1. A method comprising: executing an instance of a first application on a client machine, the instance of the first application comprising spreadsheet source data; invoking a second application, wherein the second application selects a portion of the spreadsheet source data and extracts a set of data elements and a set of functional relationships describing computations between the set of data elements of the portion of spreadsheet source data; generating, by the second application, a model object for a model by encapsulating the set of data elements and the set of functional relationships; generating, by the second application via a processor, a modified model object for the model by performing a modeling operation on the model object, wherein the modified model object further encapsulates data elements and functional relationships resulting from the modeling operation, and wherein the modified model object is a functional object importable by an analytic module executing a set of mainframe modeling operations on a mainframe platform; sending the modified model object for the model to the mainframe platform using a network; receiving, using the network, an updated version of the modified model object from the mainframe platform, wherein the updated version of the modified model object comprises a changed set of data elements; and converting, by the second application via the processor, the updated version of the modified model object to an input for the first application.