1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving from a user a selection of an object among one or more objects included in a data model, the selection made through an object-selection interface; retrieving from computer memory a previously stored object definition that corresponds to the selected object, the previously stored object definition includes: an object query that, when executed, retrieves a set of time stamped events from a data store on a computing device, each event including a portion of raw machine data reflecting activity in an information technology environment; and an object schema identifying a set of one or more fields, each field defined by an extraction rule or regular expression that locates the field in the raw machine data and can be used to extract a field value from the field location from the raw machine data in each event in a subset of the set of time stamped events, each extraction rule or regular expression operating on the raw machine data in an event without modifying the event's raw machine data; and executing, against events in the data store that meet filtering criteria of the object query, a search query that references only field values that are extracted using the object schema and that produces a result based at least in part on the data reflecting the activity of the information technology environment.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selected object is a root object whose object query provides for broader search criteria than a child object query of a child object that is also included in the data model and is selectable through the object-selection interface.