Patent ID: 8898264

Claim:
A method of managing content comprising: receiving a user input via a portal interface associated with a business application indicating that a content item comprising a body of managed content is associated with a business object not included in the body of managed content, wherein the business application is configured to provide access to the business object; linking, using a processor, the content item to a business object identifier identifying the business object, the business object identifier capable of being linked to each of a plurality of content items identifying the business object; and automatically accessing the content item by querying for the business object identifier identifying the business object using a content management system configured to provide access to the body of managed content, wherein the querying of the content management system includes broadcasting the business object identifier by the business application to the content management system, and wherein the content management system can be configured to listen or ignore the broadcast, and wherein the business object identifier is used to access a link directly linking the business object identifier to a content item identifier identifying the content item, and wherein the link comprises one or more of: a hard link comprising a table entry that includes the business object identifier in a row and the content item identifier in a column or the business object identifier in a column and the content item identifier in a row, and a soft link comprising an attribute included in metadata associated with the content item.