GB2356716A - Dynamic index system - Google Patents

Description

2356716 DYNAMIC INDEX SYSTEM The present invention relates to a dynamic

index system. In particular, the invention relates to a dynamic index system for updating a Web site.

The World Wide Web (hereinafter referred to as "the Web") provides a mechanism through which retailers and other product suppliers can advertise their products to a large number of potential customers. While this mechanism has typically been utilised by larger companies having national and international markets, opportunities exist for this advertising mechanism to be applied to a local audience. As the Web becomes increasingly available to the public through self-service terminals (such as ATMs and information kiosks), home PCs, and interactive television, so there is an increasing likelihood that it will become the primary mechanism by which consumers find products and services they wish to purchase. When these products are large, high value items, such as automobiles and houses, the Web will be used as a mechanism to identify which local suppliers have the individual product that the consumer desires. Ultimately this mechanism may surpass traditional advertising media, such as newspapers and billboards, due to its potential to be truly dynamic and responsive to the changing availability of products in a way that physical paper-based media could never achieve.

Software tools exist to allow anyone with the appropriate skills to develop graphical Web pages for presenting their products to consumers. Larger companies can afford to have interactive Web sites that allow customers to order and pay for goods online by providing an access mechanism to their database of available products. However, a smaller, local merchant, such as individual auto dealers or estate agents, who hold a constantly changing inventory of discrete products would be required to use these Web page development tools every time their inventory changed. Each time an auto dealer sold or bought a car or received a shipment of new stock from their supplier, they would need to update their Web based index of available products using these tools.

The World Wide Web and the Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) allow for complex link information, visible only to the computers involved, to be embedded within an index of products, thereby allowing the viewer of the index to navigate to individual Web pages associated with each product by selecting the appropriate index entry.

Digital cameras are inexpensive and easy to use and a merchant might well wish to utilise one for taking pictures of his stock for presenting along with customised descriptions of the product. HTML allows for the embedding of image location information with the text of the individual page which when viewed by an appropriate Web Browser will present textual information and imagery together.

Smaller merchants are likely to utilise an Internet Site Provider (ISP) to host their Web site. Any changes made to the indexes and associated Web pages must be sent using Internet protocols such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol) via a modem and a telephone line. This is a complex, specialised, and time-consuming task that is typically conducted by a Web Administrator. The addition of a product to the index and the addition of any associated product pages and images require that the appropriate directory structures and file locations be updated on the ISP's server. To avoid wasting the Web space available to the merchant, the sale of a product and its associated removal from the index also requires updating of the ISP located index and the removal of any associated product description and image files from the ISP site. These complex file oriented tasks would not normally be part of a salesperson's job whenever they bought or sold an individual product.

It is among the objects of embodiments of the present invention to provide a dynamic index system that obviates or mitigates one or more of the above or other disadvantages associated with conventional Web indexing.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a dynamic index system for interacting with a database and updating a Web site to include at least some of the contents of the database, the system comprising an index information area for storing product information from the database, a configuration area for storing information required to access a remote Web site host, and an index and Web page builder for creating an index of available products from the index information area and for creating an associated Web page for each available product, where each index entry is provided with a hypertext link to the associated Web page, whereby the system is arranged to access the remote Web site and upload the created index and associated Web pages to the remote Web site.

By virtue of this aspect of the present invention, a salesperson is able to update a database and use the system to update the remote Web site using the contents of the database, thereby relieving the salesperson of having to update the remote Web site.

In one embodiment, the system reads the contents of the database periodically and automatically updates the remote Web site thereafter. In another embodiment, the system only reads the contents of the database when instructed to do so, for example, by a salesperson.

Preferably, the system is configured to detect changes in the database and to update the remote Web site using the detected changes, for example, by deleting the index entries and associated Web pages relating to products that are no longer available, and by adding index entries and associated Web pages for products that have been added to the database. Alternatively, but less preferred, the system may update the entire index and associated Web pages each time the database is changed. This is less preferred because it may involve a large amount of file transfer each time the database is changed.

In some embodiments, the database only provides a part of the information relating to each product. Extra information is added by the salesperson by way of a sales comment, for example, I'McLaren Fl: Low Mileage, One Careful Owner, Full Service History". There is also the opportunity to associate external artifacts such as pictures with individual products within the index.

In some embodiments, the system will notify the salesperson when additions have been made to the database so that they can contribute their sales comments and associate external artifacts. Similarly when products are removed from the database so associated artifacts are removed from the Web Host, along with the web pages and index entries.

In some embodiments, the configuration information also provides for the storage of company specific information (Company Name, Address, Telephone Number etc,) which can be integrated into the dynamically generated web pages. Further to this there is a facility to allow the salesperson or administrator to edit the configuration of the web pages such the look and fell of the entire web site can be controlled through simple changes to the Web Page Description information. The system automatically reflects changes to the IndexPage description or StockPage description throughout the associated web pages.

Various Indexes can be built based upon the properties associated with the products within the database (Make, Model, Price Range) and a series of interlinked (hyperlinked) index pages and stock pages can be developed.

A dynamic default page may be provided as well as the dynamic index pages and stock pages. The reason it needs to be dynamic is so that it can have a "Just Arrived" area which is built by looking at the database and identifying products that have arrived within some recent time period. These products are then given hyperlinks on the default page directly to their Stock Page.

The entire web site may be monitored by the system so t hat if any of the external artifacts associated with the site are changed then the appropriate artifact is automatically updated. This means that if the company logo picture file is updated, because it is associated with one or more of the WebPage Description's, the new file will be sent to the remote site automatically.

These and other aspects of the invention will be apparent from the following specific description, given by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig 1 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention operating in discrete mode; Fig 2 is a block diagram of the architecture of part of an embodiment of the present invention; Fig 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention operating in embedded mode; Fig 4 is a block diagram of the device of Fig 1 interacting with an ISP; Fig 5 is a block diagram of Fig 2 in more detail; Fig 6 is a table showing configuration information for use with an embodiment of the invention; Fig 7 is a table showing internal inventory information for use with an embodiment of the invention; Fig 8 is a table showing index information for use with an embodiment of the invention; Fig 9 is a table showing group information for use with an embodiment of the invention; and Fig 10 is a table showing Web page description information for use with an embodiment of the invention.

Referring to the drawings, typically merchants such as auto dealers and estate-agents will have databases of information that represents their inventory of available products. In order to allow these inventories to be presented to prospective customers over the World Wide Web it is necessary for the contents of their inventory system to be dynamically formatted in such a way as to make it acceptable for use with the Web.

Fig 1 illustrates how WebIndexer does this in a Discrete mode by providing a software tool which is capable of reading a given inventory file or database and generating appropriate indexes of the available inventory in a format acceptable to the Web (HTML based lists and tables).

Fig 2 illustrates the basic architecture that WebIndexer employs. Product Inventory information is read into WebIndexer as illustrated in Fig 1. This allows WebIndexer to know what the current inventory of products is as well as providing Base Product Information for each element of the inventory. For example if WebIndexer was operating against an automotive Inventory Management Tool, the general information might include vehicle specific information such as Make, Model, Colour, Registration Number, Price etc. In contrast an estate agent would have house specific information such as Address, Number of Rooms, Age, Price etc. This Base Product Information is always taken from the Inventory Management Tool, allowing the existing Inventory Management processes of the merchant to carry on as normal.

WebIndexer holds a local copy of some of this inventory information in its Index Information area. This information is used through out the operation of WebIndexer, when deciding which indexes individual inventory elements should be added to. The Index Information is also used to determine any changes that have occurred in the inventory since the last time it was loaded into WebIndexer. Any elements in the inventory that are not in the index can be identified as New Products recently added to the inventory. WebIndexer can highlight these to the user just as an E-Mail system alerts its user when they have new E-Mail. The user can then quickly identify new products that may require to have the information associated with their individual product pages updated and have appropriate images added therein. All the individual product page information and embedded image information is stored within the Index Information area for the duration of the products presence within the Inventory. Elements that appear in the Index Information area but not in the Inventory are identified as having been removed (sold/scrapped) and WebIndexer automatically tidies up the Index Information area and the Web Index pages to reflect this. Product Web Pages and embedded images, if appropriate, are deleted f rom the local drive and the remote web site. WebIndexer can consult the user about the deletion of images as these may be a shared resource embedded in a number of similar Product Web Pages. This would typically occur in the automotive type industries where images might be supplied, by the manufacturer, of each of the current models. An automotive dealer may have one or more of each model and colour configuration. Web space and transfer time is saved by using a single image shared across a number of Product Web Pages.

Configuration information is held in files associated with individual installations of WebIndexer and this is used when generating Web Indexes and individual Product Web Pages. Configuration information is also held defining the various filtering techniques to be applied to the indexes and contact information for sending the completed Web Index and Product Web Pages to the Internet Site Provider who hosts the individual retailers Web Site.

Local copies of the Web Index Pages and Product Web Pages are generated by WebIndexer as it operates. These represent a local copy of the inventory oriented section of a retailers web site. This is used by WebIndexer as a staging post between the generation of the pages based upon Inventory and Index Information and their transmission to the Internet Site Provided hosting the Public Web Site. This local file based web site can also be used for testing by the retailer or for use by a local kiosk on the retailers premises such as a "through the glass" touch screen allowing -9the retailer to present their web site and inventory information to "Window Shoppers".

Configuring a WebIndexer Installation involves a number of steps. Firstly the type of Inventory Management Tool being employed must be identified, this insures that the appropriate Inventory loading filters are employed and defines the type of Base Product Information that will be available.

Style Templates for the Web Index and Product Web pages are provided that are related to the industry type being addressed (defined by the Inventory Management Tool employed). These templates are customised with installation specific information such as the retailers name, address, and contact information (telephone, fax, E-Mail). WebIndexer also provides more complex Web Page design tools, that utilise this installation specific configuration information and allow the introduction of imagery such as Company.

Style information and configuration information are combined with the Base Product information from the Inventory and the sales person added information held in the Index Information area in order to allow WebIndexer to build a consistent set of Web Index and Product Web pages.

The configuration facilities will allow for set-up of the link between the local WebIndexer installation and the Internet Site Provider that will be hosting the Web Site. This configuration will include the ISP Internet address and the user name and password of the retailers account on the Web Site. The directory for the local file based version of the web site that WebIndexer builds must also be configured. These administrative configuration can be password protected.

General Web page and index formatting, individual product information and embedded image addition facilities are provided within WebIndexer. This allowing the sales person to very easily control the look and feel of their Web Pages and to input information about individual products.

The individual Product Web Pages presented on the Web can be customised by the sales person to add inventory element specific information over and above the Basic Product information derived from the Inventory Data. A possible Product Web Page may include Basic Product information such as the Make, Model, Mileage and Price of a vehicle. The salesman may then add some specific information about the vehicle's service history and how its previous owner used it. They may add an image of the vehicle and chosen to align this on the right of the text. The Product web Page creation facilities allow various different alignments to be selected.

The company logo, title, contact and copyright information are taken from the Configuration information that was associated with Product Web Pages and are applied automatically by WebIndexer when generating the page. A "Back" button link is invisibly linked to the appropriate Web Index Page from which this product Web Page can be reached. WebIndexer deals with all internal links required to effectively navigate around the automatically generated section of a companies Web Site.

WebIndexer can support multiple indexes associated with a given Inventory. The simplest example would be within an automotive dealership where New and Used vehicles might be separated into individual indexes. Beyond that sub indexes might be provided that sort vehicles by Make, Cubic Capacity or Price, i.e. all Hondas, all motorcycles between 125 and 400 CC's or all vehicles under E2000. WebIndexer provides mechanisms to easily create Index Filters based upon the information available within the Inventory Information. These filters automatically place individual inventory elements in the appropriate indexes, managing the links between these various Index Web Pages and the Product Web Pages as necessary. A Product Web Page that is linked to more than one index will have appropriate navigation links automatically generated by WebIndexer.

The contents of the Web Index pages that WebIndexer automatically generates can be directly controlled by the user or they can set-up appropriate intelligent filtering mechanisms that support their business requirements. There are a number of reasons why a sales person may not wish to have every element of their inventory advertised to the world and WebIndexer can be set up to support these.

Where a given element of the Inventory such as an automobile has been reserved with a deposit payment but will remain within the inventory until the sale is concluded, the sales person might wish to exclude it from the index. The Index Information, and associated Product Web Pages can remain on the local site and at the ISP hosted Web Site until the actual conclusion of the sale whereupon the inventory element will be deleted in the normal way. Should the sale be cancelled the exclusion can be easily removed with WebIndexer automatically placing the product back into its appropriate indexes.

Within estate agency there are different stages in the purchase process prior to the legally binding conclusion of the sale such as "Under Offer", "Subject to Survey", etc., the sales person might wish to illustrate these on The Web in much the same way as is done with physical advertising.

12- This information maybe available as part of the Inventory information in which case WebIndexer can use it directly, alternatively the Index Information area can hold this product specific information and provide a simple access mechanism to it within the industry specific version of WebIndexer.

Within the automotive industry where a dealership has more than one of a particular model of a new vehicle they may wish to advertise that they have one available rather than say five (creates an illusion of scarcity which helps maintain sales price). WebIndexer can be set up to automatically identify groups of similar products within the inventory and present only the group information within the appropriate Web Index pages. A group will have a single Web Product Page that is associated with the group when it is defined. This information is maintained on the local WebIndexer installation even if the group is not represented within the inventory at some point in time (awaiting new delivery). When the grouping is no longer valid, for example because a new model has superseded the grouping, it can be modified or deleted and WebIndexer will make the appropriate changes to is configuration and Index Information. If some members of a deleted grouping still exist within the inventory the Product Web Page information will be copied to each of their Index Information areas and they will, at the discretion of the sales person, be placed on the appropriate indexes (last years model is often sold off at a lower price so in this case the dealer wants to show that they have a number of these potentially cheaper vehicles available in an attempt to remove them from stock as quickly as possible).

Where an automotive dealer knows that a given vehicle is coming in as part of a trade in deal they may wish to illustrate this before the vehicle is actually on their inventory. In this case WebIndexer allows them to build a Proxy Inventory entry which includes all the information usually provided by the Inventory Management Tool, the Product Web Page information including a preliminary digital image of the vehicle taken during the trade in negotiation. WebIndexer treats the Proxy information in exactly the same way as real inventory information although it can be configured to add arrival date information instead of full product details. When the product appears in the inventory the proxy inventory information is removed and is replaced by the real Inventory Information. The Product Web Page information is retained through this process.

As well as operating in a Discrete mode as a, stand alone add on to and existing Inventory Management Tool, the WebIndexer technology can be integrated directly into such tools. This would allowing the addition and removal of products from the inventory to directly generate the Web Indexes and individual Product Web Pages. The Index Information used by WebIndexer would be embedded within the Inventory Database or file system in a similar manner to the Discrete embodiment. All the Configuration Information would be similarly held in order that the embedded WebIndexer could generate Web Indexes and Product Web pages in exactly the same way as the Discrete embodiment.

WebIndexer Version and Registered User information are embedded into the header of every web page that WebIndexer generates. While this information is not visible during the normal display of the Web Pages, using the "Show Source" mode available within a Web Browser this information can easily be seen. Anyone attempting to utilise a demonstration version or unregistered copy of WebIndexer would have this information embedded in every web page they place on the Web. The ef fort required to remove this information f rom web pages dynamically generated by WebIndexer would defeat the purpose of using the system in the first place.

WebIndexer automates the processes by which the information generated on the local installation is communicated to the Internet Site Provider who is hosting the Web Site.

WebIndexer communicates using the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) standard over whatever software configuration (PPP, SLIP, Internet) and physical communications link (POTS Modem, ISDN) that is available to the computer upon which WebIndexer is installed.

WebIndexer will add and delete files on the remote Web Site in order to reflect the current status of the local inventory, Web Indexes and Product Web Pages. Typically only pages that are new are being removed or have changed are copied over the Internet to the remote host, although a purge and initialisation capability is provided Fig 5 illustrates the basic architecture employed by WebIndexer. Information used in the operation of the system is held within Persistent Storage (Configuration, Group, Index, Page Descriptions and Internal Inventory Information). Inventory Elements are created by combining Internal Inventory Information and where appropriate External Inventory Information. Inventory Elements that belong to a given group are identified from the Group Information and presented accordingly. Web pages representing a Default page linked to pages containing indexes of inventory elements with links to pages describing these individual inventory elements are generated automatically. Information describing each type of page is combined, dynamically, with configuration information and inventory information to create a local copy of the web site. An update mechanism that employs File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is then able to update a remote web site with any of these files that change from one operation to another. Any files deleted from the local web site are similarly deleted from the remote site during this update operation.

The inventory information utilised by WebIndexer can be provided from a single or a dual source depending upon the configuration employed. The single source configuration uses WebIndexer based persistent storage to hold details of the product inventory, while the dual mode configuration combines information provided by an external inventory management tool with specialised information held within WebIndexer persistent storage.

Where a single source for inventory information is used, this is provided directly by WebIndexer, through the use of persistent storage to hold information about the inventory associated with a given installation. Typically such an inventory will be associated with a small, independent business such as an individual artist or sculptor. These installations have a number of individual pieces of work or limited runs of pieces that they wish to advertise via the medium of the world wide web. In this instance WebIndexer acts as both an inventory management and a Web Indexing tool.

Information about each product is maintained within the persistent storage associated with WebIndexer and interfaces are provided to the user to allow them to manage this inventory. This involves interfaces that allow for the modification of the number of available units of a given, limited run product. These interfaces also allow for the addition of new products and the removal of sold ones. WebIndexer can automatically manage sequential stock numbers for the installation as part of this process or allow the proprietor to provide their own.

Various types of inventory are supported in order to address different product types with appropriate stock parameters being provided within the program.

Where a dual source is utilised, then the inventory information is derived from two independent sources. The first of these is provided by the product specific data source associated with a given external inventory management program that does not have the capability to generate the required web page information. Typically this will use flat files or a database in order to maintain product specific information, such as the make, model and some unique serial number associated with a given product.

This information is then augmented by utilising the persistent storage provided within WebIndexer. This extra information is provided by the user through interfaces provided by WebIndexer and can be used to add sales comments or associated imagery with a given element of the inventory of the installation.

In general stock parameters are bound into the description of each inventory element. The application can dynamically query the parameters available for a given inventory, for example a Vehicle inventory would contain Stock parameters giving the Make, Model, Mileage, Registration Number and Price for each inventory element.

one piece of information held within the Internal Inventory Information that is always added by the operator is the Sales Commentary. This is a free form textual description of an individual inventory element. It is used to provide specific and customised information over and above that which is provided by the Inventory information. For example in the automotive market, the inventory element will provide a specific description of each vehicle in terms of its Makef Model, Colour, Mileage, Registration number and Price. The sales commentary allows the owner of the system to then provide some extra, vehicle specific, information such as details of it's service history, previous owners etc,. as part of the "sales pitch" for that vehicle.

The Web supports the use of colour images (GIF and JPEG format files arecommonly supported) and is increasingly capable of supporting moving images through animated GIF files, AVI and MOV files. Support is provided for the association of image files with inventory elements. The actual images files are initial stored in a location accessible to the WebIndexer system (typically on the same computer as it). Interfaces are provided that allow the association of an image file with an inventory element. If necessary these image files are moved within the local Web Site environment built by WebIndexer and appropriate links are made between the Inventory Element page description and the associated image file. When the Web pages are being updated any corresponding images are checked to ensure they have not changed since the last time such and update was conducted. Any images that have been newly associated with an Inventory Element are updated, similarly any images whose file has been changed since the last time the image was updated to the true web site is automatically updated also. These automatic mechanisms for the checking and updating of images, improve the integrity of the Web Site, by managing the changes made to inventory elements and the associated image files.

Groups are based upon collecting together individual inventory elements whose inventory properties are the same (eg, Make, Model and Colour). When presenting a group of inventory elements on the web the vendor may simply wish to indicate the number of elements of a given group they have. Alternatively they will only wish to represent that they have one of these elements. Either case can be supported by configuring a parameter that decides how to represent this information when dynamically building the appropriate index.

The information used to describe a group is held within the Persistent Storage and this is used to build the groups records within WebIndexer when the inventory is loaded. As each element is loaded, the values associated with each Inventory property associated with each group record are inspected, inventory elements that match with a group record are marked accordingly, allowing the system to process these records accordingly. A group record in effect take the place of all of the corresponding Inventory Elements that match to that group within the index processing, within the allocating of image information and sales commentary. These processes only have to be conducted once for the whole group. As inventory elements associated with a group are bought and sold, so the common information associated with that group is passed on until no inventory elements associated with a given group exist within the system, at which point the group ceases to exist.

Configuration information is held within the Persistent Storage and is used when generating the various web pages (Default, Index, Inventory). This information splits into two basic types, Company information and Site information.

This is information related to the company or organisation that is to be presented on the dynamically generated web pages. It includes elements such as the Company Name, its physical address, telephone number, fax number and possibly a contact E-Mail address.

This is information related to the Remote site that will ultimately host the Web pages generated by WebIndexer. This will include the host address (typically this will be something like hostname.com) or the phone number used for direct dial-up. The user name and password required to access this site can also be held within the configuration information so that the update mechanism can use these to log on to the remote site automatically.

Indexes are used to group together inventory elements that have some common parameter, for example they are all of the same Make of car or are all within a given price range. Indexes are set up through interfaces provided within the tool which allow the various stock parameters available within each inventory element within a site to be selected as the key upon which the index will be based. When the web site is dynamically constructed by WebIndexer, this index information is used to produce a single web page for each index which holds a table or sequential list of available inventory elements that have stock property values that match the index key.

When WebIndexer generates the web pages for Default page, Index pages and Stock pages, it uses template descriptions that allow it to dynamically fill in parameters from the inventory and installation information in order to build these pages. Page descriptions are held within the persistent storage of WebIndexer and interfaces are provided that allow the user to configure and edit these descriptions. Individual elements of the page such as the Company--Name, Telephon(E-Number, Fax-Number and Address are used to describe the layout of individual pages. The real values associated with these elements are placed into the web pages as they are built. This mechanism allows any number of web pages to be build dynamically while retaining a consistent value for a given element. If the value associated with a given element is changed through the interfaces provided within WebIndexer, then all pages that utilise that element can be updated at the same time, providing for consistent changes across the whole web site. For example if a company changed its telephone number it would want all of the pages of its web site that displayed the phone number to reflect the new number. Through the interface provided the user simply needs to change the telephone number in the installation information and WebIndexer will recreate all of the affected web pages under its control.

The page description will include specific elements associated with individual web pages types, such as an index page description which will include an Index Table element or a Stock page description which will include a Stock element. When the actual pages for indexes or stock elements are generated, then the actual index or stock information will be dynamically inserted into the web pages in place of these elements.

In order to provide for a generic tool that is capable of supporting many different types of inventory a mechanism is provided that allows for the inventory to describe all of the elements that it supports, therefore a vehicle inventory might support Make, Model, Registration Number, Price, Sales Comments and Vehicle Image. The interface used to edit the page descriptions can then query the inventory record in order to obtain information about the supported elements of the inventory in order that these can be presented to the user, allowing them to arrange individual elements of the inventory on the web page description. When pages associated with individual products within the inventory are built, then the actual values associated with the inventory elements can be inserted into the web page as t is built.

Web page descriptions also hold display properties for each element such as the size of font to use, whether it is underlined, bold or italic etc. These parameters are stored along with the page description and used during the dynamic construction of the web pages.

A core function of WebIndexer is the manner in which it automates the integrity of the remote web site. The various Web pages that go to make an inventory based web page stem from the default entry page which should contain links to pages which provide various index views on to the available inventory elements. These index pages similarly provide links to web pages that describe the individual elements themselves. Individual inventory element web pages may have links to associated images. The integrity of all of these links and web elements is managed by the WebIndexer system as part of it operation. In order to publish this information from the local system that dynamically built it, WebIndexer is required to utilise standard protocols and techniques in order to copy all of the necessary files to the Internet Site Provider (ISP) who will support the public presentation of this information over the World Wide Web. Typically the chosen ISP will provide the user with dial up access to their site. A standard modem is used to make a data connection between the WebIndexer system and the ISP in order that WebIndexer can use a standard transport mechanism such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) in order to copy all of the appropriate web files to the ISP. FTP allows for the creation and traversal of complex directory structures which copy that created by WebIndexer on the local Web Site and therefore allow the integrety of the inter-page linking mechanism that id the basis of the Web to be maintained. The update process is obvious to the user only in so much as they may be initiated by them, thereafter WebIndexer will conduct the appropriate FTP initialisation, and log in (based upon parameters input to the system by the user as provided by the ISP in respect of that users account with their ISP). The update process looks at those files within the local web space that have changed as a result of the insertion of new inventory elements, through changes to the overall configuration of the system (changes to the company name, telephone number etc), and updates those files on the ISP system.

Persistent storage of general configuration information and user entered information associated with individual Products is achieved through the use of property files. These store Key/Value string pairs in a format that can easily loaded from files into WebIndexer. The keys associated with typical records such as Configuration, Indexes, Groups, Page descriptions and individual inventory elements are shown in Figures 6 to 10.

The Indexes persistent data covers all the indexes within a given configuration by building Property entries of the form "IndexO.Key" to "Index[n] Key" where [n] "NumberOfIndexes" - 1.

The Groups persistent data covers all the groups within a given configuration by building Property entries of the form "GroupO.Key" to "Group[n] Key" where [n] "NumberOfGroups" - 1.

The Web Page Description persistent data covers the three type of Web Pages supported (Default, Index and Inventory) within a given configuration by building Property entries of the f orm "ElementO. Key" to "Element [n] Key" where [n] = "NumberOf Elements" - 1. Individual Types of Web Element will have specific parameters associated with them.

A technique is provided which can automate the generation of inter-linked Web Pages giving Indexes and individual product information for singular, high value items with limited availability (cars, holiday places, homes) based upon the utilisation and extension of existing database structures and tools.

Various modifications may be made to the above described embodiment within the scope of the invention.

Claims (9)

Claims

1. A dynamic index system for interacting with a database and updating a Web site to include at least some of the contents of the database, the system comprising an index information area for storing product information from the database, a configuration area for storing information required to access a remote Web site host, and an index and Web page builder for creating an index of available products from the index information area and for creating an associated Web page for each available product, where each index entry is provided with a hypertext link to the associated Web page, whereby the system is arranged to access the remote Web site and upload the created index and associated Web pages to the remote Web site.

2. A system according to claim 1, wherein the system reads the contents of the database periodically and automatically updates the remote Web site thereafter.

3. A system according to claim 1, wherein the system only reads the contents of the database when instructed.

4. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the system is configured to detect changes in the database and to update the remote Web site using the detected changes.

5. A system according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the system may update the entire index and associated Web pages each time the database is changed.

6. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the database only provides a part of the information relating to each product.

7. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the system notifies an operator when additions have been made to the database so that the operator can contribute comments and associate external artifacts.

8. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein a dynamic default page is provided in addition to the dynamic index pages and stock pages.

9. A system according to any preceding claim, wherein the entire web site is monitored by the system so that if any of the external artifacts associated with the site are changed then the appropriate artifact is automatically updated.