System, method and article of manufacture for fast mapping from a propertied document management system to a relational database

The present invention relates generally to information management and, more particularly, efficiently storing and updating property data in a relational database. A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for fast mapping from a document management system to a relational database. A database is provided having a plurality of tables relating to a plurality property groups. Each property group in the database has a set of properties associated therewith. In the database, property groups having at least one common property with one another are grouped into a common table while property groups having no common properties are grouped into separate tables in the database. When a document having one or more properties is provided, a determination is made as to which of the property groups in the database apply to the document. The properties of the document are then mapped to those tables in the database which include a property group that has been determined to apply to the document.