1. A computer program product tangibly embodied in an information carrier, the computer program product including instructions that, when executed, perform operations for tracking data elements that are used in electronic documents, the method comprising: identifying an instance of a data element in a first electronic document comprising one or more data elements; modifying stored information based on the identification of the data element; periodically retrieving the stored information specifying a number of times a data element is used during a time interval; applying a calculation process to the information to determine a usage trend for the data element; and providing a visual display on a display device that shows an identifier for the data element and the usage trend.