System and method for providing diagnostic services

摘要

A request to diagnose a problem with an appliance is provided to a diagnostic system whereupon the diagnostic system functions to interpret the information indicative of the problem with the appliance to thereby normalize the information indicative of the problem with the appliance. The normalized information indicative of the problem with the appliance is then used to select from a knowledge base in which is maintained a plurality of solutions each having associated tags that function to identify concepts and values in a domain model a set of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance. As necessary, information within the set of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance is used to dynamically generate additional questions to thereby obtain further information indicative of the problem with the appliance. The further information indicative of the problem with the appliance may then be used to identify from with the set of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance a subset of best possible solutions for the problem with the appliance. This subset of best possible solutions for the problem with the appliance may then be presented to an end user to thereby allow the end user to perform the repair(s) needed to correct the problem.

主权项

1. A non-transitory computer-readable media embodied on a physical device having computer-executable instructions for providing appliance-related, diagnostic services, the instructions performing steps comprising: receiving a free-form text request from a user interface to diagnose a problem with an appliance, the request including information indicative of the problem with the appliance; interpreting the information indicative of the problem with the appliance to normalize the information indicative of the problem with the appliance, wherein the interpretation of the information includes replacing a word in the request with a second word and then normalizing the information including the second word into predefined domain attributes; using the normalized information to select from a knowledge base in which is maintained a plurality of solutions, each solution having associated tags that function to identify concepts and values from a domain model so that the normalized information can be matched to a set of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance, wherein the tags identify at least a symptom of the problem and how the problem manifests itself; using information within the set of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance to generate additional questions to obtain further information indicative of the problem with the appliance, wherein the additional questions are posed such that the user provides an answer that has a domain value that corresponds to a tag that is associated with a subset of solutions within an initial set of possible solutions; using the further information to identify a subset of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance from within the initial set of possible solutions; and presenting the subset of possible solutions for the problem with the appliance and the tags associated with the subset to a user.