Patent Document ID: 8214239
Application ID: 12871553

Base Claim:
1. A business information system, comprising: an interface server coupled to at least one enterprise resource planning module, the interface server facilitating browser-based access to information provided at least in part by said at least one enterprise resource planning module, the interface server causing simultaneous display of a plurality of portlets, the plurality of portlets being selected and arranged according to a user profile customizable by a user of the business information system, said plurality of portlets including: a first portlet displaying first information derived from said at least one enterprise resource planning module; and a second portlet displaying second information derived from said at least one enterprise resource planning module; and an electronic mail server coupled to the interface server, the electronic mail server configured at least to transmit an electronic mail message to an electronic mail account of the user, the electronic mail message communicating the first information and the second information, wherein the user profile includes an e-mail alert format preference, the e-mail format alert preference recording whether the user prefers a graphical format over a text-only format for the electronic mail message, wherein, when the e-mail alert format preference indicates that the user prefers the graphical format, the electronic mail message includes a plurality of elements of a markup language that correspond to a browser-based display of the plurality of portlets, and wherein, when the e-mail alert format preference indicates that the user prefers the text-only format, the electronic mail message includes a text-only portion, the text-only portion including a plurality of text sections each corresponding to one of the plurality of portlets in accordance with the user profile.

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Claim 13:
13. The business information system method of claim 1 , wherein the user is assigned a predefined business role selected from a plurality of predefined business roles each associated with one of a plurality of default user profiles pre-customized for the predefined business role, and the user profile of the user is initially set to the default user profile associated with the user's assigned predefined business role.