Patent ID: 7890361

Claim:
A method for immediate escalation of a rule change request from a customer to change a rule that applies to a catalog associated with the customer, wherein the rule is a member of a set of rules that are used to create the catalog and the request is escalated until it reaches an owner of the rule, and wherein the catalog and the set of rules are stored and executed on networked computer hardware, the method comprising the steps of: providing a means for the customer to submit the rule change request; receiving the rule change request by a software module associated with the catalog; processing the request to see if the rule change request has been pre-approved, wherein if the request has been pre-approved an automated response indicating approval of the request is sent to the customer and the set of rules are changed to reflect the approved rule change, and if the request has not been pre-approved; locating the owner of the rule; forwarding the request to the owner of the rule; alerting the owner of the rule to the presence of the request; and, sending a response from the owner of the rule to the customer, wherein the response indicates an approval of the request, a disapproval of the request with a reason for the disapproval, or a subsequent request from the owner of the rule to hold a dialog with the customer to discuss the rule change request, and wherein if the response is an approval, the set of rules are changed to reflect the approved rule change.