Patent ID: 7689569

Claim:
A method of managing data in a data management computer system, the method comprising: a plurality of data environments, wherein the data environments comprise data relating to a plurality of telephone numbers, a status relating to each of the plurality of telephone numbers having a plurality of possible values, and wherein a particular one of the plurality of possible values of the status relating to a specific one of the plurality of telephone numbers in one data environment is different from the particular one of the plurality of possible values of the status relating to the specific telephone number in another of the data environments; identifying, by a computer device, a plurality of rules with the data management computer system, each rule representing a unique combination of the plurality of possible values of the status in each of the plurality of data environments and the plurality of rules identify all possible status combinations across all data environments, wherein the number of rules of the plurality of rules is a multiplicative product over each of the plurality of data environments, wherein the multiplicative product multiplies the number of possible values of the status in a data environment for each of the plurality of data environments; creating a record for each of the plurality of telephone numbers with the data management computer system, wherein the record for each of the plurality of telephone numbers comprises: a telephone number field that identifies the telephone number; and a rule field that associates the telephone number with one of the plurality of rules; storing the record for each of the plurality of telephone numbers with the data management computer system; receiving a request at the data management computer system to display the particular value of the status relating to the specific telephone number in one of the data environments of the plurality of data environments; locating the record relating to the specific telephone number in the data management computer system; using the rule field in the record to determine the particular value of the status relating to the specific telephone number in the one of the data environments of the plurality of data environments with the data management computer system: and communicating the particular value of the status relating to the specific telephone number with the data management computer system.