Patent ID: 7539701

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a data representation containing data from a source database by: exporting data from the source database to form an output file comprising a plurality of records, each record comprising a plurality of fields; and mapping each field of each record of the output file to fields in the data representation using a data map, wherein mapping fields of a record of the output file to fields of the data representation comprises mapping two fields of the output file to a single field of the data representation; applying a field map to a first element and a second element in the data representation to identify a first schema element, a second schema element, and a third schema element in a schema, wherein applying the field map comprises mapping a first portion of a value associated with the first element to the first schema element, mapping a second portion of the value associated with the first element to the third schema element, and mapping a value associated with the second element to the second schema element; using a hierarchical relationship between the first schema element and the second schema element that is described in the schema to construct a hierarchical data representation comprising the first schema element and the second schema element; determining that a first database object associated with the first schema element is to be instantiated before a second database object associated with the second schema element based on the hierarchical relationship between the first schema element and the second schema element in the hierarchical data representation; ensuring that the first database object has been created and stored in a destination database by: searching the destination database for the first database object based on a value associated with the first schema element in the hierarchical data representation; and based on the search, determining that the first database object is stored in the destination database; and creating and storing the second database object in the destination database based on the second schema element after searching the destination database for the first database object.