Patent ID: 7493310

Claim:
A data integration system of a process plant having a plurality of data source applications, each of which collects or generates entity data pertaining to one or more different entities within the process plant, the data integration system comprising: a database configured to store the entity data pertaining to the one or more entities within the process plant collected or generated by the plurality of data source applications, wherein two or more of the plurality of data source applications each presents the entity data in different display formats; and a display application stored on a computer readable memory and configured to execute on a processor to create a display for the entity data stored in the database, the display including an integrated navigational tree having a plurality of folders specifying higher and lower levels of integration of the entity data in the database and an informational view, wherein the display application enables a user to select different ones of the folders within the navigational tree to specify higher and lower levels of integration of the entity data to be displayed, and presents the entity data associated with a selected folder in the informational view in a first format for each of the different ones of the folders associated with the higher and lower levels of integration of the entity data, wherein the first format is a common display format for presenting entity data associated with each of the plurality of folders specifying the higher and lower levels of integration of the entity data in a same format without presenting a same type of entity data in multiple different display formats.