Patent ID: 7689583

Claim:
A computer-implemented system that facilitates data management, the computer-implemented system having a processing unit executing computer-executable components stored in memory comprising: an information model for specifying information from one or more documents, wherein a document accessed by a user on a computer is broken down into data elements as the user makes changes to the document, each data element representing a subset of data included in the document, the data elements stored in a database on the computer as a data catalog of unique data elements and data element relationships in metadata, the metadata associated with each unique data element in the data catalog defining one or more data sources for accessing the data element, a context for the data element based on user interaction with the document, and priority information for prioritizing the one or more data sources and prioritizing the data element for viewing, wherein the metadata in the data catalog is updated when other documents that reference a same unique data element identified in the data catalog are changed using one or more applications; and a display component driven by the information model for automatically displaying relevant data elements across multiple documents that are identified in the data catalog, the relevant data elements accessed from the one or more data sources and surfaced to a display layer for viewing based on the priority information defined by the metadata associated with the relevant data elements and a current user activity determined to be relevant to the context defined by the metadata associated with the relevant data elements, wherein the relevant data elements across multiple documents are surfaced and viewed even if one or more of the applications are unavailable.