Patent ID: 7904348

Claim:
A supplier portal system for supplier personnel to self-author and self-manage a business process as an interconnection of at least one configurable and namable business process element, comprising: a host computer system; at least one database component associated with the host computer; a communications interface to said computer system for access thereto by said supplier personnel from a plurality of remote input/output devices to self-author and self-manage said business process; at least one supplier-defined named business rule, named role, named workflow and named function defined and named by said supplier personnel and stored in said at least one database using said communications interface, such that each is respectively referenceable by said rule name, role name, workflow name and function name; at least one configurable and namable business process element configured with respect to element parameters including at least one each said named business rule, named role, named workflow and named function and stored as a named business process element instance in said database by said supplier personnel using said communications interface, such that said named business process element instance is referenceable by said business process element name; wherein, said business process is self-authored and self-managed as an interconnection of at least one said named business process element instance and stored as a named business process in said database by said supplier personnel using said communications interface, such that said named business process is referenceable by said business process name; and wherein said business process is used as a front-end catalog process that identifies products, shoppers, and suppliers in which the self-authored and self-managed business process includes automated pattern matching tools to clean and classify catalog product data, wherein said classifying determines using existing patterns or creating new patterns to facilitate classification, wherein said classifying uses a default schema, a new schema, multiple schemas or an adapted standard schema; and wherein said supplier portal lists products and services in a catalog search and product selection front-end for said at least one of a procurement system and a online sales and purchasing system.