Patent ID: 8656272

Claim:
A method for persisting instance-level report customizations comprising the steps of: receiving input from a user to run an original report; executing an original query associated with the original report against a data store to generate the original report, the original report including an instance of original data; displaying the original report to the user; receiving at least one instance-level customization from the user to customize the instance of original data displayed in the original report to generate a customized report, the at least one instance-level customization including changing a value of a particular field for a particular one or more instances of the field in the original report; tracking the at least one instance-level customization that the user makes to the customized report in a manner that allows a history of changes from the original report to the customized report to be determined; generating a wrapper query that can be executed after the original query to manipulate the instance of original data that was generated by executing the original query to achieve the at least one instance-level customization, said generating a wrapper query comprising annotating the wrapper query so that the at least one instance-level customization made to the original report can be audited; upon receiving input from a user to generate the original report in a modified format, executing the original query to generate an original query result set, and executing the wrapper query to filter the original query result set to generate the customized report to include the at least one instance-level customization; and upon receiving user input to generate the original report, executing the original query associated with the original report against the data store to generate the original report.