Assistant Agent Client Program

This program is the implementation of the assistant agent which provides actors with the functional interfaces for activity information presentation, data sharing, message communication and work achievements submission to fulfil the invoked activities. Figure 6.32 shows the function structure of the assistant agent client program. After one actor logins the program, the assistant agent will list all invoked activities related to the actor in the activity pool. The actor needs to select one activity to operate. Five functional areas, namely (1) Activity information, (2) Task Report, (3) Data Pool, (4) Message Board and (5) Activity Summary Report, are included in the assistant agent client program to assist actors in executing activities. Besides, to manage activities’ executions, some specific functions, such as task assignment, verification of the activity’s output data, etc., can be only performed by the activity chief who takes the responsibility to manage and verify the result of the activity. Accordingly, the actors can generate and submit the activity achievements in this program, and the activity chief can verify all the achievements to determine the

activity can be finished or not. The functions of assistant agent client program are described as follows.

Login Fram

2) Select a Delegated Activity

1) Review Activity Information

2) Assign tasks to actors

1) Edit task report 2) Review other actors reports

3) Examine all task reports

1. Activity Information 2. Task Report

1) Read input data 2) Submit output data 3) Verify the submitted output data

3. Data Pool

1) Receive messages form actors and system 2) Send messages to actors 3) Review task summary report

4) End the activity 5. Activity Summary

Report Activity Pool

1) Enter user name and password

V

Useable functions of all users Useable functions of the activity chief

Function Module Name Notation:

Figure 6.32 Function Structure of Assistant Agent Client Program

1. Activity information:

As the actor picks one invoked activity, the basic activity information will be presented in this window. Moreover, the activity chief can assign tasks to other staffs here, and the task information, such as delegate name and task status, can be shown in the interface. Figure 6.33 shows the layout of this function.

Activity basic information

Task List of the activity

Figure 6.33 Window of Activity Information in Assistant Agent Client Program 2. Task report:

In this functional area, actors can edit and submit reports to the tasks he/she was assigned with. Meanwhile, the submitted reports and task achievements can be referred by other actors of the activity. Therefore, actors can collaborate with each other to complete or modify the task results. By verifying the submitted task reports, the activity chief can determine if a task is completed or not. Figure 6.34 shows the task report edition and reviewing frames in the assistant agent client program.

Review coworker’s report Edit my task

report

Report content

Report list Attachments

in the report

Figure 6.34 Window of Task Report in Assistant Agent Client Program 3. Data pool:

Data sharing and output data submission are two functions in the data pool. On the one hand, the activity assistant agent will provide the activity’s input data in the input data class pool, so the actors can work with the documents of the input data classes to achieve the activity target. On the other hand, the documents containing the achievements of the activity can be submitted to the output data class pool. If the submitted data belonging to the data class of “Database Record” type, the assistant agent will request the data management agent to retrieve the data via the corresponding data retrieving agent. In this case, the submitter will be requested the data query keywords, so that the data retrieving agent can acquire the data records and saved the results in the DBPCS. Figure 6.35 shows the output data list in the data pool in the assistant agent client program.

Input/Output Dataclass List

Basic information of Dataclass

Dataclass Name

Document in Dataclass

Basic information of Document

Submitted file in the document

Figure 6.35 Data Pool in Assistant Agent Client Program 4. Message Board:

Actors can send and receive the messages in this interface. For sending messages, the email (shown in Figure 6.36(a)) and the instant message (IM) (shown in Figure 6.36(b)) communication functions are provided. Moreover, when someone updates the data of the activity, the system message including the updated information will be announced to inform all activity actors. Figure 6.37 shows the actor message list and the system message list in the message board in the assistant agent client program.

(a) (b)

Figure 6.36 Email and IM Messaging Functions in the Message Board

Messages from other actors

Messages from system

Short Message Sending

Email to actor

Instance Messaging

Figure 6.37 Window of Message Board Frame in Assistant Agent Client Program 5. Activity summary report:

Three activity reports, namely (1) un-finished output data class report, (2) finished output data class report and (3) task report, are collected by the assistant agent to provide the activity implementation status. According to the information with the reports, the activity chief can determine if the activity can be finished or not. As all documents in the output data classes are completed and all tasks are finished, the activity chief can close the activity in the interface. Figure 6.38 shows the activity summary report window in the assistant agent client program.

Activity Summary Report

Report Content Un-submitted

datareport

Submitted data report

Task finished Report

Figure 6.38 Window of Activity Summary Report in Assistant Agent Client Program Summarily, the assistant agent client application provides a collaboration platform for actors to fulfil the delegated activities. Through the task delegation, data sharing and integration, and message communication, the activities can be achieved by the actors.