Methods and systems to manage data objects in a cloud computing environment

A method of managing data objects in a cloud computing environment comprising the steps of:

• a. processing, by a computing system, a first managed data object in a plurality of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, wherein:
• i. the first managed data object is associated with one or more managed entities, and each managed entity has an entity identification;
• ii. at least two of the plurality of SaaS applications are heterogeneous;
• iii. the first managed data object or managed entities are each independently associated with one or more permissions, wherein the permissions are associated with one or more rules defined for either or both of:
• 1. the first managed data object or the identified managed entity;
• and
• 2. one or more processing events performable on the first managed data object by one or more actors, and
• iv. at least some of the processing of the first managed data object comprises one or more of accessing, creating, viewing, merging, altering, sharing, sending, copying, printing, deleting, or modifying of the first managed data object;
• b. determining, by the computing system, whether the first managed data object is, independently, associated with a persistent identifier (PID) and, if the first managed data object is not associated with a PID, generating a PID for the first non-PID-associated managed data object, thereby generating a first PID-associated managed data object;
• wherein the first PID-associated managed data object is processed in at least one of the SaaS applications, and wherein at least some of the processing comprises one or more of accessing, creating, viewing, merging, altering, sharing, sending, copying, printing, deleting, or modifying of the first PID-associated managed data object;
• c. receiving, by the computing system, information about the one or more processing events for the first PID-associated managed data object;
• and
• d. determining, by the computing system, whether the first PID-associated managed data object has been modified during the processing in at least one of the SaaS applications to generate one or more additional versions of the first PID-associated managed data object and, if more than one object versions is present, processing each of the additional versions of the first PID-associated managed data object to generate an integrated first PID-associated managed data object.