Standby system and process

A standby processing system to reduce network bandwidth during a scheduling of service requests fed via a network from a plurality of customers, the standby processing system comprising:

• a datastore to store an indication of an availability of a plurality of appointment time slots;
• a contact manager server:
• a) receiving an indication of (a) additional service resource availability or (b) one customer of the plurality of customer's cancellation of one of the plurality of appointment time slots from a billing system via the network, the billing system updating in the datastore the indications of available appointment time slots in response to additional service resource availability or the one customer's of the plurality of customers cancellation of one of the plurality of appointment time slots;
• and
• b) in response to the indication, invoking via the network a standby processing event on a ticketing system server;
• and
• the ticketing system server responding to the invoking of the standby processing event by the contract manager server by:
• a) assigning each of the plurality of customers a requested appointment time slot and each of the plurality of customers a plurality of standby appointment time slots based on the indication of availability of the plurality of appointment time slots stored in the datastore;
• b) determining updated indications of available appointment time slots based on information in the datastore indicating additional service resource availability or one customer of the plurality of customers' cancellation of one of the plurality of appointment time slots,
• c) matching one of the plurality of standby appointment time slots of a selected one of the plurality of customers to the updated indications of available time slots, the matching performed by selecting for matching the plurality of standby appointment time slots in a chronological order until one of the plurality of standby appointment time slots matches one of the indicated available time slots, the selected one of the plurality of customers selected from the plurality of customers for matching the selected customer's plurality of standby appointment time slots to the updated indications of available time slots based on a predetermined priority order, the matching preventing a reduction in network bandwidth by increasing the likelihood of the selected customer accepting the selected appointment time slot without contacting the ticketing system server via the network to request another appointment time slot, and
• d) providing an indication to the customer manager that the selected one of the plurality of customers, has the matching one of the plurality of customer requested standby time slots, to enable the customer manager to inform the selected customer via the network that an appointment time corresponding to one of the selected customer's plurality of requested standby appointment time slots has been scheduled without requiring the selected customer to connect via the network with the standby processing system to obtain an earlier appointment time slot than the scheduled appointment time slot thereby preventing a reduction in network bandwidth.

A computer readable storage medium storing a plurality of instructions for execution by a processor, the computer readable storage medium comprising:

• instructions for reducing network bandwidth during a scheduling of service requests by a service provider fed via a network to a scheduling server, the instructions including:
• instructions for storing in a datastore an indication of an availability of a plurality of appointment time slots;
• instructions for requesting a first appointment time slot of the plurality of appointment time slots via the network by a first customer of a plurality of customers;
• instructions for responding to the request for the first appointment time slot of the plurality of appointment time slots and to an indication in the datastore that a first appointment time slot of the plurality of appointment time slots is presently available by storing in the datastore an indication of an assignment of the first customer to the first appointment time slot;
• instructions for storing in a datastore, in response to storing an assignment of the first customer to the first appointment time slot in the datastore, an unavailability indication of the first appointment time slot;
• instructions for receiving a request for a second appointment time slot of the plurality of appointment time slots and a plurality of standby appointment time slot preferences including a preference for the first appointment time slot via the network from a second customer;
• instructions for storing in the datastore an indication of an assignment of the second appointment time slot indicating a later time than the first appointment time slot and requested via the network by the second customer of the plurality of customers, to one of the plurality of time slots indicated presently available with the datastore and to the second customer, and for storing in the datastore in response to a request by the second customer via the network, the plurality of standby appointment time slots preferences for the second customer, including the preference for the first appointment time slot, to one of the plurality of appointment time slots indicated presently unavailable in the datastore;
• instructions for storing in the datastore, in response to storing the indication of the assignment of the second customer to the second appointment time slot in the datastore, an unavailability indication of the second appointment time slot instructions for providing resource information via the network in response to a cancellation by the first customer of the first appointment time slot;
• instructions for storing in a datastore a presently available indication for one of the plurality of appointment time slots previously indicated presently unavailable in response to periodically received resource information received via the network indicating a cancellation by the first customer of the first appointment time slot;
• instructions for matching the one of the plurality of customer requested standby time slots preferences requested by the second customer to the one of the plurality of appointment time slots previously indicated unavailable but presently available including the first appointment time slot cancelled by the first customer, the matching performed by selecting for matching the plurality of standby appointment time slot preferences requested by the second customer in a chronological order until one of the plurality of standby appointment time slots preferences matches one of the plurality of appointment time slots previously indicated unavailable but presently available;
• instructions for responding to the matching by storing in the datastore an indication of an assignment of the second customer to the first appointment time slot, the assignment of the second customer to the first appointment time slot preventing a reduction in network bandwidth by increasing the likelihood of the second customer accepting the first appointment time slot without contacting the scheduling server via the network to request another appointment time slot,
• instructions for storing in the datastore. In response to storing the assignment of the second customer to the first appointment time slot in the datastore, an unavailability indication of the first appointment time slot;
• and
• instructions for sending, in response to at least one of the matching and the assignment of the second customer to the first appointment time slot, a signal to the second customer via the network indicating that the first appointment time slot of the plurality of requested standby appointment time slots preferences requested by the second customer has been scheduled without requiring the second customer to connect with the scheduling server via the network to obtain an earlier appointment time slot than the first appointment time slot thereby preventing a reduction in bandwidth of the network.