Patent ID: 7191209

Claim:
A client-server computer system comprising: at least one client application server that utilizes data in a form other than an initial form and generates a manipulation request for manipulation of the data from the initial form wherein the request includes the data to be manipulated in the initial form, and wherein the data to be manipulated comprises long distance ordering information including at least one of valid installation dates, available installation dates, and an allowable number of telephones; an application server accessible by a plurality of client application servers via a plurality of application software protocols, wherein said application server provides a data manipulation service on the data received from the client application server in response to receiving the manipulation request from the client application server, wherein the data manipulation service causes a change to the data to the form other than the initial form and returns the changed data to the same client application server that requested the manipulation, and wherein the data manipulation includes changing characters of a portion of the data from one case to another case and changing a date within a portion of the data from a year representation of a first set of digits to a year representation of a second set of digits; and a storage mass coupled to said application server for storing a system of dynamically maintainable manipulation functions for performing said manipulation service, wherein said storage mass comprises a database, wherein said database contains a table-based system of rules organized into at least three hierarchically organized views, and wherein a least amount of the data is sorted by a first view and wherein most of the data is handled by a third view, thereby improving efficiency in performing the manipulation functions.