KosmosBOS Technologies > AutoAppointments overview

This application is about a "therapy facility". The requirement on the application is to automate the "procedure" of "therapy appointment". This means that the successive "steps" of the procedure are automatically forwarded from one employee to another without any kind of "manager" intervention. At any time the manager has the ability to see on what tasks (steps) the employs are engaged. He/She can also see what tasks are "scheduled" for the next days. After a certain period of time the manager has a complete report on what tasks each employee has been assigned, when has started and when has finished the tasks.

The requirements, put on the application from the supposed "therapy facility" owner, are the following:

"Every employee can take calls from customers in order to close a therapy appointment. The customer gives a name. A date and time are provided from our employee and the name of our therapist that would assigned the task. The customer arrives at the facility's reception at the specified date and time. The secretary welcomes him/her and then calls the hostess to lead the customer to the specified therapist. The therapist gives the customer the necessary treatment and then calls the hostess to lead the customer to the reception again. The customer pays and have a goodbye. That's all."

All of the above requirements are put on a coordinator agent. The action_code of the agent's is the following:

start_action

call bpm_setprocedureowner(__activation_user) {.....set the procedure owner}

{(1)....any user can put a new appointment}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "new appointment" , __activation_user , "" , 0)

app_id = bpm_getrecid(1,__au_step) {......get the record id of the appointment}

per_id = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"PERSON","")

ther_name = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"THERAPIST_NAME","")

app_date = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"ADATE","")

app_date_num = DateToNum(app_date)

per_name = LookUp("PERSON","PERSON",per_id,"FULLNAME","")

call bpm_setprocedurecomment(per_name) {.....set the procedures comment}

{(2)....at date (app_date) the SECRETARY waits the person to come for the appoinment}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "wait appointment" , "" , "SECRETARY" , app_date_num , app_id , per_id )

{(3)....the hostes escorts the person to the therapist}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "escort to therapist" , "" , "HOSTES" , 0 , app_id )

{(4)....the therapist is doing the therapy}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "in therapy" , ther_name , "" , 0 , app_id , per_id )

{(5)....the hostes escort the person to the secretary}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "escort from therapist" , "" , "HOSTES" , 0 , app_id )

{(6)....the hostes escort the person to the secretary}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "payment and good bye" , "" , "SECRETARY" , 0 , app_id , per_id )

end_action

We can see the callwait or split_in_branch keywords. Those keywords give the opportunity to the agent to wait (until a job has been finished) or to have parallel code execution. Those are capabilities that are not presented every day in a programming language (ok script!). Notice that the callwait "calls" the user's activity as it would be a "program's subroutine".

We have to admit that the effect (coordination and historic data collection of the therapy procedure) is far too big for the lines of code that are written by the application programmer. To be precise the code is a little bigger (the agent contains the code that "describes" the task (activities) assigned to employees). The complete agent (code and declarations) is given bellow:

{-----------------------------------------------------------------------

' procedure for the appointment manager

'----------------------------------------------------------------------------------}

{....................................AGENT INFO..............................................}

start_agent_info

AgentName = "APPOINTMENT_MANAGER"

AgentDescr = ""

AgentLanguage = ""

__timer_interval = 0

__is_registered = 1

__delete_on_termination = 0

end_agent_info

{....................................PRODUCTION CODE..................................................}

{..............................................................................new appointment}

start_bpm_activity "new appointment"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment elements"

rec = bpm_getrecid()

if (rec = 0) then

call OpenForm("ptAppend","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,"?=APP")

else

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

endif

end_bpm_subactivity

start_bpm_validation

result = 1

rec = bpm_getrecid(1) {...get the record id of the first activity}

if (rec = 0) then

call message("You havent created a new appointment!")

result = 0

endif

if (rec > 0) then

per_id = LookUp("APP","APP",rec,"PERSON","")

ther_name = LookUp("APP","APP",rec,"THERAPIST_NAME","")

app_date = LookUp("APP","APP",rec,"ADATE","")

app_time = LookUp("APP","APP",rec,"ATIME","")

if (per_id = 0) then

call message("You must define a client!")

result = 1

endif

if (ther_name = "") then

call message("You must define a therapist!")

result = 1

endif

if (app_date = "") then

call message("You must define a date!")

result = 1

endif

if (app_date = "") then

call message("You must define a time!")

result = 1

endif

end_bpm_validation

end_bpm_activity

{..................................................................................wait appointment}

start_bpm_activity "wait appointment"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment"

rec = __params[1]

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

start_bpm_subactivity "Customer"

rec = __params[2]

expr = strcat(rec,"=PERSON")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","PERSON_E01.FM","WORK.PERSON",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

end_bpm_activity

{..................................................................................escort to therapist}

start_bpm_activity "escort to therapist"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment"

rec = __params[1]

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

end_bpm_activity

{..................................................................................in therapy}

start_bpm_activity "in therapy"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment"

rec = __params[1]

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

start_bpm_subactivity "Customer"

rec = __params[2]

expr = strcat(rec,"=PERSON")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","PERSON_E01.FM","WORK.PERSON",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

end_bpm_activity

{.........................

start_bpm_activity "escort from therapist"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment"

rec = __params[1]

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

end_bpm_activity

{..................................................................................payment and good bye}

start_bpm_activity "payment and good bye"

start_bpm_subactivity "Appointment"

rec = __params[1]

expr = strcat(rec,"=APP")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","APP_E01.FM","WORK.APP",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

start_bpm_subactivity "Customer"

rec = __params[2]

expr = strcat(rec,"=PERSON")

call OpenForm("ptEdit","PERSON_E01.FM","WORK.PERSON",1,expr)

end_bpm_subactivity

end_bpm_activity

{.....................................CONTROL CODE......................................................}

{.................................ACTION CODE................................................

This agent has as job to coordinate (that' why we call it a coordinator agent) all the job of

a therapy facility.

The customer calls to the facility to make an appointment with one of the therapists

At the date of the appointment the secretary sees the appointment with the customer in question

The hostess escorts the customer to the therapist

The therapist is applying the appropriating treatment

After finishing the treatment the hostess escorts the customer to the secretary

The customer pays and the secretary says good bye to him/her.

The agent follows the events in real time (at the time they are happen!)

}

start_action

{ press F8 for next step}

call bpm_setprocedureowner(__activation_user) {.....set the procedure owner}

{(1)....any user can put a new appointment}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "new appointment" , __activation_user , "" , 0)

app_id = bpm_getrecid(1,__au_step) {......get the record id of the appointment}

per_id = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"PERSON","")

ther_name = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"THERAPIST_NAME","")

app_date = LookUp("APP","APP",app_id,"ADATE","")

app_date_num = DateToNum(app_date)

per_name = LookUp("PERSON","PERSON",per_id,"FULLNAME","")

call bpm_setprocedurecomment(per_name) {.....set the procedures comment}

{(2)....at date (app_date) the SECRETARY waits the person to come for the appoinment}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "wait appointment" , "" , "SECRETARY" , app_date_num , app_id , per_id )

{(3)....the hostes escorts the person to the therapist}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "escort to therapist" , "" , "HOSTES" , 0 , app_id )

{(4)....the therapist is doing the therapy}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "in therapy" , ther_name , "" , 0 , app_id , per_id )

{(5)....the hostes escort the person to the secretary}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "escort from therapist" , "" , "HOSTES" , 0 , app_id )

{(6)....the hostes escort the person to the secretary}

callwait bpm_assign_job ( "payment and good bye" , "" , "SECRETARY" , 0 , app_id , per_id )

{------------------------------------ end of procedure ---------------------------------------------}

end_action

The agent (agent prototype precisely) can be viewd form Right Mouse Click on Application's Background->Popup Menu->Developer->Resources->Agent Prototypes. The system creates, for every "therapy" requested, a new "alive" agent that starts to execute his action_code.

Another issue is that the jobs are assigned to users (employees) not only by name but also (and mainly) by their roles into the company. The users and roles as they are defined into the application can be found at Menu->System->Users/Positions.

A "new therapy appointment" can be activated on the application from Menu->Files->NEW APPOINTMENT. In order the users see the activities (jobs) that are assigned to them exit the demo application and logon as the user in question. The same can be run in debug mode from Menu->Files->NEW APPOINTMENT (DEBUG). The programmer has to press (F8) in order the agent continues the execution. In debug mode also the activities are not forwarded to the employees (users) but are presented to the programmer in order to complete the forms with data and forward them to the next step.

Every user has the "incoming activities" window. This window refreshes itself every 30 seconds (it can be changed) and contains all the activities that the agent has assigned to the user either directly (by user name) or (frequently) indirectly (by role that the user has). Notice that the same activity is send to all users that happen to have the same role into the company or organization. When the user "completes" the data that the activity required, he/she "forwards" the completed activity to the next step. Then the activity disappears from the window.

In order a user to see activities that assigned to him for today or are uncompleted from yesterday he/she has to activate Menu->Personal Secr->Activities for today. For activities that are assigned to user for future time (for example pending appointments) the user has to activate Menu->Personal Secr->Activities that Pending.

By activating Menu->Personal Secr->Activities In Progress we see every activity (job) that is assigned at the time and is in phase of completion, i.e. presented to users "incoming activities" and are worked by them.

Every window that presents "user activities" has a button captioned as "History". By activating it we see the steps that have completed (with date and time data) by user and role. The steps that are "finished" are flagged by (1) while those that are unfinished by (0). Near the button "History" there is the button "Flowchart". By activating it we have automatically a picture as below. By "red" are colored the finished activities, by "green" the activities that are assigned and worked now and by "blue" the activities that are going to follow as next steps.

When we activate Menu->System->Users we can see a button captioned "Have Done". By activating it we get all the activities that the user (employee) has finished and by witch role. The time of staring and completing for each activity is also available. This way the real effort that the user has given to the company can be estimated.

The demo application comes with "Developer" capabilities. That means we have the opportunity to change the database schema (Right Click->Developer->Resources->Database Manager->Edit Schema). We can also change the forms (Right Click over a form->Designing).

We described above that to "emulate" multi user behavior we have to exit and login the application with a different user name. In order to run the application in real multi user configuration (over TCP/IP breaking thus the barriers of the local area network) we have to replace the "kosmos.exe" with a real multi user server (starting from 3 users). For this reason see the "Products" page in our site. We have also to install clients (any number). For this reason see the "Downloads" page in our site.