Field Tech Admin Project Engineer: Ruoqi Tian Computer Science, University of Evansville Project Sponsor: Christi Cronin, Metronet Inc. Project Advisor: Dr. Don Roberts 30 April 2016 ABSTRACT Metronet is a fiber based telecommunications company, and it provides fiber TV, Internet, and telephone services in multiple cities. To provide services such as installations, maintenance, etc., many technicians go to subscribers houses every day. However, most of the operations that they perform require them to call into some departments back at the company office, where employees help them look up and update information online. A limited number of office employees and a huge number of technicians result in the fact that most technicians spend a long time on both waiting and talking. To improve efficiency of technicians and provide a better service experience to subscribers, an online web tool was built. It allows technicians to log in using their mobile devices, look up information, perform simple operations, and complete a service run without calling into the office.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The project engineer would like to express his sincere gratitude to the project sponsor, Ms. Christi Cronin, for the immeasurable amount of support and guidance she has provided throughout this project. He would also like to thank his project advisor, Dr. Don Roberts, and academic advisor, Dr. Deborah Hwang, for their valuable advice. Special recognition is given to Mr. Jason Funk and Ms. Gail Minnick for their technical support and code reviews. Furthermore, this project would not have been possible without the ideas and help provided by the members of MIS team and Field Operations at Metronet. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Process Map of a Typical Technician Run Figure 2: Interfaces of ISR (left) and VES (right) Figure 3. Diagram of Data Transfer Figure 4: Initial Dashboard Interface Layout Figure 5: Improved Dashboard Interface Layout Figure 6. Process Map of Implementing and Testing Each Functionality Figure 7. Field Tech Admin Interface on Tablets Figure 8. Screenshots of Spatial Lookup Figure 9. Screenshot of Previous Notes Lookup Figure 10. Screenshot of Services Lookup Figure 11. Screenshot of ONT Lookup Figure 12. Implementation Progress of Functionalities LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Database Schema of Spatial Information
INTRODUCTION Metronet is a fiber network company located in Evansville, Indiana, and it provides fiber TV, Internet, and telephone services in 25 communities in Indiana area. Like cable TV companies, Metronet technicians go to subscribers homes and offices every day to perform services, including equipment installations, maintenance, etc. Normally, technicians perform a lot of tasks that require them to call into company offices, such as subscriber information lookups, equipment swaps, and work scheduling. The result of a survey shows that the average length of calls made by technicians is normally more than 5 minutes, and some are even more than 15 minutes. Besides that, to call into TTU/Repair (test and turn up, the department which most technicians call into), a technician would wait in queues due to the limited number of employees available at TTU/Repair. With more than 300 hours wasted on technicians waiting and calling every month, the problem must be solved. Developing a web tool that runs on technicians mobile devices is a solution to this issue. Field Tech Admin is a web tool that technicians can log into and perform operations on their cell phones, tablets, and laptops. It allows technicians to customize their own homepages by adding functionalities that are most important, resizing them, and organizing them. This web tool takes advantage of the structure of existing company-wide background libraries and databases, allowing efficient debugging and better security. The design of the web tool is important because a simple and informational interface helps the technicians to work with more efficiency. After logging into the web tool using their username/password combinations, they are taken to a homepage, which is also called a dashboard. There are be multiple tabs of different sizes on the dashboard. Each tab represents a functionality, such as subscriber information lookup, equipment swaps, or terminal box activation, etc. Also, the web tool is a web platform that is open to adding more functionalities available to technicians. Because of various functionalities that technicians would like to see, it is not possible to add all them into Field Tech Admin during the senior project period. In the future, engineers can add functionalities by adding corresponding front-end screen, middleware, and back-end scripts, without modifying the main dashboard platform.
PROBLEM STATEMENT Metronet is a fiber network company, which provides TV, phone, and network services. Although fiber broadband is the fastest internet available, to provide quality services, it is still required that a great number of field technicians to go to the customers for services such as installation, maintenance and repair. Normally, to perform some common actions, field technicians must call in, wait in a phone queue, and have someone in the office perform a function for them so they can continue working. For every appointment, there are many different steps that could require calling for assistance and there can be up to 4 different groups [1]. Figure 1: Process Map of a Typical Technician Run. Departments with a Queue shown in Green Figure 1 shows a typical service run process. For example, a normal service activity would start with a technician arriving the location, meeting customer, and gathering equipment. Then the technician would begin his or her work activity, which might require multiple phone calls. It is very likely that the technician calls TTU (Test and Turn Up) and provides the customer ID, so the TTU specialist who picks up the phone call can turn up information that the technician does not have access to, such as services or billing information. Also, it usually happens that a technician calls Repair if there is any error that he or she cannot deal with, or any equipment swap is to be recorded. For both TTU and Repair, there will be queues because there are multiple technicians calling in. Additionally, a technician would call Dispatch for work assignments and sometimes Storefront for equipment-related issues. In their Green Belt project, Metronet employees Christi Cronin and Trey Bowles are trying to improve the efficiency of field operations by finding out reasons of calls, reducing number of calls, and reducing average time of calls. According to data from Green Belt Project Summary, field technicians make approximately 3000 calls a month to the Repair and TTU call queues during customer appointments. The average length of the calls is around 6 minutes, excluding the time the technician is on hold. Each month, this causes over 300 hours (1.875 FTEs) of wait time for technicians and customers. In addition, the time that repair is spending on resolving issues that may not be necessary [2]. Appendix A lists some sample calls with reasons. It is easy to notice that many of them are simple issues and that there are a lot of similar issues. Not only is the time of field technicians wasted, technicians waiting in the queue and talking to the office specialists results a negative customer experience. Based on above data and facts, the project sponsor believes that the current solution, which is technicians calling into the office, is not sufficient, and that developing a web-tool for field technicians to complete simple operations themselves is a necessary part of solving this problem.
SPECIFICATIONS Interface Requirements To gather requirements and determine specifications of Field Tech Admin, a survey containing 8 questions was sent to the technicians and accepted responses from 4 Oct. 2016 to 14 Oct. 2016. During the 10 days when the survey was open, 22 technicians completed the survey with detailed responses. Part of the summary of the responses is in Appendix B. It is important that technicians have access to Field Tech Admin using their mobile devices anytime, especially during a service run. According to the responses of question 8 of the survey, technicians use all kinds of different devices, including iphone, ipad, Android Phone, Android Tablet, and Dell Laptop. Field Tech Admin, which runs on web browsers, must be able to fit different screen sizes with responsive design. Foundation 6 is used for the front-end interface of Field Tech Admin. Foundation is one of the most advanced front-end responsive design framework that comes with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript [3]. Connection Requirement Security is also very important for a web tool, because users need to be able to log into it remotely and safely. Since there already exists a company-wide user database, the same credentials can be used for multiple applications, Field Tech Admin takes advantage of the user credential system so it can be accessed by technicians using their company usernames and passwords. However, Field Tech Admin is an external web application so that it can be accessed by technicians through any network considering the difficulty of connecting to the Metronet VPN. To access Field Tech Admin web tool, a technician should enter the URL on a web browser. After logging in, a technician is taken to the home page, which is also called the dashboard. Dashboard is the main interface of the web tool, which is supposed to provide information tabs and functional buttons. Since Field Tech Admin allows technicians to log in without VPN, a high-security structure is required. Figure 2: Interfaces of ISR (left) and VES (right) Also, Field Tech Admin utilizes the back-end libraries written in Perl. As a web tool that benefits the company, Field Tech Admin also takes advantage of the proprietary code frameworks of Metronet. During conference call with Metronet employees, two web frameworks, named ISR and VES, were introduced as having similar requirements and specifications as Field Tech Admin. As shown in figure 2, ISR and VES both have dashboard
interface and support responsive web design. The source code of the two web tools are very helpful for implementation of Field Tech Admin. Functionality Requirements Question 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the survey helped gather requirements by asking technicians to list their common reasons to call in multiple departments and what they would like to see on their dashboard of the web tool. As noted in the problem statement, TTU (Test and Turn up, the department where subscriber information is turned up and returned to technicians) and repair are the department they call in the most. According to the responses of Question 4, following are the major reasons of calling: - Equipment swaps - ONT Activation and status/lookup (ONT: Optical Network Terminal Box. The DVR, router, and VEN plug into the ONT. TTU can reset the ONT remotely.) - STB resets (STB: Set top box. Device within customer home/location that allows customer to connect to service. Only for video service.) - Spatial information lookups Equipment, ONT, STB operations is on the interface of Field Tech Admin. It is helpful that there already exist libraries for remote reset in the back-end. Spatial information lookups is also a part of the interface. The only web tool that technicians currently have access to is called ETA and it is a work scheduling system. Through Question 6, we learned that there are many functions that were not available in ETA but the technicians would like to see, including: - Unassigned work bucket - Timeline - Mac activation - Previous order notes/history - Internet speed tiers There is no doubt that adding these functions to the interface of Field Tech Admin greatly helps the technicians. In a meeting on Nov. 2 nd, 2016, the manager of TTU and Repair Mike Sibrel confirmed from a TTU/Repair perspective that those are common reasons techs call in and can help reduce that number of calls. He also confirmed that all the information mentioned above was safe to be retrieved through Field Tech Admin.
DESIGN APPROACH Dataflow Figure 3. Diagram of Data Transfer Metronet has a company-wide web services template. As with many of the web tools that are being used, Field Tech Admin follows Metronet Web Framework and Web Services Architecture. It uses model-view-controller (MVC) architecture and has front-end, middleware, and back-end. A front-end of a functionality consists of at least one HTML template, a CSS stylesheet, a JavaScript script, and a Perl library. The screen interacts with the front-end Perl library using AJAX. Instead of hard coding all AJAX commands, the project engineer used AJAX package from Metronet core library, which is a library that is shared by all web applications. The middleware follows SOAP, which is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. Its purpose is to induce extensibility, neutrality and independence [5]. In the case of Field Tech Admin, to transfer data between front-end and back-end servers, middleware files are used to wrap the data using multiple layers of protocol. Middleware files are normally in.wsdl or.xsd formats. Like front-end libraries, back-end libraries are in Perl. Also, back-end libraries use functions from Metronet core library. Front-end libraries are different from back-end libraries because front-end libraries focus on input data validation, error reporting, and formatting data to return to front-end screens, but most importantly, they only deal with the small amount of data that is returned through middleware from back-end libraries. On the other hand, the back-end libraries interact with multiple databases using SQL and format data to return to front-end.
Most functionalities of Field Tech Admin involve retrieving or modifying data. This web tool utilizes the company commercial database of Metronet powered by Oracle. There are multiple databases being used for different purposes. The most used database is called QCC1, and it keeps track of subscriber data, including general data, service information, billing information, transactions, and Billing Data Model. There are four development copies of QCC1, named TST1 TST4 [4]. For development and test purposes, TST1 is used so that unnecessary data modification can be avoided. System Setup There are multiple Ubuntu servers being used at Metronet for purposes such as development, testing, and production. The initial implementation of Field Tech Admin is on the development servers, where the basic configurations of Apache Server are set for other web applications that are already on the servers. There are development servers for both front-end and back-end, so security is guaranteed. Setting up the space for Field Tech Admin included creating the configuration file, adding a pre-compiling script, and creating a namespace of Perl libraries for Field Tech Admin. The setup of the back-end is easier than front-end because there is no need to combine interface templates with corresponding libraries. There is no front-end view on the back-end. The major work is to create middleware files where datatypes for different functionalities can be added and to create the handlers for middleware calls that are built inside of the back-end libraries. A good setting for bug reports and alerts can save much time during the development of Field Tech Admin. The front-end debugging for JavaScript is based on the console function of Google Chrome Web Browser. The debugging for both front-end and back-end Perl libraries utilized error log files along with error reports generated. When a database-related error take place, an error report generated by a core utility functionality is sent to the project engineer as an attachment to an email. It is important to mention that, during the process of development, only test databases can be accessed. At Metronet, multiple Oracle databases are used for storing data such as customer information, construction information, and equipment information. There are copies of each of them for development purpose. The project engineer only used development databases during the implementation. Interface The dashboard is an HTML based web page. Each functionality is in a small window, where technicians can perform operations such as entering subscriber IDs for information and so on. The front-end of each specific functionality makes web service calls using the middleware to transfer data with the back-end. The back-end libraries interact with databases for this specific. Most importantly, the database cannot be accessed through front-end.
Figure 4: Initial Dashboard Interface Layout The dashboard is the most important component of Field Tech Admin because it provides information, shows various options, and lets technicians customize tabs. Figure 4 is the initial design of the dashboard interface of Field Tech Admin. The computer version of interface is on the left and the mobile version is on the right. There are four buttons on the top of the screen. With the initial design of the home page, technicians can add, remove, resize, and rearrange functionalities. To make the most of the flexibility of the web tool interface, each field technician should be able to customize his or her Dashboard/Landing Page to show the most important content. Also, since Field Tech Admin is used and maintained after the senior project, it must be scalable to additional features in the future. Figure 5: Improved Dashboard Interface Layout During a conference call with the sponsor on Nov. 29 th, 2016, some potential issues of the initial design of home page was discussed. To achieve a simple and clean interface, a hamburger menu button was added to homepages in replacement of Add, remove, drag, and settings buttons (they become sub-buttons under the menu button). The username is displayed in a drop-down window with mouse over action on computer view, and it is always displayed on mobile view. Another issue was the difficulty of implementation of dragging and moving functionalities around on a mobile phone interface due to various types and sizes of screens. Technicians can rearrange the Dashboard by changing the order of functionalities under the menu button. As shown in Figure 4, in the early stage of implementation, most functionalities have the same size. It is possible that technicians can resize the functionality windows in the future.
Functionality Implementation and Testing Figure 6. Process Map of Implementing and Testing Each Functionality After creating the main interface for the Dashboard, functionalities were added. The process of adding all functionalities are similar. Figure 6 is a diagram of the process of adding a new functionality to Field Tech Admin. Before adding any functionality, a phone conference regarding the input data required and the output format must be held between the project engineer, the project sponsor, and the Field Operations supervisors. After determining the input data required and the output format, the front-end interface of this functionality was implemented, along with the JavaScript, CSS, and front-end library. When it gets to the middleware part, a research is necessary before creating a new middleware. Because of the existence of multiple web applications at Metronet, a great number of well-developed middleware and back-end files are already created. Searching and using existing middleware and back-end libraries greatly reduces the code size, helped the project engineer finish the implementation of the functionality more efficiently, and make the fix and update easier in the future. If an existing middleware and back-end libraries are found, the project engineer only modifies the front-end libraries to make them work together. Otherwise, he creates the middleware and the back-end. After implementing each functionality, the project engineer performs unit test, that tests if a functionality works independently. Then an integration test is performed by the project engineer and the sponsor to make sure that the newly implemented functionality did not break the previous functionalities. If a functionality passes both tests, it is ready for code review. After a loop of code review and fix, the functionality is rolled out to the testing server for user acceptance testing. In the user acceptance test, field technicians test the functionality and return feedback. Only when all the problems reported by the users are solved, can the functionality be rolled out into production.
Table 1: Database Schema of Spatial Information Spatial information lookup is a simple functionality that was added to the homepage in early stage of implementation. Spatial information is a special string containing spatial code that helps technicians locate the terminals of subscribers, and it can be queried from the company database of which schema is shown in Table 1. Once spatial information lookup functionality is added to the dashboard, technicians can click on the search bar in the spatial information lookup window and search by entering address information.
RESULTS Figure 7. Field Tech Admin Interface on Tablets After more than 150 hours of implementation, all core requirements of Field Tech Admin have been met, with most of its basic functionalities implemented. Field technicians can use either their mobile devices or their computers to log into the web tool with their company usernames and passwords. The screen is responsive, and the sizes of functionalities and the layout change according to the types of devices that they use. On dashboard, they can use the first four functionalities that have been implemented.
Figure 8. Screenshots of Spatial Lookup Spatial information lookup functionality allows field technicians to enter the address of a subscriber and displays the spatial information of the address. The bar for entering address has an auto-complete feature utilizing an AJAX call and it displays all address records that match the key characters that a user enters. Figure 9. Screenshot of Previous Notes Lookup
Previous notes lookup functionality allows user to enter either a subscriber ID or an activity ID. If a field technician enters a subscriber ID, notes records of all activities are returned along with their activity ID s. If a field technician enters an activity ID, only the notes of that activity is returned, but the subscriber ID is returned as well. Figure 10. Screenshot of Services Lookup Services information lookup allows field technicians to enter a subscriber ID and get all the current services of this subscriber, including Internet, TV, Phone, subscriber level, and some other equipment information. Different from other existing functionalities, which are supported by web service calls and back-end libraries that are explicitly created for them, services information lookup utilizes existing web service calls along with the back-end libraries.
Figure 11. Screenshot of ONT Lookup ONT stands for Optimal Network Terminal, which is the equipment that adapts fiber network signals for home usage. Getting the information of an ONT helps technicians figure out the problem of a malfunctioning ONT and whether it should be fixed of replaced. The implementation process of ONT information lookup was close to previous notes lookup but the data of ONT was retrieved from another database where equipment information was saved.
CONCLUSION Field Tech Admin with the first 4 functionalities were rolled out from development server to testing server on 30 April 2017, and all field technicians and supervisors could test it and return feedbacks to the project engineer. Field Tech Admin is on its way of helping field technicians get their work done more efficiently. The next step is to gather feedback and fix any bug that comes up, so the application and the first 4 functionalities can be rolled out from testing server to production server. It is also important to keep track on the usage of this web application and calculate the total hours saved by field technicians using it, therefore the effectiveness of this web application can be known. Also, knowing the usage of each functionality helps the project engineer better improve all the functionalities and develop more functionalities in the future. Figure 12. Implementation Progress of Functionalities Figure 12 is a list of functionalities to implement that was created during requirement gathering. All the required functionalities are implemented but the last one. Because equipment swaps involve modifying multiple entries in the database through back-end libraries, it was decided to be implemented after the initial rollout of the first 4 functionalities. Most importantly, as a web application that has great extensibility, Field Technician is open to adding more functionalities written by different software engineers at Metronet upon requests by field technician supervisors. The project engineer will keep improving this web application for even better compatibility with web browsers of different devices.
REFERENCES [1] Christi Cronin, personal communication. [2] Christi Cronin and Trey Bowles, Green Belt Six Sigma Project Summary submitted on Aug. 1 st, 2016. [3] Zurb, Foundation. Available at: http://foundation.zurb.com/. Retrieved on 22 April 2017. [4] Metronet, New Hire Guide Database. [5] Wikipedia, SOAP. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/soap. Retrieved on 22 April 2017. BIOGRAPHY The project engineer, Ruoqi Tian, is a software engineer born and raised in Beijing, China. He attended college at the University of Evansville and graduated as a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics in May 2017. Tian has strong skills in programming in Perl and good understanding of web application structures. He has great passion to front-end design as well. Tian served as the chapter secretary at the University of Evansville Chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery till he graduated. After graduation, Tian decided to become a Software Engineer at Metronet, Inc. in Evansville, Indiana.
APPENDIX A The above spreadsheet lists all 14 TTU (Test and Turn Up) calls made by technicians on a single day. ONT issue is the reason of 5 calls and Triple play issue is the reason of 6 calls.