Patent ID: 6963847

Claim:
A system for automatically managing available-to-promise (ATP) data, comprising: a client interface operable to facilitate communication between a centralized fulfillment server and a plurality of client systems; an ATP server interface operable to facilitate communication between the centralized fulfillment server and a plurality of ATP servers; and the centralized fulfillment server, the centralized fulfillment server allowing the plurality of client systems to submit ATP requests for quotation without first identifying or directly communicating with any of the plurality of ATP servers that are to be used in generating quotations corresponding to the ATP requests, the centralized fulfillment server operable to: receive a first ATP request from a first one of the plurality of client systems using the client interface, the first ATP request comprising a plurality of request line-items each corresponding to a desired product; automatically select a first plurality of ATP servers from among the plurality of ATP servers according to the request line-items within the first ATP request; generate a plurality of component ATP requests based on the request line-items contained in the first ATP request; communicate the plurality of component ATP requests to the selected first plurality of the ATP servers using the ATP server interface, one or more component ATP requests being communicated to each ATP server in the selected first plurality of ATP servers; receive a plurality of component quotations from the selected first plurality of ATP servers using the ATP server interface, each component quotation corresponding to a component ATP request and comprising product availability information for one or more desired products corresponding to the component ATP request; generate a quotation determined according to the product availability information provided by the plurality of component quotations received from the selected first plurality of ATP servers; and communicate the quotation to the first one of the plurality of client systems using the client interface.