Conversation Mode Booking Method
A method to book events such as trips are discloses. The method provides a conversation mode that allows a booking to be created within retentive storage in a portable format. In one embodiment, this portable format is a string written in eXtensible Markup Language (XML). This format may be stored to a database using a single database access operation. According to another aspect of the method, a user may ignore selectable portions of the booking as the booking is being created such that an entire booking need not be discarded when it is determined that a single service or informational element included in that booking is no longer needed.
1 . A computer-implemented method of managing a booking for an event, comprising:
receiving data describing the booking;
storing the data in one or more database tables;
identifying a subset of the stored data that is eligible to be ignored; and
ignoring any portion of the subset of data that is selected by a user.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising performing at least one in a group consisting of:
reinstating a service that was canceled by the selected portion;
reinstating information that was canceled by the selected portion;
canceling a service that was added by the selected portion; and
canceling information that was added by the selected portion.
3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising removing the selected portion from the one or more database tables.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the storing step includes at least one of:
storing the data in a working booking table as an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) string; and
storing the data in multiple booking database tables as business objects.
5 . The method of claim 4 , and further including obtaining the XML string by parsing the business objects.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying step includes:
retrieving an updated copy of the booking that was updated with the received data;
retrieving a previously saved copy of the booking; and
determining differences between the updated copy and the previously saved copy to identify the subset of data that is eligible to be ignored.