Patent ID: 7693893

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for handling procurement-related data sets accessible from a plurality of network components, the method comprising: providing a database with a plurality of purchase orders, each purchase order including at least one data item and associated with a shopping cart, the shopping cart comprising a header including a timestamp, and a follow-on data set table configured to store a reference to each follow-on data set related to the shopping cart; generating a first list of data sets from the at least one data item in response to receiving a user-defined selection criteria: displaying the purchase order and a second list of data sets, the second list of data sets comprising at least a portion of the first list of data sets, wherein each data set included in the second list of data sets is configured to generate a follow-on data set; displaying, for a first data set included in the second list of data sets, a related first control element configured to automatically generate, in response to activation of the first control element, the first follow-on data set; storing information relating to the first follow-on data set in the follow-on data set table, the information including a reference to the purchase order and a dependency between a first processing stage associated with the purchase order and a second processing stage associated with the first follow-on data set; and outputting the first follow-on data set to at least one of the plurality of network components.