Patent ID: 7437342

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of constructing a computer application for generating a final output comprising: providing a set of program-creation wizards to a display of a user's computer, the user interacting with the wizards by inputting data in response to on-screen prompts of the wizards to specify one or more data manipulation tasks to be accomplished, the desired form of an output result of the data manipulation tasks, and local address information of data local to the user's computer to be retrieved for use in the data manipulation task, wherein the program-creation wizards include a data extraction wizard in which the user interacts with the wizard to specify a schema that provides automated navigation to an external location and to specify one or more data elements at the external location capable of receiving input data, wherein the wizards use the data manipulation tasks by the user, the desired form of output result, the local address information, the schema, and the one or more data elements at the external location to construct a rules based computer application; automatically extracting pre-existing information from a pre-existing local data source specified by the user in the local address information, by the rules based computer application; automatically extracting externally provided information from an external data source based on the schema, the data elements and the pre-existing information; and automatically generating the final output in accordance with the desired form of output result and the data manipulation task to the user's computer based on the pre-existing information and the externally provided information.