A process is provided for documenting the contents of at least one version of a plurality of data products stored in a database, at least one of the products being a composite product having at least a portion of at least one of the data products included therein. The process includes the steps of: creating a state file to be associated with a version of a composite product to be created, the state file specifying a selected version of at least one selected data product to be used in creating the composite product; using the state file to access the selected version of the selected product from the database; creating the version of the composite product by including therein at least a portion of the selected version of the selected product; and generating a state history file associated with the version of the composite product, the state history file indicating that at least a portion of the selected version of the selected product is included within the version of the composite product. The documenting process also includes the steps of: assigning a product name to the composite product; storing the version of the composite product in the database; and storing the state history file in the database. The documenting further includes a step of assigning a version value to the version of the composite product.