System and method for automating the assembly, processing and delivery of documents

Abstract

A system for automating the assembly, processing and delivery of documents includes a plurality of transport clients, a work queue, a scheduler, a plurality of rendering objects, a plurality of transport objects and a routing table. The transport clients are each responsible for acquisition of data necessary to generate the response. Once a work item is received from a transport client, it is added to the work queue. The scheduler manages the work queue including sending work items to an identified rendering object and thereafter to a transport client. Each of the rendering objects includes knowledge of the database as well as processes for extracting information from a database and applying rules on the extracted data. The scheduler assigns work items to be processed by the rendering objects, and once completed, the work items are returned to the scheduler for further processing by a transport object. The transport object uses the work items to create a document including how the document will appear, and also handles the routing of the document as specified in the information request created by the transport client. The transport objects work with the routing table for resource allocation, resource availability, and local or remote processing, and time of processing.