1. A computer-implemented method comprising: selecting a selected userkey corresponding to an instance of a component of an integration object, wherein the integration object comprises a plurality of components, the plurality of components are hierarchically related, the instance of a component is among a plurality of instances of the plurality of components, the instance of a component comprises data organized in a structure defined by the integration object, said selecting comprises creating a list of userkeys for the component of the integration object based on a definition of the integration object, and searching the instance of a component for each field of a userkey in the list of userkeys, and the selected userkey is a userkey for which each field of the selected userkey is present in the instance of a component; searching a database for a record corresponding to the instance of a component, wherein the searching is performed using the selected userkey corresponding to the instance of a component, the userkey comprises one or more userkey fields, each userkey field is defined to correspond to a selected field of the component, and the structure of the userkey depends upon the structure of the data defined by the component; updating the record when the search finds the record; and inserting an instance record when the search does not find the record, the instance record comprising data corresponding to the instance.