Method and apparatus for data management using an event transition network

A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium for managing data, the computer program comprising:

• a code segment for storing one or more data records in a database, each data record having one or more elements;
• a code segment for creating a management plan having two or more states, each state having one or more rules, each rule defining one of the states in the management plan as a next state and a logical condition based on a trigger element and a trigger value;
• a code segment for selecting one or more data records from the database and assigning each of the selected data records to one of the states in the management plan;
• a code segment for updating the values of the one or more elements of each data record with new data;
• and
• a code segment for moving each selected data record to the next state in the management plan whenever the logical condition of one of the rules for the state assigned to the selected data record is satisfied based on the trigger value and the updated value of the trigger element.