenienceAlso noticeable is a high productivity of the development - in average 100 lines of debugged code daily (including analysts and testers contribution), it is more than twice as higher than average industry figures

Tools and Technologies

The system leverages web-services and MS .NET technologies and is implemented as 3-tier application with web-services as a single entry-point for the business-logic server. Client applications and integration modules are connected to web-service via the Internet. System architecture (Figure 1). The system architecture consists of dedicated servers for business-logic, data server and communications server (sending and receiving massages using all channels such as e-mail, SMS, pager etc) that are physically located in application hosting center in Washington, USA. Client applications installed in hotels communicate with common application server. Recommended user interface is implemented as thick client with local cache of slowly changing reference data (alike with Microsoft “smart” client), Web interface is also available but has restricted functionality.

• Server OS - Windows Server 2003;
• RDBMS - Microsoft SQL Server 2000;
• Web-server - Microsoft IIS 6.0;§ C# programming language;
• Execution environment - .NET Framework 1.1;
• Development environment - Microsoft Visual Studio 2003;
• Data Access - ADO.NET
• Project scale - 70 man/month