Patent ID: 8768930

Claim:
In a procurement system executing a procurement enterprise application, a method of assisting a user in classifying a product, the method comprising: providing, from the procurement system, a user interface for receiving input from the user during a procurement process executed by the procurement enterprise application; obtaining product information at the procurement system about the product the user desires to procure as part of the procurement process; generating, by the procurement system, one or more keywords based on the obtained product information, wherein the one or more generated keywords relating to possible classifications for the product, the possible classifications identifying one or more levels of a hierarchical classification taxonomy, the hierarchical classification taxonomy comprising multiple levels and representing a plurality of products available for procurement through the procurement process; clustering, by the procurement system based on a clustering model, similar keywords of the one or more generated keywords together to generate two or more sets of clustered keywords; enriching, by the procurement system, the product information with the clustered keywords; evaluating, by the procurement system, the enriched product information to determine a confidence level associated with each of the clustered keywords indicating a level of certainty that an inline-classification engine of the procurement system is able to correctly predict the product's categorization; comparing, by the procurement system, the confidence level of each of the clustered keyword with a specified threshold; sending, from the procurement system, at least one of the clustered keywords and the enriched product information to a classification engine, based on the comparison of the confidence level for each clustered keyword with a value meeting or exceeding the specified threshold; generating, by the procurement system, one or more predicted classifications at the classification engine; rating, by the procurement system, each of the one or more of the predicted classifications so that any of the predicted classifications with a largest rate value has a better predicted fit with the product and the product information; ranking, by the procurement system, the one or more predicted classifications based on corresponding predicted fits; presenting, by the procurement system, the one or more ranked predicted classifications to the user, with the user interface while the user is attempting to procure the product during the procurement process; receiving, by the procurement system at the user interface, a selection of one of the presented, ranked predicted classifications during the procurement process; and classifying the product, by the procurement system, based at least in part on the selection and during the procurement process.