text: a particular embodiment of the invention is described with respect to a software product , peoplesoft ™ hrms and related software , that is manufactured and distributed by oracle international corporation of redwood city , calif . (“ oracle ”). it should be apparent that this is merely for ease of illustration . embodiments and elements of the invention may be used with any other suitable software . details of the oracle product may be found in references such as the peoplesoft line of user &# 39 ; s guides referred to as “ peoplebooks ™” that include more specific documentation such as “ peoplesoft enterprise receivables peoplebook ™,” all made available by oracle , and which are hereby incorporated by reference as if set forth in full in this document for all purposes . fig1 illustrates a portion of a screen display 100 in a user interface for an example software application . in fig1 , the user interface is provided with a left - side navigation sidebar that includes areas 102 , 110 and 130 . the right side of the screen is the main display area for showing information about the category or item selected via the navigation sidebar . the placement and details of many of the display mechanisms discussed herein may be changed without departing from the scope of the invention . for example , the navigation sidebar may be placed on the right side , top or bottom of the display . it can reside on a different page or in a different part of the display , or take a different form other than a narrow strip or bar . in general , many changes can be made to the specific type of display format , as desired , and still remain within the scope of the claims unless otherwise noted . the navigation sidebar includes expanding menu folders at 102 . each folder can include sub - folders . the sub - folders can be displayed by clicking on an expansion icon to the left of each folder name . for example , in fig1 , the folder “ accounts receivable ” has been expanded to show multiple sub - folders associated with the category “ accounts receivable ”. the sub - folder “ customer accounts ” 104 within “ accounts receivable ” has also been expanded . the folder “ item information ” 106 is , in turn , within “ customer accounts ” and has also been expanded to show hyperlinks at 110 . hyperlink “ item list start ” 108 has been selected by the user and is shown highlighted within the navigation sidebar . thus , the preliminary navigation performed so far by using the expandable folders menu has determined the category within which the user desires to view a page of information as accounts receivable → customer accounts → item information . main area 120 of the display shows a panel that is used to obtain item information pages . search tools are provided at 122 . in a particular prior art approach the user would be required to identify a particular record or records by using the search tools . such a search tool is shown , for example , in fig5 . as described below , a particular embodiment of the invention allows the user to choose a particular page of information within the selected category by using an h - grid . form area 124 of the display shows a blank “ form ” that indicates the various fields of the item information type of record , or page . the fields are blank since although the category has been chosen the particular pages of interest have not been determined yet . h - grid area 130 shows a portion of the h - grid for the selected category . in a particular embodiment , the h - grid is not displayed until the user has completed navigation to a category by using the expanding menu folders shown at 102 and 110 . this approach allows all of the navigation space ( i . e ., the left - hand sidebar ) to be used for display of folder names . once a category is selected then the h - grid appears and about half of the sidebar is used for h - grid display . the size of the navigation area can be modified horizontally or vertically by using window size controls as is known in the art . fig2 shows form area 124 populated with data in response to a user selection of customer name 132 in the h - grid . in this example , the customer name is “ new world outdoor equipment , inc .” as shown in h - grid area 130 , the h - grid includes summarization lines allowing groupings of individual lines into subtotal and total lines . these summarization lines are preceeded by a “+/−”, i . e . “ collapse ” icon , allowing the user to display or hide the detail lines of data that make up the summary information from the summarization lines . information on the summarization lines is displayed in bold font , and information on detail lines is displayed in regular font and indented to make it easier for the user to distinguish summary and detail information . thus , customer name entries in the h - grid each include a heading in bold with an associated collapse icon . when expanded , hyperlinks or other text or information associated with the expanded customer name appear below the customer name . the customer names are shown in a hierarchy where names that are considered part of , or subsidiary to , a parent name are shown below the parent name and indented . other ways to show a hierarchical relationship among the h - grid names ( or other h - grid items , not shown ) are possible . for example , text size , font , color or other characteristics can be used ( italics , bold , animation , etc .). depending upon a display device &# 39 ; s capabilities a hierarchy may be shown in three or more dimensions . other variations are possible . in fig2 , form area 124 is now populated with data that is relevant for the selected customer name 132 . thus , values at 126 and 128 show information such as the number of debit / credit entries and type of currency associated with the customer name . the form that is populated is the form used by “ item list start ,” which was the selected item in the expandable menu of fig1 . in a particular embodiment , when an action or item in the expandable menu is selected then a task starts to obtain the data entries for all customers that are relevant to populate the current form . this can improve the performance of the system while waiting for the user to select the actual customer name in the h - grid . one common type of action illustrated in the present example is to display customer information in a particular style or format . once the h - grid is loaded with data , the user will be able to navigate directly to the desired page by clicking on the hyperlinks of the detail lines inside the h - grid area . in a particular embodiment , the navigation is initiated from peoplecode ™ that is attached to a record used in the h - grid . for example , an h - grid can be populated with customer balance and past due balance information . the h - grid represents data from the corporate customer tree , i . e . balances and past due balances are accumulated at individual customer levels , and summarized on corporate parent levels , based upon corporate parent / child relationships established in the customer master table . once the data is loaded into the h - grid , the user can directly navigate to the item activity page for the customer that is referred to in a detail line of the h - grid . since the search keys are already available in the h - grid , these keys can be passed on within the navigation command , the search page can be bypassed , and the transaction detail or inquiry page can be called directly from the h - grid . there can be many ways to populate an h - grid with data for navigational purposes . in the present example , the h - grid was populated with customer data . however , an entirely different h - grid could be populated with menu and folder information similar to the folders and content reference information in the menu area . the h - grid can provide an alternative way of navigating through enterprise application components . navigation through the h - grid can bypass search pages , and directly link into resulting detail pages ( assuming that search keys have been populated in the h - grid ). by selecting different rows in the h - grid , all data related to the different keys stored in the different rows of the h - grid can be displayed immediately on the page . in addition to functioning as a navigational element , the h - grid also provides visibility into data structures . for example , while being able to navigate to the item detail page by clicking on an h - grid row , the customer hierarchy is also visible in the h - grid area . data like search keys can be populated in the h - grid , before it can be used to navigate through application components . this can be done programmatically , after navigating to a page using the standard menu area , or during user login if no menu is available . the h - grid can be populated with search keys at any point for a particular user . if the user only works on customer related data then the entire main menu ( i . e . area 102 ) could be replaced with the h - grid . alternatively , the user could see the customer h - grid as soon as they click on a customer related folder like “ customer accounts ” under “ account receivable ” in the main menu . in this approach , the user doesn &# 39 ; t have to navigate to a specific page using the main menu in order to see the h - grid . it could be displayed programmatically when the user enters a section of the menu structure that is specific to the data displayed in the h - grid which , in the present example , is customer . fig3 shows the display after the user has selected the “ account overview ” link 134 in fig2 . in fig3 , the customer name selected in the h - grid is now used to generate the account overview pages . once a customer name is selected in the h - grid , the user can navigate to any of the links or other options shown in the main area and the values corresponding to the selected customer name are presented . fig4 shows the display after the user clicks on item id link 142 of fig3 . in a particular embodiment , if the user goes back to the expandable folders menu and selects a different action then the previously selected customer name is maintained as the current customer name and any relevant forms or displays are populated with information related to the current customer . being able to immediately navigate to item inquiry information from summarized customer balance information can allow users to make better and faster decisions while operating the software , especially when dealing with corporate customers . for example , the overdue balance amount at the corporate parent could be taken into account before making decisions about credit holds or collection calls for individual customers . as a result , organizations using embodiments of the invention could achieve improved cash flow , lower performance metrics such as “ day sales outstanding ” ( dso ), realize improved relationships with their largest customers , or benefit from other improved efficiencies . although the description has been described with respect to particular embodiments thereof , these particular embodiments are merely illustrative , and not restrictive . for example , although the format of presenting data has primarily been described using forms , web pages , hyperlinks and the like , many other ways of arranging the data for presentation can be acceptable for use with embodiments of the invention . for example , any format of the data ( e . g ., tables , spreadsheets , word processing documents , custom formatting or any other type of display for a record or entry ) can be used . hyperlinks can be used to detect user inputs and to perform an action based on a user selection . user selection can be handled by software executing at the user &# 39 ; s computer or otherwise executing on one or more processes and / or processors either local to or remote from a user &# 39 ; s machine or interface . any suitable programming language can be used to implement the routines of particular embodiments including c , c ++, java , assembly language , etc . different programming techniques can be employed such as procedural or object oriented . although the steps , operations , or computations may be presented in a specific order , this order may be changed in different particular embodiments . in some particular embodiments , multiple steps shown as sequential in this specification can be performed at the same time . particular embodiments may be implemented in a computer - readable storage medium for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system , apparatus , system , or device . particular embodiments can be implemented in the form of control logic in software or hardware or a combination of both . the control logic , when executed by one or more processors , may be operable to perform that which is described in particular embodiments . particular embodiments may be implemented by using a programmed general purpose digital computer , by using application specific integrated circuits , programmable logic devices , field programmable gate arrays , optical , chemical , biological , quantum or nanoengineered systems , components and mechanisms may be used . in general , the functions of particular embodiments can be achieved by any means as is known in the art . distributed , networked systems , components , and / or circuits can be used . communication , or transfer , of data may be wired , wireless , or by any other means . it will also be appreciated that one or more of the elements depicted in the drawings / figures can also be implemented in a more separated or integrated manner , or even removed or rendered as inoperable in certain cases , as is useful in accordance with a particular application . it is also within the spirit and scope to implement a program or code that can be stored in a machine - readable medium to permit a computer to perform any of the methods described above . as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow , “ a ”, “ an ”, and “ the ” includes plural references unless the context clearly dictates otherwise . also , as used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow , the meaning of “ in ” includes “ in ” and “ on ” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise . thus , while particular embodiments have been described herein , latitudes of modification , various changes , and substitutions are intended in the foregoing disclosures , and it will be appreciated that in some instances some features of particular embodiments will be employed without a corresponding use of other features without departing from the scope and spirit as set forth . therefore , many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the essential scope and spirit .