Patent ID: 8793213

Claim:
A method in a computer system comprising a processor and a memory, the computer system hosting a data warehouse, the method comprising operating the computer system to perform steps of: receiving source data from a plurality of data sources in an enterprise; storing the source data, as centrally managed data, in a data storage system configured with a plurality of data tables that comprise the data warehouse, including: using an extraction, translation, and load (ETL) tool to process the source data and storing the processed source data in the data warehouse; using the processed source data to generate a plurality of enterprise data models and storing the enterprise data models in the data warehouse; and using the enterprise data models stored in the data warehouse to generate a plurality of enterprise data views and storing the enterprise data views in the data warehouse; creating a workspace, including: assigning at least one of the enterprise data models and enterprise data views stored in the data warehouse as referenced data to the workspace by reference only; and assigning a plurality of first users to the workspace; granting only the first users read and write access to the workspace, the first users having read-only access to data that correspond to the referenced data; accepting only from the first users local data that is external to the computer system; and defining a user data model in the workspace using the referenced data and the local data.