Patent ID: 8600992
Filing Date: 2013-12-03
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A method, in a data processing system comprising at least one computing device, for correlating reported problem data from a plurality of sources of information, comprising: receiving, in a problem management system of the data processing system, a report of a problem to thereby generate a reported problem in the problem management system; performing data collection on a plurality of electronic communications exchanged, subsequent to receiving the report of the problem, between human users using electronic communication mechanisms of a plurality of types within the data processing system in accordance with data collection rules to generate collected data, wherein the plurality of types of electronic communication mechanisms comprise a formal communication mechanism for communicating directly with the problem management system, and an informal communication mechanism for exchanging electronic communications between human users without targeting the problem management system; performing content classification on the collected data to classify the collected data into pre-determined classes of collected data in accordance with classification rules to thereby generate classified data, wherein the classification rules comprise a plurality of classification rules customized for a plurality of contexts of electronic communication mechanisms from which the collected data is collected; performing correlation of the classified data into one or more sets of correlated data in accordance with correlation rules, wherein each set of correlated data corresponds to a different reported problem in the problem management system, and wherein each of the correlation rules specify a pattern of one or more attributes of collected data, that has been classified by the content classification, indicative of a corresponding reported problem; and updating a representation of the reported problem in the problem management system based on a set of correlated data corresponding to the reported problem and classifications of data within the set of correlated data at least by normalizing the correlated data by aggregating attributes of the correlated data to generate an aggregated value that is representative of attributes of the correlated data.