Patent ID: 8015570

Claim:
A method for managing data between different software applications, the method comprising: identifying a data property conflict between a first application and a second application, wherein the first application and the second application map to a same data property; retrieving a first entity category and a second entity category, wherein the first entity category and the second entity category are associated with the same data property; determining, via a processor, an arbitration policy to resolve the data property conflict, wherein: the arbitration policy is determined by selecting a first entity type in the first entity category having priority over a second entity type in the second entity category; the arbitration policy specifies that a filestream property has priority over a property native to the first application or the second application; the arbitration policy specifies that a first mapping defined in an item schema that contains the first entity type has priority over a second mapping defined in another schema for the first entity type; and resolving the data property conflict based on the arbitration policy, wherein file system data is provided to a user in a consistent manner when the data property conflict is resolved.