Patent ID: 7516157

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of managing organizational data comprising: receiving a first hierarchy of data, the data comprising objects with attributes and attribute values; staging the first hierarchy in a buffer in an isomorphic form; and transforming the first hierarchy into a relational directory, wherein data stored in the relational directory in memory is in a flat non-hierarchical relational format and, wherein said transforming includes: identifying an object in the relational directory that corresponds to an object in the first hierarchy by applying a schema that relates attribute values in the object in the relational directory to attribute values in the object in the first hierarchy, wherein the object in the relational directory has an object type different than the object type of the object in the first hierarchy; changing the object type of the object in the relational directory to the object type of the object in the first hierarchy; and applying rules to generate updated attributes for the object in the relational directory based on attributes of the object in the first hierarchy.