Patent ID: 8271477

Claim:
A method of accessing data related to an entity associated with an enterprise, said method comprising: displaying a plurality of reference data attributes for use in defining a master reference data set that is (i) for identifying the entity and (ii) for accessing data stored regarding the entity, said master reference data set representing a most reliable reference data set maintained for the entity by the enterprise; receiving a user identification of a set of different attributes from the plurality of reference data attributes; designating each identified attribute in the set of different attributes as a first unique identifier for uniquely identifying the master reference data set; receiving different queries that are based on said set of different attributes, each particular query including reference data associated with an attribute designated as the first unique identifier; and processing each particular query by (i) using the reference data associated with the attribute included in the query to uniquely identify, in a first data storage, the master reference data set for the entity, the master reference data set comprising a second unique identifier, (ii) cross-correlating, by accessing a cross-correlation table that stores one or more other unique identifiers associated with the entity in different data storages, the second unique identifier to a third unique identifier associated with the entity in a second data storage different from the first data storage, and (iii) retrieving data relating to the entity from the second data storage using the third unique identifier.