Patent ID: 7031973

Claim:
A method of operating a client, comprising: receiving a record from a server, the record being stored on the server in a flat database in a first storage format, the record having a server identification key that uniquely identifies the record from other records, wherein the record is viewable by a user in a plurality of folders, and wherein the record is referenced by a plurality of references contained in different ones of the folders; creating a respective new client record in a client database for the references that reference the record on the server, wherein the new client records are identical to one another and stored in the client database in a further storage format different than the first storage format, and wherein the client database is structured as a hierarchical database; assigning one or more client identification keys to the one or more new client records; wherein the one or more client identification keys uniquely identifies the one or more new client records; and synchronizing the further storage format in which the new client records are stored with the first storage format in which the record is received from the server, by mapping the one or more client identification keys to the server identification key.