Patent ID: 8135622

Claim:
An order support system comprising: a device information acquiring unit configured to search for one or more devices connected to a communication network and acquire device information from each of the devices found as a result of the search; a setting unit configured to obtain specified information used for extracting one or more of the devices to be candidates for monitor targets, wherein the information is specified according to a predetermined attribute included in the device information; an extracting unit configured to extract, based on the information obtained by the setting unit, one or more devices to be the candidates for the monitor targets from among the devices found as a result of the search; a monitor target selecting unit configured to display a list of the devices extracted by the extracting unit, from which list one or more of the devices are to be selected as the monitor targets; a communication unit configured to transmit the devices selected as the monitor targets to an order-support apparatus; a device monitoring apparatus configured to receive a list of the devices selected as the monitor targets from the order-support apparatus, and to acquire status information of at least one consumable element in each of the devices selected as the monitor targets received from the order-support apparatus, wherein the device monitoring apparatus comprises a status information sending unit configured to send the status information to the order-support apparatus; and the order-support apparatus configured to create an e-mail comprising a URL indicating a website used for ordering at least one consumable element that is detected as being deficient according to the status information received from the device monitoring apparatus, and to send the e-mail to an e-mail address registered in advance in association with the device corresponding to the deficient consumable element.